Voting started in Romania presidential elections

Voting started in Romania’s second round of presidential elections on Sunday, with 18 million voters choosing between incumbent president Traian Basescu, who runs for a second five-year term, and Social Democratic Party leader Mircea Geoana. Voting started at 7.00 local time and is due to end at 9.00 p.m., when exit polls are due to be announced.

In the first round of elections in November, Traian basescu received 32.44% of the votes and Mircea Geoana – 31.15%.

Voters have one ballot to put their stamp on, which includes to rectangles – one with the name of Mircea Geoana and one with the name of Traian Basescu. They have a total of 21.706 voting sections available across the country and 294 sections in 94 other countries, according to data provided by the Foreign Ministry.

In Bucharest, 1.256 polling stations are organised with 1.8 million voters invited to choose a president. Special sections across the country, where citizens who are not in their home town during the election day can vote, are monitored with web and video cameras to prevent possible irregularities. Very crowded special sections were the subject of speculation about possible fraud during the first round of the elections.

The first to vote were Romanian citizens in New Zealand.

In Romania, leading politicians including candidates Traian Basescu and Mircea Geoana were among the first to cast their ballots on Sunday morning.

And in the Republic of Moldova, turnout in the early morning was four times higher than in the first round, with some 1,600 people casting their votes by 9 a.m.