Home > 1.3.2.2 Voting procedures > BULGARIA- Joint Opinion on the Draft Election Code
 
 
 
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Paragraph 65
 

X. Voting process


A. Electronic voting


Articles 212-214 of the draft Code allow for “machine voting” by “using electronic communication means and data processing” should a voter so choose. Although this procedure of voting is, in principle, compatible with the Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters, this compatibility depends primarily on adequate provisions, through national legislation and practice, of the prescribed conditions, taking particular account of technical and social conditions.57 Although Article 213 provides a list of some general principles for this alternative form of voting there is no guarantee that these general principles will be implemented with specific rules that are fundamental to genuinely democratic elections held by secret ballot. In this respect, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe has highlighted in its Recommendation (2004)11 on legal, operational and technical standards for e-voting that “e-voting shall be as reliable and secure as democratic elections and referenda which do not involve the use of electronic means”.