The May 2016 amendments to the Electoral Code made voting compulsory. Compulsory voting is not common among member states of the Council of Europe. The consequences of not exercising the right and obligation to vote were regulated in the new Article 242a. If the right to vote was not exercised in two successive elections of the same type (parliamentary, presidential, European Parliament and municipal), the voter was automatically removed from the electoral roll for the next election. The Bulgarian Constitutional Court ruled on 23 February 2017 that Article 242a was unconstitutional. This will leave compulsory voting declarative without further applicable sanctions.