SOFIA (Bulgaria), November 9 (SeeNews) – Voter turnout in Bulgaria's national referendum on election rules was some 12,000 votes short of the minimum required for the results to be legally binding, according to preliminary results from the central election commission.
Final results are to be announced by the commission no later than November 11.
The referendum was held in parallel with the first round of the presidential elections on November 6.
With 100% of the ballots counted, the turnout stands at just over 3.488 million. For the referendum results to be legally binding, turnout had to be higher than the turnout in the last parliamentary elections held in 2014, or just above 3.5 million votes were needed.
With turnout obviously above the minimum of 20% of all registered voters (6.83 million), parliament will be obliged to discuss the questions asked in the referendum.
Results showed a high level of support for the changes to election rules proposed in the referendum.
The introduction of a majority voting system with absolute majority in two rounds for parliamentary elections was supported by 71.94% of the voters in the referendum, while 16.06% said “no”.
The question on whether voting in elections and referenda in Bulgaria should be compulsory won the support of 61.89%, while 25.96% opposed it.
In the last question the voters were asked whether the state subsidy for political parties and coalitions should be cut to 1 lev ($0.57/0.510 euro) per valid vote. As many as 72.16% of the participants in the referendum voted in favour of cutting the subsidy, while 15.02% said “no”.
There is still a certain level of uncertainty about the final outcome based on the fact that nearly 13,800 ballots were not counted in the final turnout, as they had not been put into an envelope before being dropped in the ballot box, as required by law. Should the central election commission decide to count those votes as part of the total voter turnout, the results of the referendum will become legally binding.