The highest costs for the organization of presidential elections, 172 million RON, and the launching in the public space of 'intentional disinformation and alarmist rumors' by the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) party were among the conclusions of the observation campaign of the second round of elections, the Vot Corect Coalition showed on Monday.
According to the preliminary report, presented online by Septimius Parvu, coordinator of the electoral program Expert Forum, and Maria Krause, electoral expert, the first round of elections recorded the highest costs for organizing a presidential election, 172 million RON, and the general limits for income and expenditure remain very high.
"Nicusor Dan declared revenues of 40.4 million RON and expenses of 31.5 million RON by May 16, most of the revenues coming from loans. So far, George Simion has not declared any revenues or expenses for the second round. Although the candidate would still have had time to declare these funds, not publishing them significantly reduced the transparency of the electoral process and was in contradiction with the spirit of the law. The fact that the identity of several unassigned Facebook accounts, which promoted negative campaign materials before the first round, has not been identified so far following complaints filed by AEP [Permanent Electoral Authority], represents a limitation of the transparency and integrity of the process," the report says.
The representatives of the Vot Corect Coalition noted that the second round of the presidential elections was contested by two candidates with very different political positions, in a highly polarized atmosphere.
"The organization of the technical aspects of the process was efficient, but the release of deliberate disinformation and alarmist rumors in the public space about possible election fraud by the AUR party created tension, put pressure on the election administration and undermined public confidence in the process. The aggressive rhetoric of the AUR candidate towards the media and a section of the electorate dominated the last days of the campaign," the speakers emphasized.
Although the fact that the electoral administration respected the election calendar and efficiently organized the technical aspects of the elections was appreciated as positive, according to the Vot Corect Coalition, the fact that the meetings of the Central Electoral Bureau (BEC) were not public reduced the transparency of the process.
At the same time, the sheer number of online campaign complaints received by BEC created a considerable workload, and in some cases the filing of complaints indicated a coordinated effort to jam the BEC's agenda.
Maria Krause pointed out that the right to freedom of expression, although generally respected, has been affected in several cases by the decisions of the electoral offices that ordered the removal of some posts not marked as political advertising even when they expressed the political opinions of journalists or ordinary citizens.
Regrettably, the campaign was marked by verbal violence and discriminatory attacks, the Vot Corect Coalition's report further shows.
"The candidates presented differently to the citizens the various choices they have: George Simion urged them to choose between system and anti-system, and Nicusor Dan between pro-EU, pro-Western orientation and alignment with the Russian Federation politics. Both candidates took part in a televised debate; George Simion's non-participation in the ensuing debates limited voters' access to information about his political program. Rumors and alarmist speculation intensified in the campaign for the second round; the authorities published denials of several intentional pieces of disinformation disseminated by AUR, in an effort to maintain calm and restore confidence in the electoral process. Regrettably, the campaign was marked by verbal violence and discriminatory attacks," the report specifies.
As for the online campaign, Expert Forum monitored over 1,000 public Facebook groups, identifying 194 pages with potentially coordinated behavior.
EFOR also identified a network of inauthentic accounts promoted by the hashtag #ankaversace on Tik Tok, which was only partially removed by the platform, and a disinformation campaign through the Telegram application aimed at influencing the vote in favor of one of the candidate was categorized by the Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs (MAE) as Russian interference.
At the same time, monitoring conducted by a civic group, detailed in the Keys to the Kingdom report, confirmed the eistence of well-organized networks operating with significant influencing capacity, on a hub-and-spoke model, with several dozen key accounts and thousands of satellite accounts.
The number of observers accredited by member organizations of the Vot Corect Coalition, at home and abroad, increased after the first round to 1,276. They submitted information from about 1,850 polling stations during the three days of observation through the Vote Monitor app. After the first round, voters submitted more than 3,500 complaints related to the electoral process through the votcorect.ro portal, most of them related to voters who posted their stamped ballot papers online in violation of the law.
According to the cited source, BEC has adopted numerous decisions regarding complaints about online political advertising. Meta has challenged numerous BEC decisions in cases registered at the Bucharest Court of Appeal, but all of the appeals have been rejected and some of these cases are currently under appeal. Radautiul Civic and Expert Forum have submitted a request to the Bucharest Court of Appeal to order BEC to allow the observation of the voting with the special ballot box.
On election day, the Vot Corect Coalition assessed that it was generally orderly, despite some attempts to disrupt the process and manipulate voters. In this respect, the opening and voting were assessed positively in more than 98% of the polling stations observed.
During voting, observers reported cases of voter influence, including pressure and vote buying, while vote counting was positively assessed in 95.7% of polling stations, with observers noting no attempts to compromise the fairness of the results, with one exception, noting a number of procedural omissions.
The Vot Corect Coalition is made up of Expert Forum, Radautiul Civic, the Civic Association, the Civic Resources Center, the Center for the Study of Democracy, Code for Romania.
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