The Romanian Senate has convened in
\nan extraordinary session to pass amendments to the Election Code, unanimously
\nconsidered an emergency issue following the row caused by the huge queues at
\npolling stations abroad, where many Romanians had to wait for hours to be able
\nto cast their ballot in the latest European Parliament elections. <\/p>\n
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In fact, the elections in May this
\nyear were considered a reiteration of the organizational fiasco of the 2014
\npresidential voting abroad, when a significant number of Romanians from the
\nDiaspora, was even unable to vote, a situation, which sparked off protests in
\nfront of the polling stations. <\/p>\n
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The Social Democrats (PSD), number
\none in the coalition government, have attracted a lot of criticism for their
\nfailure to stage civilized elections. Under the pressure exerted by the public
\nopinion, the presidency and the opposition, a draft on amending the election
\ncode, designed to eliminate dysfunctions that might appear during the election
\nprocess, has been debated upon and approved by the Senate. <\/p>\n
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Amendments include an extended
\nelection period for the Romanians abroad as well as the introduction of postal
\nvoting at the presidential elections in autumn. Senator Calin Popescu
\nTariceanu, leader of ALDE, the second political force in the government
\ncoalition, has shared with us the main amendments regulating the election
\nprocess abroad. <\/p>\n
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Calin Popescu Tariceanu: We
\nare going to have a prolonged early voting session on three days: Friday,
\nSaturday and Sunday. Polling stations are going to remain open on Sunday until
\n24 hours and we are also going to have the postal voting, which wasn’t
\navailable in the presidential election, but only in the Parliament elections.<\/p>\n
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According to opposition Liberal
\nsenator Laura Scantei, the aforementioned amendments are going to prevent
\ndysfunctions in the future elections involving the Romanians abroad.<\/p>\n
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Laura Scantei: This draft on
\namending several election laws is focusing on concrete measures, aimed not only
\nat ensuring people’s fundamental right to vote, but also at preventing
\nadministrative hindrances to exercising this right. It is very important that
\nall Romanian citizens in the Diaspora have been given voting alternatives,
\nstarting with the three-days early voting and the postal voting. <\/p>\n
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On the other hand, the Liberals
\nhave called on the executive to mount an information campaign for the Romanians
\nabroad, briefing them on the latest amendments to the Election Code. The
\nDemocratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) refused to endorse the
\namendments as they consider unfair for the voting to continue after 21 hours on
\nSunday as the Romanians abroad have been given three days to vote. The
\nlegislative amendments endorsed by the Senate have been submitted to the
\ndecision-making Chamber of Deputies for the final decision. <\/p>\n
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(translated by bill) <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amended election legislation aimed at hopefully eliminating the issues that hindered the election process in the Diaspora, got passed by the Senate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":48094,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[30175,32209,32074,29035,29475],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-82427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-election","tag-liberals","tag-tariceanu","tag-udmr","tag-voting"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n