Romania, before the local and European elections
The local and European Parliament elections will take place simultaneously in Romania on Sunday, June 9. It is the first election round in 2024, a year when general and presidential elections will be held.
Sorin Iordan, 06.06.2024, 14:00
Almost 19 million Romanians with the right to vote are expected to go to the polls on Sunday, June 9, when the elections for the European Parliament take place, as well as the local elections for the appointment of mayors, of the presidents of County Councils and of the municipal and local councilors. For this double election, the Bucharest administration is organizing almost 19,000 polling stations in the country and 915 abroad. Approximately 370 million citizens from the 27 EU member states are expected to elect their representatives in the EP. The most voters are in Germany, over 65 million, followed by those in France, 50.7 million and Italy, 47.3 million. In this ranking, Romania is on 6th position.
According to the Statistical Office of the EU, Romania ranks 13th in terms of the number of people who could vote for the first time after reaching the required age, with over a million young people. The ballots for the local and European Parliament elections have already been sent to the polling stations in the country and abroad. 18 million were distributed in Romania, while 2.5 million abroad. The President of the Permanent Electoral Authority, Toni Greblă, explained that Romanians cannot vote in the country with a simple passport, but with an identity card or another equivalent document.
At the same time, he briefly explained the voting procedure: “At 7:00 a.m. all polling stations will be ready for the voting process. The Romanians abroad will receive only one ballot, for the European Parliament elections. In the country, voters will receive five ballots, if they vote in the locality where they reside, and they have the right to vote for the local and European Parliament elections. They will place each of the five ballots in the five specially designated and inscribed ballot boxes and then leave the polling station.”
Romanians who are not in the country on Sunday can vote in the European Parliament elections at any polling station abroad, the Foreign Ministry reported. The institution recommends that they should identify the nearest polling station on the mae.ro website and have a valid identity card. The distribution of the 915 polling stations organized abroad, a figure two times higher compared to the previous European Parliament elections, was directly proportional to the number of Romanian citizens in each country.
The most stations will be in Italy, 150, followed by Spain, 147, and Great Britain, 104. There are also places where polling stations have not been established, either because the Romanian military personnel were withdrawn, or because the diplomatic mission was closed or moved, as is the case in Afghanistan, Mali, Sudan, Libya, and also in Rostov-on-Don, in Russia, and Odessa, in Ukraine. The first country where the polling stations will be opened is New Zealand, on Saturday at 10 p.m. Romanian time, and the electoral process abroad will take place depending on the time zone for 34 hours. The last stations will close on Monday morning, when voting closes on the West Coast of the US and in Canada, in Vancouver. (LS)
