In the last few years Romanians
\nliving in the Diaspora have hit polling stations early in the morning on
\nelection day, to make sure they manage to exercise their constitutional right.
\nHuge waiting lines cropped up outside embassies, consular offices or cultural
\ninstitutes in many European cities, with Romanians having to wait hours on end
\nto be able to cast their vote. One reason behind this is the high number of
\nRomanians choosing to live, study or work abroad in recent years. Another
\nreason, however, was the deficient election law, which has been recently
\nmodified ahead of the presidential election due in November. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Under the new law,
\nRomanians abroad will be able to vote during the course of three days, from
\nFriday till Sunday, while Romanians in the country will hit the polling
\nstations only on Sunday. Besides, Romanians abroad have had the possibility of expressing
\ntheir intentions regarding the voting procedure, by filling on online form on
\nvotstrainatate.ro. Romanians could opt either for postal voting, or for voting
\nin one of the polling stations set up abroad. Moreover, new voting stations
\nwill be set up in light of data obtained on the website, provided over 100
\nRomanians in the same town or area have signed up. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As a result, Romanians who
\nhave signed up abroad will be removed from voter lists in Romania and inscribed
\non the list of permanent voters abroad, which simplifies the voting process
\nsignificantly, as members of election committees will no longer have to fill
\nthe personal data of each voter by hand. The online registration deadline was
\nSeptember 15, but a mere 41,000 Romanians signed up for postal voting while
\n39,000 for voting in a polling station. By way of comparison, in the European
\nParliament election held in May, some 370,000 Romanians were able to cast their
\nvote. One of the main elements that deterred Romanians to register online was
\nthe fact that their personal data could end up at the National Agency for
\nFiscal Administration. The president of the Permanent Election Authority,
\nConstantin-Florin Mituletu-Buica, has repeatedly stated that the personal data
\nof Romanians who register online for the presidential election will be used
\nexclusively for that purpose, while any misinformation in that respect is aimed
\nat deterring people from exercising their right to vote. The difference between
\nthe two figures has prompted many to expect the same endless waiting lines for
\nthe presidential election as well.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
(Translated by V. Palcu)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nearly 80,000 Romanians living in the Diaspora have signed up for either postal voting or voting in polling stations for the November presidential election<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":82890,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[22456,39743,39742,39741,34962],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-82889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-diaspora","tag-online-registration","tag-polling-stations","tag-vote-abroad","tag-votstrainatate-ro"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n