Queues and few machines slow down the election process in the UK

The limit of up to 20 polling stations outside the diplomatic and consular representations of Bulgaria is valid for England. In the United Kingdom, long queues formed in front of some stations in the first minutes, the newspaper of Bulgarians there BG BEN reported. From photos and information on Facebook, we learn that as early as 7:10 a.m. local time, dozens of voters had gathered in front of the station in Palmers Green in London.

Nevertheless, the election day in the seven stations in the Bulgarian embassy in London proceeds calmly and with very good organization. Voters fill out the necessary declarations that they have not voted elsewhere at specially designated tables, as coordinators outside the sections direct them to the one with the smallest number of people waiting, Maya Nikolova, a member of one of the section committees there, told Radio Bulgaria. She explained that only sections 1 and 2 have working voting machines, while in the others voting is done on paper. However, there are quite a few people who want to vote, and among them there are many young people, she told Radio Bulgaria.

With a queue of between 30 and 50 people, the election day in Reading takes place, where over 700 voters have voted so far. Waiting takes between 35 minutes to 1 hour. In the previous few election cycles, the voters in this section were around 460 for the entire election day.

"Unfortunately, in our section, voting is done only on paper, as we clearly have not covered the required number of voters for a machine. 286 are on the preliminary list and the required number is 300. However, what motivates people to vote is to see that Bulgaria can be a normal country again," Victoria Vlahovska says.