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Article 57
 

Powers of the Commission


(1) The Central Election Commission shall:


1. implement the activities and see to the application of this Code and the legal regulations thereto related;
2. implement methodological guidance and exercise control over the operation of the election commissions;
3. implement methodological guidance over the operation of the election commissions related to the implementation of this Code;
4. provide and fund the establishment of websites of the regional and Municipal election commissions;
5. appoint the regional and Municipal election commissions and the section election commissions abroad and confirm lists of reserve members; appoint also the section election commissions in the country in the cases, where the regional or Municipal election commission has not appointed them in due time;
6. dismiss members of regional and Municipal election commissions and of section election commissions abroad in the cases of violations of this Code and of the decisions of the Central Election Commission, as well as upon occurrence of any circumstance covered under Art. 51, Para. 2;
7. determine, using a methodology, the remunerations of the members of election commissions, of the specialists thereto
8. endorse a standard design of a seal of the election commissions and the method of protection thereof;
9. keep a public register of the voters; ensure to each voter an option to search the register by Uniform Civil Number (Personal Number);
10. register, make public and issue certificates to:


a) the political parties and the coalitions of political parties for participation in all types of elections;
b) the nomination committees for participation in elections of President and Vice President of the Republic and of Members of the European Parliament for the Republic of Bulgaria;


11. strike the registration of a political party which does not satisfy the requirements referred to in Art. 133, Para. 3, p. 5 and of coalition of political parties, which does not satisfy the requirements referred to in Art. 140, Para. 3, item 6;
12. register and make public the candidate lists of the political parties, the coalitions of political parties and the nomination committees upon elections of President and Vice President of the Republic and of Members of the European Parliament for the Republic of Bulgaria;
13. keep public registers of:


a) the political parties and coalitions of political parties in all types of elections;
b) the nomination committees in elections of President and Vice President of the Republic and of Members of the European Parliament for the Republic of Bulgaria;
c) the candidate lists for President and Vice President of the Republic and of Members of the European Parliament for the Republic of Bulgaria;


