Preliminary observation report of the 1 December parliamentary elections

The Vot Corect Coalition published the monitoring report of the December 1 parliamentary elections.

The coalition consists of the Expert Forum, the Center for Civic Resources, Civica, the Center for the Study of Democracy, Radautiul Civic and the Electoral Observatory. Code for Romania ensures the development of the Vote Monitor smartphone application, with which we collect data on election day. In the Republic of Moldova, Vot Corect collaborated with Promo-LEX.

SUMMARY

The election was effectively organized and voters’ fundamental rights were generally respected. However, the electoral competition was fundamentally affected by the results of the first round of the presidential elections. The process took place in a context of numerous disinformation or negative campaigns, which had a negative impact on the outcome of the parliamentary elections. The overlap of the elections and the decision of the Constitutional Court to recount the votes from the presidential elections distracted the public from the parliamentary elections and affected public confidence in the electoral process.

The transparency of the electoral process was reduced by the fact that the meetings of the Central Electoral Bureau (BEC) were not public. Its decisions (decizii/hotărâri) were generally published in due time, but, regrettably, the minutes of the meetings remained secret, and their publication was explicitly prohibited. Some of the decisions issued by the BEC, including the one related to the interpretation of the phrase parliamentary party, were contested, including by Vot Correct. The electoral administration generally managed the electoral process effectively.

The number of candidates increased compared to the previous elections. More than 50 lists were rejected by various constituency commissions because the candidates did not follow the administrative procedures or did not ensure the presence of both sexes on the candidate lists, as the law requires. The absence of some of the parties, including currently parliamentary ones, on the ballots in certain constituencies, as a result of the rejection of the candidacies, created confusion among some voters. The number of women on the lists increased compared to the previous elections, but few were placed in eligible positions. Data published by BEC about candidates is limited. The support signature verification process could not be observed, which limits transparency. The collection of signatures in electronic format was limited and only a few parties used this option. The lists of some parties, such as Noua Romania (for the out of country constituency), were rejected due to irregularities regarding the collected signatures. The integrity of the signature collection process remains in question, especially in the context where some competitors did not have any kind of visible signature collection campaign.

The overlapping of the two electoral campaigns and the results of the first round of voting significantly limited the visibility of the campaign for the parliamentary elections. This lacked visibility, and the conduct of the presidential elections confiscated the relevance of the debates for the parliamentary ones. Online campaigning continued to be intense and numerous cases where electoral propaganda was not declared as such were identified. The methods of outdoor promotion are very limited, which affects the voters’ right to information, and numerous violations of the legislation regarding the use of the electoral boards have been noted. Numerous actions to continue the electoral campaign were observed on the voting days and before the elections, including by candidates or their supporters with visibility, a fact that affected the integrity of the organization of the election day.

The transparency of campaign financing was reduced by the intermittent publication of data by the Permanent Electoral Authority (AEP), a fact criticized also in the case of the presidential elections. The lack of consistency in the publication of data denotes a lack of institutional transparency and limits the public’s understanding of how the electoral process was financed. Revenues of 250 million lei and expenses of 210 million lei were recorded, most of the funds (40%) being allocated for online promotion services. In addition to the officially declared expenses, indirect promotion through third parties was observed, such as Facebook pages close to parties that define themselves as publications. A small part of the parties’ contributions come from subsidies, i.e. 6.9 million lei, which indicates that they preferred to declare private funds that they can get reimbursed if they get 3% of the votes. It is unclear what the parties spend the subsidies on, which have reached a historic high this year, if they do not invest in political promotion in the middle of the election year. Between August and October, the parties spent 71 million lei on media and propaganda, which represents a third of the total campaign costs for the parliamentary elections. In fact, campaign costs are much higher than those formally declared for a campaign month, and political parties spend high sums of money in the months before the campaign on less transparent rules.

