After more than five and a half hours of heated debate, Bulgaria’s parliament approved at first reading a proposal by the nationalist party Vazrazhdane to limit the number of polling stations in non-EU countries to 20.

The National Assembly debated two draft amendments to the Election Code—one submitted by Vazrazhdane and another by We Continue the Change–Democratic Bulgaria (PP–DB).

Under Vazrazhdane’s proposal, a maximum of 20 polling stations outside diplomatic and consular missions would be allowed in countries outside the European Union. The party argues that election rules for EU member states should not be identical to those for non-EU countries.

According to the bill’s sponsors, the changes would increase public trust in the electoral process, including voting abroad, improve the organisation and reporting of election results, and reduce state expenditure, particularly for elections held in Turkey.

Vazrazhdane leader Kostadin Kostadinov suggested that the elections are being delayed “due to undisclosed political arrangements.”

Meanwhile, PP–DB proposed restoring fully machine-based voting, including the reinstatement of a machine-generated election protocol. Under their proposal, voting machines would no longer function merely as printers, but would electronically record results, print protocols, and allow for 100% control counting of paper receipts.

According to PP–DB, this would ease the workload of election commissions, speed up result processing, reduce errors in protocols, and strengthen public confidence in the democratic process. The coalition argues that paper voting and manual protocol completion remain vulnerable to human error.

On Tuesday, the parliamentary Legal Affairs Committee approved Vazrazhdane’s bill and rejected the proposal submitted by PP–DB.