Romania’s Electoral Bureau says presidential vote recounting not possible before December 1

Romania’s Electoral Bureau (BEC) announced it would observe the Constitutional Court’s decision to recount the votes from the first round of the presidential elections but said that the updated bulletins from the voting polls would not be centralised sooner than December 1 at 22:00 (by email) or December 3 at 16:00 (in physical format).

This might mean the second round of the presidential elections (scheduled for December 8) will be deferred.

Experts agreed on the interpretation of the legal provisions in the sense that the second round can only continue with the two candidates already announced (Calin Georgescu and Elena Lasconi, in case the errors spotted are not significant) or the first round of the presidential elections should be repeated (if significant errors are spotted) – with no alternative scenarios such as revising the ranking of the candidates.

However, CCR’s decision remains unpredictable since it is already believed to have breached the legal provisions in the past (when banning presidential candidate Diana Sosoaca), and there is no way to appeal its rulings.

The Constitutional Court initially (on November 28) said a new decision on the continuation of the presidential elections would be taken in a meeting summoned for November 29, at 14:00. This is visibly not possible, given the deadline announced by BEC.

Consequently, the validation of the first round of the presidential elections will not be done by the end of November 29; therefore, the campaign for the second round can not begin – with the result of predictable deferral of the second round of the presidential elections.

(Photo source: Inquam Photos / Octav Ganea)