Election days were conducted in an orderly and calm manner, with few incidents reported by observers, and the turnout was 52.50%. The process was assessed positively by Vot Corect observers in almost 97% of the polling stations observed during the opening and voting and almost 95% of the polling stations observed during the vote counting. Observers reported a tense atmosphere during voting in 4.8% of cases and crowding in 15%. The polling station commissions did not understand well where voters can vote according to their domicile and residence in a worrying percentage of approximately 14%. When counting the votes, polling station commission presidents had difficulties filling in the protocols in 19.2% of the observed sections; in 14% the counting took place in a tense atmosphere. In a few cases observers were unjustifiably removed from polling stations, and some polling station commission took the abusive decision to allow observation only during voting and not during the counting of votes. The opening procedure was observed by Vot Corect in 183 precincts, the voting in 737, and the counting of votes in 204. Due to the fact that in some cases the observers did not answer all the questions on the forms, the statistical data do not always refer to the total number of sections observed.

Legislative framework

The legislative framework for the organization of parliamentary elections is composed of primary legislation (the most important normative acts are Law 208/2015, Law 288/2015 and Law 334/2006), supplemented by GEO 98/2024 and numerous Government decisions or decisions of the Central Electoral Bureau (BEC) and of the Permanent Electoral Authority (AEP). Even if GEO 98/2024 did not introduce many changes to the legislative framework, in general it became more and more difficult to follow, and the lack of a unitary Electoral Code affected the conduct of the electoral process. Holding elections on consecutive weekends and the existence of different rules for the two types of elections created some confusion. Many of the complaints or questions received by Vot Corect are related to the place and method of voting and are based on the fact that the voters did not understand why there are differences compared to the presidential elections.

Vot Corect criticized several decisions taken by BEC. A criticism expressed by Vot Correct was related to the restrictive interpretation of the concept of parliamentary party by means of BEC Decision 5H/20.09.2024 . This interprets art. 118^ 1 paragraph (1) of Law no. 208/2015 and establishes that the parties that did not enter the parliament in the previous elections, but have 7 senators or 10 deputies on the date of the election calendar must maintain this number of parliamentarians throughout the electoral period. The decision goes beyond the law and actually modifies the legal text that clearly refers to the compliance with this rule only at the starting date of the election calendar. Following the decision, the DREPT Party no longer had representatives in the electoral commission, as it recently lost 5 members of the Parliament. Although the party contested the decision in court, the request was rejected. The lack of clear definitions in the legislation and the possible different interpretation by each individual BEC, set for each election, represents a vulnerability regarding the unified interpretation of some key elements in the organization of elections. These key elements should be clear in law before the electoral process begins.

EFOR also criticized the issuance of the BEC Decision 3H/2024, which attempted to establish a restrictive term for the submission of supporting signatures, which exceeded the legal regulations; the decision was not published until a few days later, modified, contrary to the rules regarding legislative technique .

The Constitutional Court’s decision to order the recount of all votes from the first round of the presidential elections based on alleged irregularities in only three polling stations led to the delay of the validation of the first round and its results until the day after the parliamentary elections. Although the result of the recount remained unchanged, it influenced the last week of campaigning for the parliamentary elections, as it created the public perception that an attempt was made to favor a candidate, which undermined confidence in the electoral process and fueled extremist and anti-system discourse.

Electoral administration

The electoral administration, consisting of the Permanent Electoral Authority, the Central Electoral Bureau, the lower-level electoral commissions (BEJ), generally managed the electoral process effectively. The overlapping of the activity of the two Central Electoral Bureaus and the mid-level electoral administration (a separate one for the parliamentary and presidential election), the large amount of information and the significant number of decisions made the monitoring activity difficult and reduced transparency. Moreover, the organization of the recount of the votes for the presidential elections at the level of the county electoral commissions added additional tasks to the administration which was partly made up of the same technical staff.

The meetings of the electoral commissions are not public, which reduces the transparency of the process. The minutes resulting from them are not public either, and the Regulation on the organization and functioning of the electoral commissions established for the parliamentary elections additionally states that they cannot be made public and images of the minutes cannot be captured by any means. Vot Corect requested to observe the meetings, but participation was refused by the BEC.

The rulings and decisions of the BEC and the county level commissions (BEJ) were generally published promptly on their web pages. Draft decisions are not published in advance. The web pages of the BEJs are in some cases difficult to follow, as the information is not structured uniformly. As for decisions to accept or reject candidacies, they were difficult to track due to inconsistent publication (eg file names that did not include party names).

