Final Update (23 Apr 2025) 

Velichie successfully contested the election results.  

After decisions by the Constitutional Court (from 13 Mar 2024 on Case 33/2024) and the Central Election Commission (from 13 Mar 2025) 

Velichie (GREATNESS) entered the 51-st Bulgarian Parliament with 

10 representatives sworn in on 19 Mar 2025.

Bulgarian News Agency release: 

https://www.bta.bg/en/news/bulgaria/854480-velichie-mps-sworn-in 

Original Artical Below:

Political Party Velichie (Величие) 

left out of the Bulgarian parliament with only 21* votes short.

Suspicions are rife.

* Update (01 Nov 2024):  

After the date of this publication, the shortage has decreased from 29 to 21 votes due to change in the official vote count. Velichie (Величие) now has 97,438 votes, not 97,430 as initially announced. All else remains the same. 

Text has been updated. Graphs and calculations on file have not.

Problem

There are reasonable doubts regarding the fairness and results of the entire election process in Bulgaria for a new parliament of 240 deputies which took place on Sunday, 27 October 2024 between 07:00-20:00h local time.

Along with rumours and hundreds of signals regarding 'purchased votes', 'controlled votes' and 'corporate votes', various forms of 'repressions' and 'fear-based votes', there are now suspicions also about 'counting violations' and 'results manipulations' for the purpose of keeping one of the smaller political parties, Velichie (Величие), under the 4%-barrier and out of the 51st Bulgarian parliament. 

The Central Election Commission has announced official results for Velichie (Величие) as 3.999% which is just short of the needed 4%. (link)

In fact, the party is short by only 21 votes. It has 97,438 votes while the barrier is 97,459 votes.

Valid votes total: 2,436,475

Barrier 4% of total: 97,459

Velichie's votes: 97,438 (21 votes short)

Manipulation could have been done in multiple ways: 

• inflating total valid votes to artificially raise the entry barrier while ensuring that 'new' votes go to other parties

• destroying votes for the targeted party to decrease their rightful total

• wrongly counting votes for the target party in favour of other parties

• other (there are many ways to manipulate a small margin of a few hundred votes)

Election Process

Voting stations closed inside the country at 20:00h local time on 27 October 2024. First exit polls were announced immediately with different predictions -- varying from a 9-party parliament to a 7-party constitution. Two smaller parties were under question for passing the 4% barrier. One of them was Velichie (Величие).

After the end of voting, station election commissions count the votes and report the data with protocols to regional election commissions. The regional report to the Central Election Commission where all data is aggregated and official results announced.

There have been regular updates on processed protocols and counted votes throughout the night after the election and into the next day. Typical updates are done every hour or every couple of hours as more protocols come in and get processed.

Strange observations from the last hours of counting and reporting votes:

09:00h Monday, 28 October (13 hours after end of voting): Results update for 98.30% of section protocols processed:

• At this stage all protocols from abroad (Bulgarians voting in foreign countries) are processed 100% - Velichie (Величие) is popular with Bulgarians living outside the country and all those votes are already counted.

• There are still unprocessed protocols from local stations inside the country in the following regions:

  • Kardzhali (processed 93.16% - tens of sections not yet processed)

  • Targovishte (processed 95.86% - 11 sections not yet processed)

  • Montana (processed 81.76% - tens of sections not yet processed)

  • Vratsa (processed 93.90% - several sections not yet processed)

  • Varna (processed 99.69% - only 2 sections not processed)

  • Pleven (processed 99.75% - only 1 section not processed)

• Results for Velichie (Величие) at this stage are reported as 96,640 votes. 

• The total valid votes are 2,394,843. 

• Velichie (Величие) is at 4.04%. 

• The barrier to entry is at 95,794. 

• At this stage, it would take an additional valid 21,170 votes, none of them for Velichie, to leave the party out of the parliament. 

• Possible scenarios at update stage 98.30%: 

  • If any number less than 21,170 is added to the total valid votes -- Velichie (Величие) is guaranteed to enter parliament. It does not matter for whom the votes are and if Velichie (Величие) gets any of them or none.

  • If exactly 21,170 votes are added to the total valid votes and Velichie (Величие) wins only 1 of them -- Velichie (Величие) enters parliament. 

  • For more than 21,170 votes, calculations need to be done. For example -- if additional 30,000 votes are added, Velichie (Величие) would need to win only 354 of them to enter parliament (1.18%). For 40,000 additional total valid votes, Velichie (Величие) would need only 754 votes (1.89%). And so on...

