News

7 April 2026

During her meeting with David Gongadze, the representative of the OSCE Election Observation Mission in Bulgaria, Ombudsman Velislava Delcheva highlighted the lack of adequate conditions for people with disabilities to exercise their voting rights.

She noted that the Institution monitored compliance with voting rights by reviewing citizens’ complaints, analysing election legislation, and operating a hotline on election day.

In her remarks, Delcheva stressed that a significant portion of people with disabilities continued to face difficulties in exercising their right to vote, as suitable conditions for their participation in the electoral process had not yet been created.

It was noted that the requirements of international instruments to ensure universal, equal, and secret voting through equivalent procedures guaranteeing freedom of the vote had not been fully met.

Among the specific issues that citizens have brought to the Ombudsman’s attention are: a lack of sign language interpretation for people with hearing impairments when difficulties arise with machine voting; a lack of adapted solutions to assist people with hearing impairments in exercising their right to vote; lack of official information about the electoral process in accessible formats, including Braille and audio; inability to fully guarantee the secrecy of the vote for blind citizens due to a lack of adaptation of the software on voting devices.

The Ombudsman noted that despite the Central Election Commission’s guidelines for the organisation of the electoral process for vulnerable groups, these were not being fully implemented, with regional governors citing tight deadlines and financial constraints.

In this regard, the Ombudsman reported that she had sent letters to the interim Prime Minister and the Central Election Commission, informing them of the problems identified.

Furthermore, to facilitate dialogue between institutions and vulnerable groups, she organised a national discussion forum to explore technological solutions for improving the conditions for exercising voting rights, to be implemented no later than the upcoming presidential election.