Share
In connection with the statements of the co-chair of PP "We Continue the Change" Assen Vassilev in the TV show "In Focus with Laura Krumova" at Nova TV about the role of Information Services in the electoral process, we categorically state the following:
Information Services has never been involved in "election organization", as Mr Vassilev claims.
Information Services never "ran the machines" for the elections, as he claims again in the interview.
Elections are not organized by one person, and even less by the CEO of Information Services, no matter who he is.
And as there are obviously at least 2 months of political speculation ahead of the elections, as a professional and nationally responsible company Information Services would like to remind all concerned again of some basic facts about the electoral process, because after all "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but no one is entitled to their own facts":
Information Services was not and is not involved in the technical support activities of the machine voting with the specialized electronic voting machines (SEVMs), including the configuration, installation and modification of the software.
The company has never operated or stored the machines, and has never been involved in the logistical support and maintenance of the machines, including on-site at the polling stations.
Since the introduction of machine voting in Bulgaria in 2014 until now, the supplier of the voting machines that provides their technical maintenance, the development and maintenance of the machine voting software, the logistics of delivery to the polling stations, including outside Bulgaria, is the company Ciela Norma JSC, which is the sole partner of the manufacturer "Smartmatic". This is evident from the profile of the Central Election Commission in the information system Electronic Public Procurement Portal (https://app.eop.bg/buyer/28596) of the Public Procurement Agency (directly subordinated to the Minister of Finance) - for all elections the Central Election Commission announces a negotiation procedure without prior approval for the award of the contract for the technical support of the machine voting with SEVMs directly to Ciela Norma JSC.
In the July 2021 (parliamentary) and November 2021 (parliamentary, presidential and vice-presidential) elections cited by Mr Vassilev, the Central Election Commission announced again a negotiation procedure without prior approval for the award of a public contract to Ciela Norma JSC (https://app.eop.bg/today/142287 and https://app.eop.bg/today/162014).
According to the Electoral Code, Information Services is only the contractor of the organization and technology of the computer processing of the voting data in the Regional election commissions and the Central Election Commission. The role of the company in the elections is detailed in article 57 (1) item 33 (amended – The Gazette No 88 of 2020), according to which the Central Election Commission "shall determine the requirements for the organization and technology of computer processing of voting data and for the issuance of a bulletin with the results of the elections, including machine voting, no later than 55 days before Election Day and shall assign the implementation to Information Services JSC.”
In conclusion, we would like to remind that Information Services has been involved in the computer processing of all the nearly 90 parliamentary, local, presidential elections and national referendums and since 2003 there has not been a single fact or signal of unprofessional work.
Our work is transparent and any error would be easily identifiable and visible - all interested organizations and individuals have the opportunity to check the election results entered by our operators during the computer processing against the data from the polling stations’ election protocols uploaded, scanned and digitized on the official website of the Central Election Commission.
The computer processing of the election results has always been accepted without reservations or objections by the various boards of the Central Election Commission as well as by all other participants in the electoral process. The Central Election Commission is also a body whose members are representatives of different political parties.