State IT firm Information Services has shown in the National Assembly building how it will process data from the presidential and vice-presidential elections on 25 October 2026. The new feature is that results will be read straight from the flash drives in the voting machines, the company said.

At earlier elections, the data was only read, verified and published online. The "Izbori 360°" app was built jointly by the Central Election Commission (CEC) and the company. It has 26,000 installations. Alexander Stanev, who leads the computer processing project, said that with about 12,000 polling stations, this means most people have installed it and will use it to work faster.

CEC chair Georgi Horozov said the process is transparent and that the count has always been reliable and on time. The company has counted votes for more than 20 years.

Chief executive Ivaylo Filipov said the process follows the steps set out in the Electoral Code. With openness, transparency and traceability, he said, "we want to give voters confidence that their vote will be counted fairly and correctly".

Before the vote, the company prepares software to process data for the regional election commissions (RIKs) and the CEC. The equipment includes protection against attacks that block servers, plus communication servers, computers, printers and scanners. There are also electronic signatures, expert staff, training and instructions for the teams. Computing centres will work at the CEC and at each RIK.

Each centre is fully cut off from networks, and the machines work on their own. Processing runs without a break, to make it faster and free from outside interference. All RIK centres have camera scanners, which are expected to make digitising three times faster. On average, the work is done with 15% more equipment.

On election night, the RIK centres will read and verify data from the machines and enter data from the protocols of the polling station commissions (SIKs). Members of the regional commissions will fill in, print and sign the protocols. The centres scan the SIK and RIK protocols, sign them electronically and send interim data to the CEC centres.

The CEC centres are isolated in the same way and work under the commission's control, with company staff running them. The original documents are scanned and uploaded to the websites with a qualified electronic seal. Anyone can check the software and run the same calculations.

Once the data from the RIKs has come in through the municipalities, voter turnout is published. The original protocols are taken to the CEC to be entered a second time, and the final result is set by comparing the two entries.

Stanev said the technology rests on the "absolute impossibility of compromising or altering the data we process". He said this is achieved with technical steps and with administrative ones set out in the Electoral Code. Specialist security teams are involved, along with coordination with state bodies. Representatives of parties, coalitions and observers can review the source code.

Stanev said the processes are close to those used at the April parliamentary election. Changes to the Electoral Code alter the conditions for voting and for reading the results. Protection and equipment are being upgraded so the system works without crashes and gives the correct result quickly. At the last parliamentary election, more than 151,000 people took part in the election process.

RIK sessions are streamed online, and the system shows the CEC every day when a session was held and when it was not. According to the system, 99% of sessions were streamed.