Today is election day in Bulgaria, with voting for 17 Bulgarian members of the 720-seat European Parliament and for 240 members of the future 50^th National Assembly of Bulgaria. 32 political formations are taking part in the election race – 20 parties, one independent candidate and 11 coalitions. Votes can be cast by paper ballot or by machine voting (in polling stations where there are more than 300 voters). To tell the paper ballots apart, the ballots for European Parliament will be in blue ink, and the ballots for National Assembly – in green ink.  

6,138,050 Bulgarian voters are entitled to vote in the election for European Parliament, and 6,593,275 - for National Assembly of Bulgaria. The difference in numbers is due to the residency requirement. By a decision of the Central Election Commission, the voters who are only entitled to vote for Bulgarian National Assembly will only be able to vote by paper ballot. 

For the vote to be valid, voters must mark the number of the party, coalition or independent candidate of their choice on the left side of the ballot, and only then, if they wish to, they can mark a preference for a given candidate on the right-hand side of the ballot. To mark a given preference, the voters must know the number of the candidate on the electoral list. The full electoral lists with the number of each candidate will be on display in front of every polling station.

Bulgarians abroad will not have the option of preferential voting and will only be able to vote for parties and coalitions.  

Around 12,900 polling stations have been set up inside the country for the upcoming elections, and 769 – abroad. The highest number of polling stations outside Bulgaria are in Turkey - 166, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland – 118, Germany – 103, Spain – 64, and the US – 55.

Translated and posted by Milena Daynova

Photos: Pixabay, Ani Petrova