Over 6,500 of the 6,800 persons held in the penitentiaries of the country have cast their votes in the November 30 elections. The chiefs of all the penitentiary institutions of the country compiled lists of the prisoners with the right to vote beforehand. These persons could vote in specially set up places inside jails. The mobile ballot box for detainees was provided by members of the polling places located in the electoral districts that include the penitentiaries, IPN reports.
The law stipulates that in order to vote, the prisoners must meet a number of conditions, including to be citizens of Moldova, be older than 18 and have valid identification papers. According to a communiqué of the Department of Penitentiary Institutions, most of the detainees said they voted for justice, freedom, peace, welfare, and a better life and future for their children.
The persons held in the Moldovan-administered Bender penitentiaries No. 8 and No. 12 could not exercise their right to vote. According to the Join Control Commission member on behalf of Chisinau Eduard Bumbac, the mobile ballot box could not get to the penitentiaries in the town because the Transnistrian militia blocked the access of the members of the Varnita electoral bureau, who were to take the mobile ballot box to the two jails in Bender, where there are now held about 190 persons eligible to vote.
