After a recount was triggered in Bulgaria, the Constitutional Court found several irregularities in polling sections and ruled that 16 deputies were elected illegally, raising questions of electoral fraud and corruption once again.
The Recount: Biggest losers were GERB and DPS-NN
Earlier this year, the Constitutional Court ordered a full recount of all votes from the elections in October 2024. This came after several parties came forward challenging the lawfulness of the election, particularly the party Velichie, which missed out on parliamentary representation by a couple dozen votes.
The mandated recount revealed major discrepancies:
- ● Experts reviewed 17% of the protocols, finding inconsistencies in nearly half.
- ● After the state-owned “Information Service” had processed data from 2,204 polling sections, they found missing votes from several polling stations [1]
- ● 55 people voted twice, abroad and at home.
- ● The Constitutional Court confirmed that there were forged votes for DPS-New Beginning (DPS-NN) [2]
However, the head of the Constitutional Court said that the case had been actively sabotaged by the Sofia Prosecution, who had acquired data from the Central Election Commission without the Court’s knowledge. This may be because the largest number of invalidated votes came from GERB and DPS-NN [3], and the prosecution in Bulgaria has a long history of protecting Borissov, GERB and DPS. For example, when they refused to prosecute Delyan Peevski and GERB's finance minister after being sanctioned by the Magnitsky Law, or when they argued there was not enough evidence after the “Barcelona-gate” scandal with Borissov.
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[3] BTV News
Additionally, the parliament approved a declaration attacking the Constitutional Court for a “lack of transparency”. The declaration was approved by all governing parties (GERB, BSP and ITN), as well as Oligarch Delyan Peevski’s party DPS-NN. Peevski later came out in support of the government, arguing that if they lose their majority due to the recount or if their majority slims as a result of Velichie crossing the 4% threshold, they will provide confidence and supply to keep “stability”. This further reinforces the belief that Peevski and Borissov are still working together.
Meanwhile, the liberal reformist opposition coalition, PPDB, argued that this was a disgraceful intervention against an independent institution. Further, the President, Rumen Radev, came out in support of returning to machine voting only as a solution to this electoral crisis. The findings of the Court also sparked protests across the country, with major anti-corruption organisations coming out in major cities in the country to demand greater transparency and the resignation of the Government and head of the Central Electoral Commission.
Anyway, the Constitutional Court reached a final ruling on the 13th March, stating that 16 deputies were illegally elected and that the Central Electoral Commission will have to make new calculations to see which MPs enter the National Assembly. Plus, it is expected that Velichie will end up entering parliament with 10 MPs, with the government’s majority slimming to a mere 1 deputy. We’ll have to see whether they can survive this and whether they will accept support from Peevski (at least such open support, rather than the regular behind-the-scenes support).
Irregularities:
I want to explore where I’ve noted some irregularities in the elections in October 2024, the effect of the return of paper ballots since 2023 and how the controlled and manipulated vote influenced Bulgarian electoral outcomes in the last several elections.
First, I will explore the exit poll data from Alpha Research in the elections in 2022, 2023 and the most recent ones in October 2024.
Age discrepancy:
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[4] Alpha Research exit poll data by age
The youth vote in Bulgaria, which has consistently since April 2021 supported Anti-corruption parties and shown particularly high support for PP and DB, suddenly shifted so radically that GERB won this group by 1pp. I think not.
Strong support from Roma communities for DPS-NN:
With the DPS split, it was expected Ahmed Dogan’s APS to take the Tukish vote, due to his high popularity among ethnic turks. However, which voters would Peevski’s DPS-NN take? Thus, many believed that APS would perform better than DPS-NN.
However, when the votes came in, DPS-NN came in fourth, ahead of APS by 4pp. Why was this the case?
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[4] Alpha Research exit poll data by ethnicity
Well, DPS-NN had strong support among Roma voters, raising concerns of vote buying in Roma settlements. Something DPS was frequently accused of during Peevski’s time as a member and then leader of the party.
A History of Irregularities and Corruption:
The influence of the bought and controlled vote
With turnout falling each election, the lower the turnout is, the more pronounced the bought and controlled vote is.
We can see this precisely with the result of DPS in elections for the national parliament and EU parliament since 2009. Here, we notice a strong negative correlation of -0.70, which suggests that the higher the turnout, the lower the DPS vote share.
To further explore this relationship, I created a linear regression model, which showcased that a 1pp increase in voter turnout would result in a 0.24pp lower result for DPS (or now APS and DPS-NN together). In the future, it will be interesting to see if this relationship holds mainly for DPS-NN.
As a consequence, this suggests that as fewer people vote, the vote buying in Roma communities and the buses of people being brought from Turkey to vote have a big influence on the outcomes of the election.
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[APS and DPS-NN are combined for the last election as DPS is now split]
But this is not only exclusive to DPS; the controlled vote is also a big factor in the large results for GERB. In many lower populated municipalities and small towns, GERB will control the local population's vote, particularly administrative workers and government workers (particularly those in local governments).
Most notably, this is seen in GERB’s large “preference votes” for candidates in each province’s party lists, most notably in elections where there were paper ballots and not only machine voting. We notice this particularly in Varna, with their candidate, Slavena Tocheva, who earned a large amount of preference votes in the smaller rural municipalities in the province.
 (8)/images/image1.png)
In the elections with machine voting, Tocheva received a much lower preference vote share, with a massive fall noticed between 2021 April and 2021 July. This is a suspiciously large fall for just 3 months, and even more suspicious when she rises to 10,155 within 2 years.
We do notice a bit of a spike in 2022, mainly due to Boyko Rashkov, who was committed to tackling vote-buying, no longer being minister of the interior and also the fall in popularity of the Petkov I government, which led to a small boost in GERB support.
With paper ballots, practices such as ballot stuffing and invalidating ballots are much easier. Hence, we notice a larger number of invalid ballots during elections with paper ballots and much higher preference votes for candidates from GERB, who can get insider workers in the central electoral commission to do their bidding.
For example, in the elections last year, a woman from the DPS-NN quota from the Central Electoral Commission was caught filling out paper ballots with the numbers 8 and 18, which correspond with GERB and DPS-NN, in a polling station in Belitsa. [5]
High-Risk Sections:
Additionally, in “High-Risk” polling sections across the country, which see high amounts of controlled and bought votes, GERB came close behind DPS, even winning more votes than DPS in these polling sections in April 2021.
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[6] Actualno.com graphic
These high-risk sections make up around 10% of all votes cast in Bulgaria, showcasing that they have a pretty significant effect on the final results of the election.
In the most recent elections in October 2024, an investigation by the Ministry of the Interior showed that DPS-NN (Peevski’s party) came out on top in the 827 high-risk sections, while GERB came close behind in second. [7]
Sources
[1]Election Recount in Bulgaria Sparks Protests: Government and CEC Resignations Demanded - Novinite.com - Sofia News Agency
[2]След развръзката на изборното дело: изборната комисия скоростно обяви новите депутати | Дневник
[3]След повторното броене: Фрагментиран парламент - кой печели и кой губи най-много гласове (ГРАФИКИ) - bTV Новините
[4]27 Октомври 2024: Демографски профил на гласувалите на изборите за Народно събрание - Алфа Рисърч
[5]Жената от видеото с дописаните бюлетини в Белица: Не пиша нищо, зрителна измама е - Webcafe.bg
[6]АКФ: ГЕРБ и ДПС получават най-голям процент от контролирания вот | Actualno.com
[7]МВР обяви победа над купения вот в рисковите секции. Победата обаче е за Пеевски и Борисов