14. establish the terms and procedure for participation of observers not later than 50 days in advance of election day, register and issue certificates to the observers; keep a public register of the observers;
15. register until the election day the election agents of the candidate lists abroad and issue certificates thereto; keep a public register of the election agents by candidate lists;
16. determine the structure and the content of the uniform numbering of the polling stations;
17. determine the places where polling stations abroad will be established;
18. form and endorse the uniform numbers of the polling stations abroad;
19. endorse the standard technical design and the security features of the ballot papers, not later than 30 days in advance of election day; endorse a specimen of a book of ballot papers;
20. make public a list of the numbers and addresses of the polling stations in the election regions with the number of voters in them;
21. (amend. and suppl. - SG 39/16, in force from 26.05.2016) determine by lot the numbers assigned to the ballot papers of the political parties and coalitions of political parties in elections of Members of Parliament, the numbers assigned to the ballot papers of the political parties and coalitions
of political parties in elections of Members of the European Parliament for the Republic of Bulgaria, the sequence of entry of the candidate lists in the ballot paper in elections of President and Vice President of the Republic and the sequence numbers of the parties and coalitions in the ballots in the election of municipal councils and mayors and shall make them public not later than 31 days in advance of election day;
22. establish the terms and procedure for conduct of the pre-election campaign;
23. control the conduct of the pre-election campaign by the media service providers within a national range;
24. for the purposes of the control as referred to in p 23 and establishment of breaches by the media service providers, it shall require information from the Council for Electronic Media on the specialised monitoring performed, whose level and parameters shall be determined subject to an agreement between the Commission and the Council for Electronic Media signed into in prior to the opening of the election campaign, irrespectively of the territorial coverage of the channels; in the case where such monitoring refers to a media service provider, which has no national coverage, the Commission shall transmit the information from the said monitoring to the competent election commission;
25. determine the arrangements and procedure for conduct of sociological surveys on the election day not later than 20 days in advance of election day; keep a public register of the sociological agencies;
26. (amend. - SG 39/16, in force from 26.05.2016) examine all complaints and signals for breaches in the election process in conformity with its powers, including against actions of constituency election commissions, Municipal election commissions and section election commissions abroad, pronounce on any such complaints and signals within 24 hours after receipt thereof; and, on election day, it shall pronounce within one hour after receipt of any such complaint or signal and by the end of the election day with decision;
26a. (new - SG 39/16, in force from 26.05.2016) consider any appeals against decisions of the regional and municipal election commission and the section election commissions abroad; in the elections day it shall issue decisions within an hour from receiving the appeal or signal and before the end of the elections day;
27. (suppl. - SG 39/16, in force from 26.05.2016) determine the procedure for examining the complaints and signals from the election commissions and publish them on the website of the Commission;
27a. (new - SG 39/16, in force from 26.05.2016) finalise any pending administrative penal proceedings after the expiry of the mandate period of the regional election commission;
28. keep a public register of the complaints and signals filed with the Commission and of the decisions thereon;
29. determine the arrangements and procedure for machine voting;
30. (amend. –SG 98/14, in force from 28.11.2014) establish the procedure for a check for voting in breach of the rules of the Code including for check of the decisions under Art. 39 and certificates under Art. 40 and assign the conduct of such check to the Directorate General of Civil Registration and Administrative Services at the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works;
31. provide the results of the check referred to in p.30 to the persons concerned and, upon detection of voting in breach of the rules of the Code, apprise the prosecuting magistracy;
32. (amend. - SG 39/16, in force from 26.05.2016) Provide information; organise and conduct, through the mass communication media, an awareness campaign regarding citizens' rights and duties in the preparation and conduct of the elections and furthermore on machine voting; such awareness campaign shall start not later than 15 days prior to the lapse of the respective deadline, wherefrom rights and obligations for the citizens in relation to the elections;
33. determine the conditions and timeframe for commissioning, by contest of the computer processing of the voting data not later than 50 days in advance of election day;
34. commission the computer processing of the voting data and the publication of the election results in a bulletin, including the results from the machine voting;
35. (amend. –SG 98/14, in force from 28.11.2014) determine the form and the structure electronic type of the lists, as well as the procedure for check of the lists for participation of independent candidates and shall assign the fulfilment to Directorate General Civil Registration and Administrative Service at the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works;
36. (amend. – SG 98/14, in force from 28.11.2014) establish the procedure for a check of the lists of voters supporting the registration of the political parties and the coalitions of political parties, as well as the procedure for a check of the candidate lists, and commission the execution of the said checks
to the Directorate General of Civil Registration and Administrative Services at the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works;
37. determine the uniform numbering and the security features of Non-Resident Voting Certificates before each election;
38. communicate data on the number of voters who have cast their votes within the deadline as referred to in p. 39.
39. (amend. - SG 39/16, in force from 26.05.2016) declare the polls closed after completion of the voting within the territory of Bulgaria not later than 21,00 hours;
40. publish on its website the voting result from processing the protocols of the section election commissions in the regional or Municipal election commissions on election sections;
41. publish the voting results disaggregated by polling station, including the machine voting results, on the website thereof, and, upon request, make the said results available on technical media to political parties, coalitions of political parties and nomination committees;
42. publish the voting results disaggregated by polling station, including the machine voting results, in the bulletin referred to in p. 34, including a machine-readable data medium, not later than 40 days after the election day;
43. deposit in the National Archive Fund the copy with the tally sheets of the section, regional and Municipal election commissions;
44. endorse the specimens of the direction signs and panels, as well as the specimens of the distinguishing signs of election agents, the observers and the representatives of political parties, coalitions of political parties and nomination committees not later than 55 days in advance of election
day;
45. adopt a decision on the removal or seizure of canvassing materials placed or circulated in violation of this Code in an area spanning multiple regions or where affecting multiple regions;
46. determine the circumstances to be entered and the procedure for keeping and maintaining the public registers by the election commissions;
47. make an analysis of the elections conducted and file with the National Assembly a report which may contain proposals for streamlining the electoral legislation;
48. (new - SG 39/16, in force from 26.05.2016) adopts rules on the implementation of the code.
49. (new – SG 17/19) issue, together with the Commission for the protection of personal data, guidelines on the processing and safeguarding personal data throughout the election process.


(2) The decisions of the Central Election Commission shall be made public without delay by publishing them on the website of the Commission and in the Bulletin of the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency.
(3) The Central Election Commission exercises further powers as laid down in the Code.