Postal Voting for Romanians Abroad

The postal voting law is constitutional and can be enforced starting with the 2016 parliamentary elections.

Roxana Vasile, 19.11.2015, 14:24

Romania’s Constitutional Court has unanimously ruled that the postal voting law is constitutional and rejected the appeal filed by some MPs. Passed at the end of October, the law, which gives Romanian citizens living abroad the possibility to vote by mail, comes to fix the flaws in the organisation of the voting process abroad.

Thus, in the presidential election last November, thousands of Romanians faced the cold and the rain in long queues in front of the Romanian embassies and consulates abroad and many didn’t even manage to cast their ballots. The queues turned into spontaneous protests, and in Paris and Turin security forces used tear gas to disperse the angry voters. In Bucharest, the scandal led to the resignation of two foreign ministers while their boss, the then prime minister and leader of the Social Democratic Party, Victor Ponta, lost the election to his Liberal contender, Klaus Iohannis. The latter included, among the priorities of his presidential mandate, the adoption of a law that should introduce a more reasonable voting system for Romanian citizens abroad.

The law was finally adopted, after numerous talks at parliamentary level, after mutual accusations had been publicly levelled against each other, by the Social Democrats, in the ruling coalition, and the Liberal opposition, after resignations and hunger strikes in the parliament committee that drew up the bill. In a first stage, the postal voting law will only apply to the Romanian parliamentary election next fall, and, if it proves effective, this voting system will also be used in the presidential and EP elections. Initiated by the Permanent Electoral Authority, the bill stipulates that voters residing or living abroad, who wish to vote by mail, must register in the Electoral Registry following an application submitted in person or mailed by post to the Romanian diplomatic mission or consular office in their country of residence.

The version of the bill passed by the Chamber of Deputies eliminates the possibility for online voter registration, a provision that formed part of the earlier version passed by the Senate. The Chamber of Deputies also adopted an amendment saying that disclosure of the confidentiality of the vote and voting on behalf of another person are punished by law. The Permanent Electoral Authority has hailed the decision by the Constitutional Court, that deems the law constitutional and said its enforcement at the parliamentary election in 2016 is a victory for democracy, as it comes to support millions of Romanians living abroad.