The Central Electoral Bureau for the parliamentary elections refused to meet with representatives of Vot Correct, responding to our request with the fact that it did not identify the “need” to organize such a meeting, which indicates a lack of openness and transparency. Vot Correct met with representatives of AEP, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the constituency electoral bureau for Romanian citizens domiciled or residing outside the country no. 43, of the Romanian Post (Stamp Factory) and observed the processing of postal votes at the only electoral office for postal voting established in Romania. Vot Corect representatives were well received at these meetings, and the requested information was provided to them.

Registration of candidates

8302 candidates entered the competition, an increasing number compared to 2016 and 2020. More than 50 lists proposed by various political parties to the Senate or Chamber of Deputies were rejected by various BEJ. No list was rejected from almost half of the constituencies. Most of the candidacies rejected by BEJs are related to incomplete documents, lack of supporting signatures or non-compliance with the article regarding the representation of both sexes on the candidate lists. In court, there were systematic complaints against the candidacies of some parties, especially AUR, PSD and SOS Romania. The lack of parties whose lists were rejected from the ballot resulted in confusion on the part of some voters. Among these situations is the absence of the Liberal Party on the ballot for the Senate or the Forța Dreptei in the Chamber of Deputies for the out of country constituency.

From the competitors who submitted candidacies to both chambers, 8,168 candidates were validated – 2,906 to the Senate and 5,262 to the Chamber of Deputies, to which are added 58 independent candidacies – 52 to the Senate and 6 to the Chamber of Deputies. In 2020, 7,136 registered, and in 2016, a number of 6,477 candidates. From the national minority organizations (19), which submitted candidacies only to the Chamber of Deputies, 58 candidates were registered, who are on the lists of candidates in all counties.

Most of the party lists are made up of candidates for the first parliamentary election, i.e. 71% for the six analyzed parties . In reality, however, some of the new parliamentary candidates have run for local positions in the past. The parties with the largest number of migrants from other parties are SOS and AUR , about 11% of the candidates.

The process of submission and verification of supporting signatures, which were submitted either to the BEC or to the BEJs could not be verified. The number of parties that have submitted signatures in electronic format remains rather limited, with the majority of competitors opting for submission in printed format. Although the BEC included in Decision 3D/06.09.2024 a guideline on signature verification, the signature verification mechanism does not provide sufficient possibilities for the responsible electoral commissions to verify the data beyond formal criteria. The integrity of the signature collection process remains in question, especially in the context where some competitors did not have any kind of visible signature collection campaign.

The campaign and its financing

The online campaign continued to be intense and numerous cases were identified in which electoral promotion actions were not declared as such. Numerous actions to continue the electoral campaign were reported on the voting days and days before the elections, including by candidates or their supporters with visibility, a fact that affected the integrity of the organization of the election day. The campaign was marked by negative propaganda and numerous cases of disinformation. The SENS party complained about a campaign according to which it was supported by Călin Georgescu; according to party representatives, this campaign did not belong to the SENS party. On November 28, SENS notified the National Authority for Communications Administration and Regulation (ANCOM) regarding an attempt to influence the vote and disinformation.

The methods of outdoor promotion are very limited, which affects the voters’ right to information, and violations of the legislation regarding the use of promotional panels have been noted. Also, the use of posters for the presidential and parliamentary elections on the same electoral boards was confusing for voters.

The financing of parliamentary and presidential election campaigns was done according to similar rules, defined by Law 334/2006. AEP published a guide on the financing of the electoral campaign in the parliamentary elections, which was subject to public debate alongside the one for the presidential elections. AEP organized several training sessions for the parties’ financial trustees, one of which was also noticed by Vot Corect. The comments sent by EFOR were not included in the guide.

As with the presidential election, AEP did not release campaign finance data on a weekly basis. Although there is no legal obligation, the institution has undertaken to publish them in this way. The most recent version of these income and expenditure reports is the one published on December 2, which reflects expenses incurred up to November 28. The lack of consistency and constant publication of data limits the understanding of how the electoral process was financed.