  • Since up to this stage Velichie (Величие) has won 4.04%, if it is expected to keep winning at the same rate of around 4% for all remaining uncounted valid votes, it would take more than 6,000,000 (six million votes) to push Velichie (Величие) out of parliament -- at 6,000,000 additional votes exactly, it would take for Velichie (Величие) to win 239,154 votes (3.99%) to still enter parliament. 

  • So, at the rate of winning around 4% of all valid counted votes, it is practically impossible to kick Velichie (Величие) out of parliament. Only if their rate of winning suddenly drops sharply below 2% and only if the unprocessed votes are more than at least 21,170, it becomes possible to kick them out. Any statistician would consider this highly unlikely. Thus, at this stage Velichie (Величие) is expected to enter parliament. Nonetheless, there remain speculations in news reports that they may remain just under the line with 3.99% of the total tally. 

  • Nobody knows how many 'valid' votes remain yet be counted, nor how they are distributed. The percentage of the processed protocols is not the same thing as the percentage of the processed total votes. Everything depends on specific stations, registered voters, turnout, etc.

11:00h Monday, 28 October: Results update for 99.71% of section protocols processed.

• Suspicious delay starts at this point -- the next update would come after six hours at 17:00h.

• 37 sections left to report or be processed as follows: 

  • Targovishte (processed 95.86% - same 11 sections not yet processed)

  • Montana (processed 92.57% - 22 sections still remaining)

  • Vratsa (processed 99.39% - 2 stations remaining)

  • Varna (processed 99.85% - only 1 section remaining)

  • Pleven (processed 99.75% - same 1 section remaining)

• Kardzhali is now fully processed for 100% of stations there.

• Valid votes added to the total: +34,247

• The updated total valid votes are 2,429,090.

• Additional votes for Velichie (Величие): +669 (1.95%)

• Results for Velichie (Величие) at this stage are reported as 97,309 votes. 

• Velichie (Величие) is at 4.01%. 

• The barrier to entry is at 97,164 (increase of +1370). 

• At this stage, it would take an additional valid 3,648 votes, none of them for Velichie (Величие) , to leave the party out of the parliament. 

• Possible scenarios at update stage 99.71%: 

  • If the total valid votes added from the remaining 37 sections is less than 3,648, Velichie (Величие) is guaranteed to enter parliament.

  • If exactly 3,648 votes are added to the total, Velichie (Величие) would need to win only 1 of them to enter parliament.

  • For more than 3,648 votes added, calculations need to be made:

    • For 5,000 additional votes added, Velichie (Величие) would need to win 55 (1.1%) to enter parliament.

    • For 10,000 additional voted added, Velichie (Величие) would need to win 255 (2.55%) to enter parliament.

17:00h Monday, 28 October: Final results update for 100 % of section protocols processed.

• There has been a suspicious 6-hour delay between 11:00h and 17:00h:

  • for processing only 37 local sections which closed for voting at 20:00h the previous evening 

  • i.e. 21 hours to process 'valid' 7,385 votes, an average of less than 200 votes per station

  • all other sections, including in big cities like the capital Sofia, and including from abroad where due to time difference stations may close later, have long finished reporting and all their votes have been fully counted by 10:00h on Monday, 28 October 2024.

• The 17:00h update is final and the official results of the elections.

• Valid votes added to the total: +7,385 (average 199.6 /station from the 37 stations)

• The final total valid votes are 2,436,475.

• Additional votes for Velichie (Величие): +121 (1.64%)

• Results for Velichie (Величие) at 100% are reported as 97,438 votes. 

• The final barrier to entry is 97,459 votes (increase of +295). 

• Velichie (Величие) is short only 21 votes to enter parliament.

• Velichie (Величие) is reported at 3.999% (actual 3.99881% which by any normal rounding to two decimals would become exactly 4.00%)

Velichie (Величие) is out of the parliament.

The 10 mandates that they would have won get distributed between the 8 parties which enter. 

Raw calculations with various hypothetic scenarios:

 Calculations (Bulgarian Language)

Calculations made with official numbers published by the Central Election Commission as of 17:00h on Mon, 28 Oct 2024. 

Any subsequent changes in vote counts have not been taken into account.

Calls remain from politicians and others for recounts and other formal procedures.