Guidelines for postal voting
The foreign ministry made public the guidelines for postal voting for the presidential and parliamentary elections due this year.
Daniela Budu, 23.09.2024, 13:50
The Romanian foreign ministry posted on its home page the guidelines for postal voting in this year’s presidential and parliamentary elections.
Under the document, the deadline for Romanian living abroad to register as voters by mail is October 10 for the presidential ballot and October 17 for the general elections. The ministry reminds citizens that postal voting is an alternative to voting in polling stations, and is conducted via postal services.
According to the foreign ministry, all Romanian eligible voters living abroad may vote by mail if they have registered for this option in the Electoral Register (at www.votstrainatate.ro). Registration may be done via an online form on that website, the authorities explained. All the necessary information may also be found on the foreign ministry’s home page, under the sections “Elections for the President of Romania” and “Elections for the Senate and Chamber of Deputies,” respectively.
So far, around 4,300 applications have been received for postal voting in the presidential election, and some 4,000 for the parliamentary election.
As for voting in polling stations abroad, little over 6,000 voters have registered for each of the 2 rounds of the presidential election.
According to the president of the Permanent Electoral Authority, Toni Greblă, approx. 900 polling stations will be set up outside Romania, where around 5 million ballots will be printed. “The fact that a Romanian citizen with a temporary or permanent address abroad has not registered for voting in a particular polling station does not prevent them from voting anywhere they might be on election day,” he also explained.
Moreover, for the presidential ballot the Romanian nationals who are on holiday or transiting a foreign country may vote in any polling station.
The final list of polling stations abroad for the presidential election will be made public on the websites of Romanian embassies and of the foreign ministry on September 28.
The voting process abroad in the first round of the presidential ballot will be open for 3 days, between November 22nd and 24th, while in the second round polling stations outside the country will be open between December 6th and 8th.
As for the parliamentary election, Romanian nationals living abroad will be able to cast their ballots on November 30th and December 1st.
According to the Permanent Electoral Authority, the total number of eligible voters in the Electoral Register is close to 19 million, approx. 960,000 of whom have temporary or permanent residence outside the country. (AMP)