Contributions from 2,213 candidates totaling 206 million lei were recorded, and the political parties additionally transferred 44 million lei to the central campaign account (for the national campaign), of which 10 million lei represent the transfer to election campaign accounts at the county/sector level. Most of the funds come from own revenues (63%) and loans (36%), with donations accounting for less than 1%. A small part of the parties’ contributions come from subsidies, i.e. 6.9 million lei, which indicates that the parties preferred to declare private funds that they can recover if they get 3% of the votes.

Electoral competitors spent 210 million lei by November 28. The bulk, 39% of the funds were spent on online promotion, 28% to print (including posters), 13% to radio/tv/media, 2% to surveys. 17% of the money was spent on other services, including clothing for volunteers.

In addition to officially declared expenses, indirect promotion through third parties was observed. One such mechanism is the use of sites that promote themselves as publications, which spend significantly through Facebook Ads. In the case of AUR, we identified several pages that intensively promoted the candidates. For example, the page 60m.ro spent 197 thousand lei in the last month for the benefit of the AUR presidential candidate and for the promotion of the party. Similarly, the 5news.ro page spent 102 thousand lei, and 4media.info spent 85 thousand lei. Similar expenses can be found on other pages associated with AUR.

The Young People’s Party (POT), led by deputy Ana Maria Gavrilă, represented one of the newly entered Parliament parties, although a few months ago it was not rated with such chances. The party has been popular for about a year and managed to create a growing following in the last days before the elections due to the increased attention given to the candidate Călin Georgescu and the support that the POT party gave him. However, we note that as of November 28, the party has not declared spending on social media promotion .

The political parties reached a total of 323 million lei received from subsidies and spent 343 million lei. Until October, the parties spent 202 million lei on media and propaganda, i.e. 59% of the total expenses in 2024, and in October 70% of the money went on media and propaganda. Between August and October, the parties spent 71 million lei on media and propaganda, which represents a third of the total costs of the parliamentary campaign or 66% of the total expenses of the presidential campaign. This fact shows that, in fact, campaign costs are much higher than those formally declared in the campaign, and political parties spend a lot of funds in the months before the elections on less transparent rules than during the campaign.

Observation of elections

The Permanent Electoral Authority accredited 73 civil society organizations to observe the presidential elections (five of which are members of the Vot Corect coalition – Expert Forum, the Center for Civic Resources, Civica, the Center for the Study of Democracy and the Radautiul Civic) and international observers from 21 of organizations. The election was not observed by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), but was observed by Agora Election Observation (AEO).

Vot Corect member organizations have accredited 650 observers in the country and abroad. For the days of the elections (November 30 and December 1), Expert Forum organized an electoral assistance center in Bucharest, consisting of the number 0800 460 002, where 250 complaints and questions related to the electoral procedures were registered. On the votcorrect.ro platform, 1,680 notifications were registered in the last two months, both for the parliamentary and presidential elections.

Observers accredited by Vot Corect member organizations transmitted information from more than 730 polling stations through the Vote Monitor application. The Vote Monitor application included, in addition to the observation forms for accredited observers, the possibility to report election-related irregularities from the general public.

The distribution of observers in the territory also depended on their options, therefore the statistical relevance of the sample of observed sections may be affected by the fact that in some counties the number of observers was higher than in others.

Election days

The vote was conducted in an orderly and calm atmosphere both at home and abroad; with few exceptions, observers did not report any major problems. The voter turnout announced by AEP was 52.50%.

The opening procedure was observed by Vot Corect in 183 precincts, the voting in 737, and the counting of votes in 204, both from the country and abroad. Due to the fact that in some cases the observers did not answer all the questions in the forms, the statistical data below do not always refer to the total number of sections observed.

The opening of polling stations was rated only as good and very good in the polling stations observed, according to data submitted by observers through the Vote Monitor application. In one case the polling station opened late, and in two cases unauthorized persons were present in the polling stations during the opening.

