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The draft law on amending and supplementing some laws on electoral matters, adopted on Monday by the plenary sitting of the Chamber of Deputies, was supported by vote by the Social Democratic Party (PSD), the National Liberal Party (PNL), Save Romania Union (USR), People's Movement Party (PMP) and the group of national minorities.
The leader of the USR group, Catalin Drula, mentioned in the plenary debates that it is not an optimal way to legislate "on fast forward", but, given that "we are under the rule of necessary measures" in the context of the health crisis The Union's parliamentarians took part in these legislative amendments.
"We have done everything in our power to make certain corrections to the text that originally came from the AEP [Permanent Electoral Authority] and to propose measures to improve the voting process. (...) We managed to correct certain provisions that were not quite all right, so today we will vote on this bill, but it would be good to learn something from here in the future, especially since it is not just provisions related to the pandemic, the number of signatures, those are normal in the current context, that the collection of signatures should be done electronically, that fewer signatures should be collected, those that have also been applied in the case of the local [elections]. There are other measures related to the organization of the AEP, their paper, they should come with them in advance and give them to the Government, to bring them to Parliament and we have time to discuss them in a settled manner," Drula mentioned.
The leader of the group of national minorities, Varujan Pambuccian, mentioned that they will vote for this bill, and so did the Liberals.
"We have only one dissatisfaction with the way PSD continues to treat the rights of Romanians in the diaspora and we have that dissatisfaction with the failure to support the amendment that would allow Romanian citizens residing abroad to vote on Saturday and Sunday. We will vote this bill and we will support the rejected amendments on the right of citizens in the diaspora to vote for 2 days," said the leader of the Liberal deputies, Florin Roman.
The Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR) MP Marton Arpad stated that the Union's elected representatives will support the bill only if the report of the Legal Committee remains unchanged.
"We have always been consistent in the idea that in the last year before the elections the electoral legislation should not be changed, in fact a proposal that also came from the Venice Commission is also decision of the CCR [Constitutional Court of Romania] that opens a small door for those concrete situations that change the electoral procedure a little, especially since we are already in an electoral procedure that has already started. (...) I do not think that we can change the elements related to electoral law, to the equality in rights of the electorate, we therefore cannot fundamentally change the legislation during this period. As such, our group will only vote on the version that came from the Legal Committee, (...) only if the report remains as it is," said Marton Arpad.
