Elections

Voting is now mandatory in Bulgaria

Bulgaria on Thursday introduced mandatory voting for its citizens, France's AFP agency is reporting.

According to this, the motive behind the decision is the Bulgarian government's hope to boost low election turnout "and battle rampant vote-buying in one of the European Union's most corrupt countries."

Bulgarian Parliament Approves Introduction of Compulsory Voting

The Bulgarian parliament approved on Thursday the introduction of compulsory voting after it adopted the first of the proposed set of amendments to the Electoral Code.

The introduction of compulsory voting had been approved by the parliamentary legal affairs committee earlier on Wednesday.

Bulgarian Parliamentary Committee Moves to Make Voting Compulsory

The Bulgarian legal affairs parliamentary committee adopted at third extraordinary sitting on Tuesday amendments to the Electoral Code which foresee the introduction of compulsory voting.

According to the proposed amendments, voting will become a duty of citizens, with those voting eligible to rewards, while those not casting their ballot will be subject to penalties.

Serbia: Around 6.7 million ballots go to press

BELGRADE - Ballots for the forthcoming parliamentary elections are being printed at the public enterprise Official Gazette so that around 6.7 eligible citizens could cast their vote on April 24.

Dejan Djordjevic, president of the national electoral commission, said that the commission determined how a ballot would look like on Friday.

Compulsory Voting Draft Clears Legal Affairs Commission in Bulgarian Parliament

The Legal Affairs Commission in Bulgaria's Parliament has approved a change to the Election Code that makes voting compulsory, public radio broadcaster BNR reported on Thursday.

MPs from  opposition Socialist Party and predominantly ethnic Turk Movement for Rights and Freedoms disagreed with the proposed change to the Election Code.

CeSID: Some 15,000 signatures have been falsified

CeSID Executive Director Bojan Klacar has said that around 15,000 signatures have been falsified "in the election campaign."

According to him, this indicates "an organized or a semi-organized system." The signatures in question are collected by parties to support their election list. Each electoral list must submit at least 10,000 statements, i.e., signatures, certified by law.

Freedom House: Bulgaria Retains Its Status as Semi-Consolidated Democracy

According to the latest "Nations in Transit" report of Freedom House issued on Tuesday, Bulgaria continues to be classified as a semi-consolidated democracy.

Bulgaria's overall democracy score is 3.25, registering a minor improvement from last year when it stood at 3.29 and returning to its level from 2014.

Rise in Blank Ballots Predicted in Serbian Election

A sharp rise in the number of blank ballots in the Serbian general election will throw a question mark over the political system's legitimacy, experts have said.

A recent poll by ProPositiv agency suggested that more than 5 per cent of the voters will deliberately spoil or annul their ballots in this way.

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