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More than 18,000 polling stations opened have opened in Romania on Sunday, December 6, at 07:00hrs, with more than 18 million voters expected to go to the polls to vote for their representatives in Parliament over the next four years.
Voting in the country takes place in a single day – Sunday, from 7:00 to 21:00, and on Saturday and Sunday in the polling stations abroad,with more than 700 polling stations being established.
The voting is declared closed at 21:00hrs and the polling station closes down. Voters who, at 21:00, are in the polling station, as well as those who are in a row outside this polling station can exercise their right to vote until 23:59 at the latest, receiving order receipt with the polling station’s control stamp.
Senators and deputies are elected by ballot, according to the principle of proportional representation, for a term of four years.
The missing ballots of the Romanians in Diaspora
Over 97,472 Romanians in the Diaspora have cast their vote on Saturday, with many others casting their vote by postal vote.
It is the first time in 30 years that Romanians living abroad can cast their vote within two days Saturday and Sunday.
Romanians from Diaspora will vote for those four deputies and two senators that will represent them in the future Parliament in Bucharest, a number which is though considered not sufficient compared to the large scale of the Romanian community living abroad.
Most of the polling stations are in Spain (140), Italy (137), Germany (61), UK (50), France (47), U.S. (36), Rep. of Moldova (30), Belgium (19), Austria (17), Ireland (16). The highest number of voters so far have been reported in Spain and Italy, where the largest communities of Romanians reside.
Romanians from Diaspora were also given the possibility to vote in advance by several weeks and send their ballot by mail in Romania.
However, more envelopes with votes of Romanian citizens in the Diaspora for the parliamentary elections would not have reached the electoral offices.
The Central Electoral Bureau (BEC) requested the Romanian Post – Posta Romana on Saturday for more information on the vote expressed by correspondence in the parliamentary election by Romanians in the Diaspora.
The president of the Electoral Standing Authority, Florin Mitulețu, told Digi24 that 14,000 envelopes containing the votes of the Romanians from Diaspora had not arrived in Romania and cannot be therefore registered.
Many Romanian citizens living abroad complained that, although they had mailed their vote to Romania in due time, they received notifications that their voted had not reached the Electoral Standing Authority by the closing date.
Faced with situations, those Romanians will have now to travel by car for several hours to the closest polling stations if they still want to cast their vote.
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