Will the @EUCommission bat an eye at all the voter fraud allegations in the Romanian elections, or will it keep partying on the Titanic because the center is holding?
For context: Here in #Romania we had both local and #EuropeanElections this Sunday. The results for the 1st and 2nd sectors of #Bucharest appear to have been heavily rigged in favor of the ruling coalition formed by #PSD-PNL (members of #S&E and #PPE respectively).
Firstly, in multiple polling sections it was reported that voters received paper ballots already stamped next to #PSD-PNL. Then the count began late at night, when the personnel was already tired.
Then, in the 2nd sector of #Bucharest, it was reported that the votes for #USR (member of #RenewEurope) were mistaken with those for #SOSRomania, a #far-right party with its leader having close ties to #Moscow. The voting commission in that section admitted the mistake they made, but the Central Election Bureau did not want to correct the mistake at first. They finally allowed the re-counting process of the already cast ballots, but it is reported that the bags containing them has been already found and tampered (some ballots are missing). How is the center holding if a party which is also part of the center and with a strong pro-European stance has its votes (which were more!) wrongfully swapped with those (which were less!) of a far right party?
In the 1st district of #Bucharest nearly a quarter of the voting sections had errors in their verbal process following the count. In one of these sections, it is reported that over 1000 ballots are missing after the count, as the reported total number of these is bigger than the total number that you can calculate. And no, tiredness doesn't seem to be a factor, as there is more than one digit being wrong. Other similar situations were reported at other polling sections as well.
There are reports of canceled ballots, even though they were supposed to be valid.
Speaking of tiredness, the delegates from each polling station are being held waiting outside, in scorching heat, waiting to have the results received by the Local Election Comission Bureaus. This is downright psychological torture on people that are supposed to ensure a fair process in the elections, and it is completely unacceptable!
In the 1st district, there was also a report of bags being opened and tampered by the #PSD representative, after the elections.
These seem like minor issues, but in these districts of Bucharest, the candidates of both PSD-PNL and USR were neck and neck in the race, so every little error in the voting process (especially when it seems clearly intended by the former) has the potential of influencing the voting results.
And issues like these are also reported on the EU Election side: some people who voted for the #REPER party (also part of #RenewEurope) found that no votes have been cast at the very polling sections they actually voted at! Because the #REPER party is a smaller one (albeit still having MEPs and MPs in the national parliament) they weren't allowed to have a representative in the election commissions around the country, so they couldn't tell if voter fraud was happening to them like #USR could.
Will the Comission or anyone else in #Brussells comment or investigate these happenings? In my, and other Romanian citizen's opinion, these events represent a serious attack on basic democratic principles, undermining the core of democracy in the EU country sharing the longest border with Ukraine.
Cc: @romania