The Association for Participatory Democracy (ADEPT), which forms part of the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections, calls on the Moldovan authorities to hasten the processes for implementing electronic voting that would primarily facilitate voting in the diaspora, ADEPT executive director Boțan said when presenting the results of the diaspora’s vote in the July 11 elections, IPN reports.
According to Igor Boțan, electronic voting should be introduced gradually, during several electoral cycles, in parallel with the traditional voting method. After making sure that electronic voting is safe, the authorities can stop establishing polling stations abroad.
In fact, the process of opening polling places outside the country was controversial in the recent elections. According to data compiled by ADEPT and Promo-LEX on alegeri.md, preregistration in the diaspora has expanded the past three years. For example, by 120% in Germany, by 81% in Italy and by 71% in the UK.
Nevertheless, CEC initially decided to establish 139 polling stations abroad, as many as it established for the presidential elections of 2019, even if the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration recommended establishing at least 191 stations. After a number of protests and challenges filed to courts, the electoral authority ultimately decided to increase the number to 150 stations, invoking the insufficient funding provided by the executive.
“The call of the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections to CEC and the authorities is to accurately implement the legal provisions. It does not go to the creation of privileges for our expatriates in a country or another. It is such a simple formula,” said Igor Boțan, referring to the legal criteria for establishing polling places outside the country.
Under the law, preregistration is not the only criterion that is taken into account. Among the other criteria are the estimated number of Moldovans living in the given countries and the voter turnout in the previous elections. On July 11, voting champions were the Moldovans in Italy (66,000), Germany (26,000), the UK (24,000), France (23,000) and Romania (15,000). “In the Russian Federation, they voted not so actively, the rate per polling station being 5-6 times lower than in Western Europe,” stated Igor Boțan.
In another development, the ADEPT executive director presented the preliminary list of elected MPs. As it was projected following the restoration of the proportional representation system, 63 of 101 MPs reside in Chisinau. Gagauzia is the second best represented territorial-administrative unit, while 11 territorial-administrative units are not represented at all.
