A total of 4,561 Romanians living abroad have voted by mail, the number representing slightly over half of the 8,900 citizens enrolled in the Electronic register.

Voting by mail is a first for Romania. The Romanian Post National Company has been in charge of this process, and it announced in a press statement that it had successfully completed the process of mail voting on December 8, 24:00.

The Romanian Post sent envelopes containing ballots to a total of 8,889 Romanians living in 55 countries, who are enrolled in the Electronic Register. A total of nine airlines and 56 postal operators have been involved in the distribution process.

However, only 4,561 people voted by mail. The Post has collected the envelopes containing their votes and has sent them to the Central Electoral Office - BEC.

The most mail votes came from Spain (714), followed by Germany (533), UK (515), France (469), and the Republic of Moldova (414).

A total of 2,794 Romanians in Spain received the ballots by mail. Some 1,228 envelopes were sent to Italy, 880 to the Republic of Moldova, 618 to Germany, and 594 to the UK. However, the interest for the elections was low among Romanians living in Spain and Italy and higher among those in Germany and the UK.

A total of 417 polling stations will also be organized abroad for the parliamentary elections on Sunday, December 11, 111 more than in the elections organized in 2012. Romania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) has developed an interactive map available on the Google Maps platform via which Romanians living abroad can find where the polling stations are located.

Some Romanians living abroad may also come to the country to vote. Romanians living in Germany, Netherlands, France, UK and Denmark have booked flights to Romania a couple of days before the elections and will leave in the week after the elections, according to Paravion, one of the biggest online travel agencies in Romania.

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Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Posta-romana.ro)