Large number of voters in the Diaspora

The signal of increased voter turnout in the second round of the presidential elections was given by Romanian citizens in the Diaspora, from the first day of voting. We note that Romanians abroad had three days - Friday, Saturday and Sunday (until 9 p.m. Romanian time) to express their option, but the polling stations at embassies and consulates were crowded since Friday, which led to the fact that at the end of the second day of voting, the number of voters in the Diaspora exceeded the number registered on May 4, 2025. Thus, according to data from the Permanent Electoral Authority, by Saturday at 10 p.m. Romanian time, after the first days of voting in the Diaspora, 729,631 Romanian citizens had expressed their option, which means 351,431 more voters after the first two days of voting compared to the first round of the presidential elections.

If the Permanent Electoral Authority estimated that approximately 1.1 million Romanian citizens in the Diaspora would vote in these elections, the number of voters present in the polling stations organized in embassies, consulates, churches or sports halls was over 1.6 million voters at the 8 p.m. Romanian time, that is, 64% more than the presence in the first round of the presidential elections, when a total of 973,129 Romanian citizens voted abroad.

Among those who voted in the Diaspora were also several Romanian officials. For example, Marcel Boloş, Minister of European Funds, voted in Brussels, MEP Siegfried Mureşan, Vice-President of the European People's Party also voted in Belgium, Senator Titus Corlăţean (PSD), former Minister of Foreign Affairs in the 2019 presidential elections, voted at the Romanian consulate in Riga, Latvia, where he participated in the meeting of the Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

The President of the Republic of Moldova, Maia Sandu, who also holds Romanian citizenship, expressed her voting option on Friday, at the Romanian Embassy in Tirana, in Albania, the country where she is attending the summit of the European Political Community. In fact, the Republic of Moldova has signaled the massive participation of the Romanian Diaspora in the vote. Thus, until yesterday at 7 p.m., the Republic of Moldova was in the top 5 of the states with the highest voter turnout in the presidential elections in our country, with over 155,000 votes cast, preceded by Spain - with almost 184,000 votes, Great Britain - 261,236, Germany - 273,000 and Italy - 279,590 votes.

Electoral incidents were also recorded in the Diaspora. In Italy, in Rome, the carabinieri intervened after a car was passing near a polling station from which the name of the AUR presidential candidate was being shouted, and in England, at the Harow 3 polling station, Romanian citizens standing in line in the churchyard where the polling station was set up shouted "George Simion" several times. The same thing happened at polling station 189, in Ambilly, France, where Dan Enache, a member of the USR Diaspora, was spat on, cursed at and hit by supporters of the AUR candidate in the presidential elections. Furthermore, from the images posted by the USR on Facebook, it can be seen that some of the aggressors were under the influence of alcohol, and one of the voters was drinking from a beer bottle right next to the polling station, without the French police intervening.

Furthermore, at the time of the closing of the polls - 9 pm, Romanian time - voters in the Diaspora declared themselves dissatisfied that they could not continue voting, although unlike Romanian citizens in the country, they had three days to express their option.