More than two million Romanians won't vote on November 30

According to the current legal stipulations, the voters will be able to attend to the general elections only to the polling stations in which their domicile is according to the ID. In conclusion, the students, the ones without sojourn documents in other countries or the ones that work in other cities without having mutation, won’t be able to vote on November 30. Over two million Romanians find themselves in this situation.

Although the right to vote is guaranteed by Constitution, at least 10% of Romania’s citizens are deprived of this right, due to the current stipulations related to the uninominal vote. According to the law, once introduced the uninominal vote and the electoral body, the citizens may vote only to the polling section to which they are distributed, depending of the residence registered in the identity card. As a result, the additional lists and the special polling stations, which operated at each poll for the parliamentary elections, aren’t anymore. Therefore, the students who study in other cities than the ones of domicile or that work in other localities, won’t be able to express their right to vote in other electoral bodies than the ones in which they have the domicile, even if they have floating visa. It is estimated that the number of the students that won’t be able to vote is of about 500.000 and the number of Romanians that work and live in other localities but without having the mutation undergone in their ID is close to one million.

The Romanians from abroad will be able to vote only if they have legal residence in the country in which they work and live and if they have identity cards issued in this sense by the respective authorities. Moreover, neither the ones who are traveling at that moment in the country or out of the country will be able to vote, because there aren’t anymore special polling stations in railroad stations or embassies. Over two million Romanians are working abroad at the moment, especially in Spain and Italy, but only half of them appear officially as residents in the respective countries. In consequence, other about one million citizens won’t be able to exercise their right to vote. Per total, almost 2,5 million Romanians won’t be able to vote on November 30 if they don’t go to the addresses in their IDs. Moreover, on this time the elections will take place one day before December 1, that is on Monday and in which most of the employees are free. As it means three consecutive days - Saturday, Sunday, Monday - many citizens will take advantage of the spare time for entering in a short holiday. In this context, it is possible that the ballot on November 30 to be one with a reduced presence to the ballot boxes, possibly the most reduced of the general elections history.

The Public Policy Institute (PPI) has requested to the Government to change the electoral legislation in the next session of the Government, that will take place this week, so that the Romanians that have floating visa and the ones that by objective reasons aren’t in the place of domicile on November 30, inclusively the citizens that aren’t in the country and are tourists or students, to be able to vote in the place of residence. PPI has mentioned that if the Executive won’t adopt these measures, at least 4% of the ones with right to vote will be deprived of a constitutional right. PPI has asked to the Government to change the electoral legislation, for that the Romanians not to be forced to travel in the place of domicile in order to vote. “If the Government doesn’t solve the actual state of things, of those 18 million Romanians, at least 4% of the voters with right to vote will be deprived of the constitutional right to vote. We mention that at the last general ballot, 705.739 Romanians have voted on additional lists. The statistics also prove that there are over two million Romanians who work or study abroad”, it is shown in an official statement of the Institute, quoted by Mediafax.

In PPI’s opinion, changing the electoral legislation is mandatory “especially in the context in which the current electoral system includes the redistribution of the votes” at county and national level and thus “each vote granted at level of Electoral Body will be defining for the election results”. In what concerns the Romanians that won’t be in the domicile locality on November 30, PPI considers that the “Government must assume in public its incapacity of setting up a voting system by correspondence for these categories”. “The Romanians have to know who is the responsible for the fact that their right to vote is forbidden, because they aren’t in the domicile locality in the election day”, PPI adds. According to a statistic presented by PPI, 705.739 Romanians voted on additional lists at the last general ballot and more than two million Romanians work or study abroad. As a result, at least 10% of the citizens with right to vote will be deprived of this right by the Government which organizes the parliamentary elections in 2008.

On its turn, the National Alliance of Student Organizations in Romania (NASOR) asks for the support of the Parliament in order to assure the students the right to vote on November 30. NASOR has asked to Bogdan Olteanu , president of the Chamber of Deputies, to pun on the agenda of Tuesday the problem of the right to vote of the students in the town in which they study, this being the last session of the Legislative body, and that has to debate the ordinance regarding the postponing of the professors’ rise in salary and the motion against the Government on the Education theme. According to the Law 35/ 2008, which regulates the election on November, and according to the interpretation of the Central Electoral Office, the students won’t be able to vote in the university centers in which they study, but only to the ballot stations in the place of domicile. NASOR has sent a set of open letters to the public institutions that are in measure to interfere for putting an end to this situation – Presidency, Government and those two Chambers of the Parliament. According to NASOR, the Government noticed the students that this problem isn’t in their attributions. “It’s aberrant to send the students to vote in their place of domicile, in terms in which they didn’t have the possibility to watch the electoral campaign in the domicile location, thus engaging them to a vote totally misinformed”, the NASOR president, Cezar Haj, stated in an official statement. He considers that blocking the right to vote of a social category because of the political interests or of some interests that are due to delimit the Electoral Bodies is totally unacceptable. “The students are part of the University Centers community in which they study due to the fact that they live there on an average of nine-ten months yearly”, NASOR mentions.

“It’s unacceptable that in a democratic state to be crushed the right to vote of about 450.000 citizens, students of Romania. Although we are complaining of an inactive civil society, we are discouraging more than 60% of a social category to express their right to vote. I consider that the stipulations of the normative act violate the right to vote of most of the students and implicit of a significant percentage of Romania’s population. The students are an important social segment, they practically representing the future of this country, a future for which practically they can’t vote for”, it was précised in an official statement of NASOR, on October 23. Moreover, the Association has announced that will also notice the European forums about the restriction brought to this right.

UDMR has proposed that the minimum voting age to be reduced from 18 to 16 years old. The initiative will be submitted to public debate in this electoral campaign and depending of the results, it will be initiated a draft law for changing the minimum required age, that would follow to be debated in the next electoral cycle. „The 16 years old are mature and serious people and if they vote, they do it for their future. After an electoral cycle, they will be 20 years, some of them graduating the university or being out of school and it is good for that anyone who is 16 to have the opportunity to vote“, the executive president of UDMR, Kelemen Hunor, said.

Even if million of Romanians live abroad, to the polling sections will be sent 620.000 voting papers. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs motivates this decision by the fact that the participation record of the Romanians has never exceeded the figure of 70.000 voters.