Romania's Constitutional Court orders invalid vote recount

The Constitutional Court of Romania decided that the void votes from the December 6 presidential runoff, in which incumbent President Traian Basescu was declared elected with a margin of less than 1%, will be recounted, Info-Prim Neo's correspondent in Bucharest reports. After the Social Democratic Party challenged the election outcome in the Constitutional Court, saying, among others, some of the valid votes were declared invalid, the Court Friday ruled that the invalid ballots will be reexamined and recounted by the Central Election Office. The Court's decision is definitive. According to the Central Election Office, 138,476 ballots cast in the second round of the presidential election were declared invalid. The center-right President won 50.33% of votes against his challenger Social Democrat Mircea Geoana's 49.66%, with just 70,048 votes separating them.