The Sofia City Prosecutor's Office is expected to finish counting the illegally printed ballots discovered at a printing house in Kostinbrod hours ahead of the May 12 early elections.

However, experts are expected to take months to establish the share of "technical spoilage" and the share of ballots prepared to manipulate the May 12 vote, according to reports of the Bulgarian National Television (BNT).

The prosecuting authority has launched two investigations into the matter, one involving abuses accompanying the election process and the other one concerning malfeasance in office by the administration of the government.

Over 30 people from the administration of the Council of Ministers and the Kostinbrod-based printing house have already testified.

Late on May 10, a team of prosecutors and officers of Bulgaria's State Agency for National Security (DANS) stormed into a printing facility in the western town of Kostinbrod and seized a total of 350 000 ballots.

It was reported that the Multiprint company had been awarded a public procurement contract worth around BGN 800 000 to print and deliver a total of 7.8 million ballots for the May 12 early elections.

The firm had been under an obligation to print and deliver the ballots to the district administrations by May 8.

The owner of the printing house, a municipal councilor in Kostinbrod from former-ruling center-right party GERB, claimed that the extra ballots had been technical spoilage.

Bulgarians went to the polls on May 12 to elect a new Parliament after the center-right government of former GERB Prime Minister Boyko Borisov resigned on February 20 amid nationwide anti-poverty and corruption protests.

The election campaign was accompanied by serious scandal involving alleged unauthorized deployment of special surveillance equipment during Tsvetan Tsvetanov's term in office as Interior Minister.