And so, I could NOT vote!
It is quite difficult for me to explain how you want to vote, go to vote, waste five hours, and still not vote! But this is possible in Romania. Last Sunday, we had elections for the new President of Romania. Because I wasn’t in my hometown, I had to vote in a special voting section in Bucharest. I went to the first one at around 4 pm. The line was huge, so I went to another one in the downtown. The same story there. Eventually, I went to a more remote one and stayed in line. There were many fraud allegations with the so called “touristic voting” so I said that may be the “tourists” will only go to downtown voting sections and not to the ones at the outskirts. Anyway, the line was also big at the section that I decided to stay, which is situated in a student campus. By 9pm, when the voting ended according to the law, I was still in line outside. Together with me, there were at least 200 other young people.
This story happened at every “special section.” I heard in the news that thousands could not vote due to the very poor organization of the voting. To me, it was the first time when I missed a vote. Even in the US, I went to the Romanian Consulate in Los Angeles to vote. Besides the President, we had to vote whether we want a two-chamber parliament with 471 members, as it is now, or a one-chamber parliament with 300 members. I want to have a one-chamber parliament. This is also what approximately 80% of the Romanians want, so apparently we will have a smaller and hopefully more efficient Parliament. The turnout was pretty good. From over 18,000,000 eligible voters, approximately 55% voted.
EU Observer: Romanian president holds narrow lead after first round.