The reaction of the Romanian Post in the scandal over the problems with voting by mail: The effective distribution of the electoral envelopes was made by each national postal operator in the country where Romanians from the Diaspora reside – Telecom

• Below are the full details sent Saturday night by Romanian Post:

“Compania Națională Poşta Română, as a national provider of postal services, carried out in association with the Permanent Electoral Authority, the services of sending electoral documents to Romanian citizens in the diaspora who have expressed their intention to vote by mail. The Courier Romanian, based on the commitment assumed in the alliance with AEP, also performs the service of delivery of the envelopes, which contain the ballots received from abroad, until December 3, at 11:59 p.m.

The effective distribution activity of the electoral envelopes sent by Romanian Post is carried out by each national postal operator, from the country where the Romanians from the diaspora have their residence.

However, in order to have enough time and in accordance with the legal provisions in force, Romanian Post sent, making available to all foreign postal administrations, the electoral envelopes between November 2 and 13. The algorithm for distributing the voting envelopes took into account the priority coverage of more distant countries and where the shipment was made by air, precisely so that the citizens of these countries have enough time to vote.

• These return envelopes are sent by foreign postal administrations (free of charge) or by private postal service operators (paid) with the option of returning electoral envelopes to Romania belonging exclusively to the voters.

Given the context of the pandemic, The Romanian Post, for the round of elections for the parliamentary elections, came to the aid of diaspora voters and made available for the process of sending and receiving ballots, dedicated road races, thus avoiding possible traffic disruptions. international air, generated by the suspension of certain flights.

From the moment foreign postal administrations receive the electoral envelopes, the distribution process in the destination country is carried out through the postal network in the respective countries. After receiving the electoral envelopes and expressing the vote of the Romanian citizens of the diaspora, they had at their disposal the following options to send the vote:

• Send or deliver the envelope containing the ballots to the embassies of the country of residence;
• Sending the envelope with the ballot papers, free of charge through the self-addressed envelope to Romania. Note that this type of return shipment has the status of a simple shipment, if the sender has not paid for an additional service, consequently these shipments cannot be monitored en route through the track and trace system.
• Mailing the envelope containing the ballot papers, for a fee, through a private postal service provider.

The process of collecting and sending the envelopes containing the ballots to Romania is carried out by the postal administrations of the countries of residence.

However, the Romanian Post, being part of the Universal Postal Union, maintained a constant dialogue with all foreign postal administrations in order to deal with priority all electoral postal timidities (both in the shipping and return process) for than the processing process to be accelerated.

Furthermore, in order to eliminate the unpredictability of air travel, Romanian Post used its own car services for the return of envelopes, delivered by foreign postal administrations in Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Moldova, Serbia, Bulgaria and Hungary, among others. the electoral envelopes of the countries sent directly by the foreign postal authorities.

At the same time, being in permanent contact both with foreign postal administrations and with Romanian citizens in the diaspora, the Romanian Post responded to all individual requests received from Romanian citizens who had not received the envelopes sent by the Post.

• Based on the legal provisions, the Romanian Post delivered to the ASP a total of 18,421 electoral envelopes, envelopes that arrived in Romania on Thursday, December 3 at 23:59, the deadline for receiving votes by mail. After the expiration of the deadline set by the electoral legislation in force, 1,092 envelopes were returned to Romania. In this sense, we value as a commendable progress the fact that AEP has introduced the information system for Romanian citizens in the diaspora whose envelopes were not received until December 3, thus facilitating the possibility of physical exercise for all Romanians alternative in the electoral college.

The Romanian Post supports the entire voting process and encourages the use of postal voting as a means of exercising fundamental democratic rights.

but nevertheless The Romanian Post cannot provide information on the effective expression of the right to vote for all citizens who have expressed this intention., Romanians in the diaspora, including the possibility that even if they chose to vote by mail, they would still choose to vote at physical polling stations or no longer cast their vote.

In particular with regard to requests for public information, we inform you that:

• 1. The Romanian Post prepared and mailed, between November 2 and 13, 2020, a total of 35,808 envelopes for vote-by-mail. according to the database received from the Permanent Electrotral Authority. In addition, 158 envelopes destined for the Romanian army in Afghanistan left Romania on 24 November. His delivery was made with an aircraft belonging to MAPN.
• 2. Regarding the acknowledgments of receipt, they must differentiate between:
  to. items with the standard acknowledgment form (for registered items, countries with which Romania does not have relations with EMS, a quantity of 172 items of this type) and
  b) EMS shipments for which the acknowledgment of receipt is electronic and is obtained only after an express request to the destination operators.
• 3. The number of envelopes that arrived in Romania until December 3, 2020 and were delivered to the 3 polling stations of the electoral districts is – 18,421 envelopes.
• Four. On December 2 – 5,414 envelopes were delivered to office 1, to office 2 – 5,283 envelopes respectively 5,344 to office number 3 The result is a total of 15,941 envelopes delivered on December 2.
• December 3 The following amounts of envelopes were delivered to the offices: office 1 – 785 envelopes, office 2,837 and office 3, 858 envelopes. The result is a total of 2,480 envelopes delivered on December 3.

We also mention the fact that throughout the electoral process, Romanian Post constantly collaborated with the postal operators of the destination countries, so that the distribution process of the envelopes with documents is completed as soon as possible. The request most frequently received by our partners was related to the telephone numbers of the recipients, to be able to contact them, information to which the Romanian Post did not have access.

We have registered approximately 250 complaints on various topics. Of these about 60 referred to the fact that shipments were blocked for reasons unknown to postal operators. We have had situations of this type in Hungary, France or Switzerland. After interventions by the Romanian Post, these items were unlocked and delivered to the recipients.

Another problem encountered was the refusal to receive the envelope in the mail on the grounds that it was not paid for. Please note that all postal administrations of the countries to which the ballot papers were sent have been informed that return envelopes are prepaid. This information was notified to AEP, the Romanian Post, contacting the postal administrations of the respective countries, and the problems were resolved (in the U.S, a citizen was asked for money to send the envelope with the ballot in Romania, and after the intervention of the company he received the money from the US post office).