Romanian elections 2024: Potential recount and next steps
The President of the Permanent Electoral Authority, Toni Greblă, stated during an interview on Radio România Actualități (RRA) that, in the event the Constitutional Court (CCR) decides to annul the first round of the presidential elections, Romanians would be called to vote again on December 15 for the first round, followed by the second round on December 29.
The AEP president also announced that some counties would complete the recount of votes requested by the CCR today.
When asked what would be considered significant electoral fraud warranting the CCR’s annulment of the first round, Greblă said it would need to drastically alter the order of the election results. “So, a difference that shifts the ranking of political contenders, such that the one in first place moves to seventh, and the one in sixth place moves to second. I’m not sure... It would radically change the order in which the election results are determined,” said Toni Greblă.
The AEP president expressed hope that the CCR would make a decision swiftly, as the court’s ruling would affect various technical aspects of organizing the elections moving forward.
“The Central Electoral Bureau has set the deadline as December 1, 10:00 p.m. I hope the majority of counties, especially the smaller ones, will complete this today, and perhaps by tomorrow noon, we will have all of them ready. I must emphasize that, in larger counties, there are many ballots to count, and the staff at the County Electoral Bureaus is relatively limited,” the AEP president added, underlining, “Technically, we can organize the elections. However, we still don’t know how to print the ballots for the second round, as the first round has not been validated.”
The Central Electoral Bureau began recounting the 9.4 million votes from the first round of the presidential elections on Thursday, following the Constitutional Court’s request. The CCR’s decision was unanimous.
Additionally, the Constitutional Court is resuming discussions today at 2:00 p.m. regarding the request to annul the first round results, submitted by Cristian Terheș, a presidential candidate representing the Romanian National Conservative Party.
Meanwhile, the USR (Save Romania Union) has challenged the BEC’s decision to recount the votes from the presidential elections at the Bucharest Court of Appeal. USR is requesting the Court of Appeal to expedite procedural timelines so that both the filed contestation and any potential appeal are resolved before December 6, when, according to the current schedule, voting abroad for the second round of the presidential elections is expected to begin.
Translation by Iurie Tataru
