The Bulgarian National Assembly held a hearing with the leadership of the Central Election Commission (CEC) and Ivaylo Filipov, the executive director of the state-owned company "Information Services" (IS), regarding the contested election results. The discussion centered on missing votes and the institutional deadlock that has delayed the finalization of results.

Ivaylo Filipov informed parliament that a total of 780 votes had disappeared across all political parties, including 739 for those already represented in the National Assembly. Among them, the "Greatness" party had 32 missing votes. Given that the party had been short 21 votes from securing parliamentary representation, this discrepancy could be significant. However, it remains uncertain whether the recalculated voter turnout would still leave them short of the threshold.

CEC Chairperson Kamelia Neykova provided a timeline of the events. On February 26, the CEC received a ruling from the Constitutional Court requiring a full recount of votes from both paper and machine ballots. The commission assigned IS to re-enter the data and verify whether the changes affected the distribution of parliamentary mandates. On March 6, IS reported technical discrepancies in seven polling stations, with some sections showing zero recorded votes for all parties. IS also identified sections where either machine or paper votes had been omitted entirely.

Meanwhile, the Sofia City Prosecutor’s Office (SCP) requested documentation related to the case, leading IS to hand over all election-related materials without explicit permission from the Constitutional Court. Constitutional Court Chairperson Pavlina Panova later criticized the move, stating that it was unacceptable for the court’s work to be dependent on the actions or inactions of other institutions.

During the hearing, Neykova revealed that the CEC had proposed allowing local municipal authorities to search for missing ballots in the affected polling stations. However, the Constitutional Court rejected this request, stating that the evidence collection phase was already complete. This means that the missing votes will likely not be included in the final recalculation.

Filipov assured lawmakers that IS was working to complete the data re-entry process. Out of approximately 1,700 protocols, more than 600 had been processed so far. He expressed confidence that the work would be completed in the early hours of March 12, meeting the CEC-imposed deadline.

Filipov also highlighted the issue of the seven problematic polling stations, where vote discrepancies were identified. In two of them, all machine and paper votes had been recorded as zero. In another, paper votes had been entirely removed from the tally, while in four more, machine votes had been omitted. He emphasized that video surveillance footage clearly showed both types of ballots present in the transparent boxes. Following these findings, he personally submitted a report to the prosecutor’s office.

The missing votes include 242 for "DPS-New Beginning," 134 for GERB, 103 for "Revival," 92 for "We Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria" (WCC-DB), 55 for "BSP-United Left," 35 for "There Is Such a People" (TISP), 33 for "MECH," and 13 for "DPS-Dogan." Given these irregularities, the final results remain in question, with the Constitutional Court holding the decisive role in determining the official election outcome.

The Constitutional Court (CC) has declined to provide the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office (SCP) with the requested documents related to the ongoing election case.

In its official response, the court stated that since the constitutional case is still in progress, it is not obligated to submit the specified documents to the prosecutor's office.

CC Chairwoman Pavlina Panova emphasized that the Constitutional Court operates independently from the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. She cited legal provisions and procedural rules to justify the decision, reiterating that the court is not required to hand over the documents while the case remains unresolved.

Meanwhile, the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office previously announced that it had launched an investigation into missing ballots from the last parliamentary elections. The probe was initiated on March 7, 2025, following a report from "Information Services" JSC and has been assigned to the State Agency for National Security (SANS).