Voting was rated positively (good and very good) by Vot Corect observers in almost 97% of cases. Unauthorized persons were present in 4.1% of the observed polling stations, and persons outside the commission participated in the organization of voting in 2.2%. Other problems reported by observers were the tense atmosphere outside the polling station (4.1%) and inside (4.8%). In 24 cases, a voter was found to have received more ballots than he was entitled to, but observers reported that these irregularities were not due to an intention to compromise the integrity of the process, but were done inadvertently and were rectified whenever they were observed. Crowding was reported in 15% of the observed sections. Observers also noted that the ballot boxes were not properly sealed in 3.2% of the polls observed. Deficiencies related to SIMPV (voter identification electronic system) operation were reported in 1.3% of observed wards. Observers reported that the secrecy of the vote was always respected during their observation in 91.5% of the precincts and almost always in another 7.16%.

It was also found that the offices of the polling stations did not always understand well where the voters could vote – some voters with domicile or residence in other localities in the same constituency were not allowed to vote in a worrying percentage of 14.8% of the observed stations, and in 13.5% voters with domicile or residence in another constituency were allowed to vote.

The observers signaled credible indications of influencing the voters in favor of a party in the localities of Vâlcele (Buzau) and Corbeni (Arges).

More than a quarter of the visited polling stations (26.4%) did not offer independent access for people with disabilities.

Most of the notifications received on election day through the call center were related to misunderstandings regarding the constituency where voters can vote or the documents they can use or notifications related to the limitation of their right to vote in another locality in the same constituency.

At the same time, through the votcorect.ro portal, we received numerous notifications regarding the continuation of the electoral campaign on election day by candidates or representatives of the parties that registered candidates in the campaign, among them George Simion or Diana Șoșoacă. For example, George Simion held live sessions on Tik Tok on December 1, in which he instructed voters to send an SMS to a phone number with the text VOTEZ and declare their vote (parallel counting), which can lead to a violation of the secrecy of the vote. Observers also pointed out that the PNL, USR and REPER parties sent SMS messages on the day of the vote to motivate voters to vote.

Voting abroad was organized efficiently, with extensive options for exercising the right to vote. 950 polling stations were set up for these elections, the largest number so far, which is a positive aspect. In the early part of November 30, difficulties were reported regarding the scanning of some passports of citizens domiciled abroad (CRDS), which were resolved the same day according to the information held by Vot Corect. A coalition representative observed the centralization of results at the election commission for overseas precincts on election night, noting that the process had been efficient up to that point. Most of the outer envelopes for postal voting were returned in the country – 4018 out of 4343. The data from the prezenta.roaep.ro platform shows that in most countries where a larger number of voters live, there are at least a few envelopes returned to diplomatic missions, with the exception of Belgium, where there is no registered external envelope, although there were 338 applications submitted.

The counting of votes was rated by observers as good and very good in almost 95% of cases. However, the observers reported that the counting took place in a tense atmosphere in 14% of the monitored precincts, people outside the commission took part in the vote counting in 8.4%, and in 7.9% of the cases found important procedural errors or omissions. Commission presidents had difficulties filling the minutes in a worrying percentage of 19.2% of the observed sections, and in 30.5% the minutes were signed in blank by BESV members. Even if some procedural omissions can be attributed to haste and fatigue, the fact that commission presidents did not show and announce each vote out loud in 16.7% of the observations remains problematic.

Vot Corect observers also met observers accredited by other organizations at 20% of observed polling stations during voting and 21% during vote counting. Observers were in most cases well received and the requested information was made available to them, but in 3.7% of cases during voting and 2.8% during vote counting not all those present could follow the process without restrictions. There have also been several instances where Vot Corect observers have been unjustifiably removed from polling stations, including because polling station commissions arbitrarily decided to allow observation only during voting and not during vote counting. As in the previous week, Vot Corect observers reported that some observers accredited by civic organizations obviously represented political parties and sometimes even did not know the names of the organizations that accredited them.

Shortly after the close of voting, the Permanent Electoral Authority published the preliminary results, based on the data sent by the polling stations through SIMPV, both in an aggregated format that allowed viewing the ranking of the parties according to the votes received, as well as in tables with the results from each polling station. Important indicators such as the total number of validly cast votes and the number of invalid votes were missing from the aggregate format.

Preliminary observation report of the November 24 Presidential Elections

See also Vot Corect press releases from voting day:

https://expertforum.ro/coalitia-vot-corect-concluzii-observare-alegeri-ora-20-2/

https://expertforum.ro/concluzii-observare-ora15/