Moldovans from USA, Canada to be able to vote by correspondence

Chisinau, 13 March /MOLDPRES/ - The Moldovans living in the United States and Canada might be able to vote by correspondence. The members of the parliamentary juridical commission for appointments and immunities have approved the report on the concerned draft law.     

The initiative on the piloting of the vote by correspondence belongs to a group of MPs of the Action and Solidarity Party (PAS). Members of the Central Electoral Commission and Foreign Affairs Ministry, as well as experts in the sector and representatives of the presidential institution, who were delegated in a working group and analyzed opportunities of piloting the concerned mechanism, participated in the document’s elaboration.

The document regulates the participation in elections through the exercising of the vote by correspondence, the specific electoral procedures and the powers of the electoral bodies. It is worth mentioning that the electoral procedures as to the securing of the voting, preservation and ensuring the integrity of the envelopes with the ballot papers received will be established under a regulation approved by the Central Electoral Commission (CEC).        

They suggest that the piloting of the vote by correspondence takes place in the United States and Canada. Thus, the citizens will have to compulsorily register for exercising the voting by correspondence and to receive a notification of CEC on the finishing of the registration procedure. At the same time, the ballot papers will be shipped by voters through the diplomatic mail or usual postal services. The document contains also provisions on the procedure of counting and tabulation of votes by the electoral bureau of the polling station, as well as the situations in which the ballot papers will be declared invalid.  

Statistics data shows that 212,434 voters from outside Moldova participated in the presidential elections from 2020. In the world, 53 countries allow the vote by mail from abroad. At the same time, 13 European Union member states allow the vote by correspondence.