In connection with the holding of the elections for municipal councillors and mayors, the Ministry of the Interior has the commitment to ensure public order, support of election materials and specialized devices for electronic machine voting, as well as security of the sections.
"On 26.10.2023, the Central Election Commission sent a letter to the Minister of Internal Affairs with attached schedules for transport to all Sectional Polling Stations, in which voting will take place with the machines. The schedules are by hours, in stages for the period from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. on 27.10.2023", the press office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs announced.
"On the same date (October 26, 2023), a second letter was received from the Central Election Commission to the director of the "Gendarmerie, Special Operations and Combating Terrorism" General Directorate, which reads:
"We give permission for the distribution of the machines on all loading ramps to start from 18.00 on 26.10.2023, as well as for the dispatching and acceptance of voting machines (Specialised Devices for Electronic Machine Voting - SDEMV) to be carried out simultaneously from all ramps of the logistics centre in the period from 27.10.2023 to 31.10. 2023.
On the basis of the above two letters, yesterday, 27.10.2023, the escorting of the means of transport with the voting machines to the Sectional Election Commissions (SECs) in the country began. In accordance with the schedule, a team of the Ministry of Internal Affairs accompanies the first truck with machines, which leaves the warehouse of "Cargo - partner" at 1:40 p.m.
Yesterday, 27.10.2023, the Ministry of Internal Affairs received a new letter from the CEC, which states:
"In connection with decision No. 2819-MI of 27.10.2023 of the Central Election Commission, we instruct you not to export any more SDEMVs from the warehouse of "Cargo-partner" EOOD, and that all exported machines that arrived in the regional centres should immediately return to the warehouse After the machines with the demo version installed are taken back to the warehouse, the import and export of voting machines should not be allowed".
We emphasize that the removal of the voting machines from the warehouse and their escort to the SECs is carried out in an identical manner for all elections held with the SDEMVs.
The commitment of the Ministry of the Interior in the transportation of election materials, including the SDEMVs, is related only and only to escorting," the Ministry of the Interior reports. / BGNES
