Financiarul

As many as 66 percent of Romanian believe elections get rigged and 19 percent believe the contrary, reveal the findings of a poll conducted November 7-11 by the Company for Sociological Research and Branding (CCSB) commissioned by the Pro Democarcy Association (APD), released on Tuesday.

APD Chairman Cristian Pirvulescu says that in May, 52 percent of Romanian believed the elections get rigged and 33 percent the contrary. In the respondents’ opinion, the ways of rigging the elections in Romania are distributing mayoral aids before election, direct vote buying, bussing, changing the outcome of the election in the polling precinct.

The respondents believe the efficient means of countering vote-rigging would be tougher penalties for vote rigging; toughening authority control; introducing voter’s cards and making their use mandatory, introducing mandatory voting. As many as 49 percent of Romanians disagree with the introduction of mandatory voting and 46 percent are for it.

Pirvulescu says 70 percent of the respondents are against rescinding the vote age to 16, and 24 percent are for. Men believe more than women that the elections get rigged, 69 percent to 64 percent. By age brackets, 78 percent of those aged 18 to 29 believe the elections get rigged, and so do 66 percent of those aged 30 to 44; 68 percent of those aged 49 to 59 and 57 percent of those aged 60 and above.

As far as the academic attainment of the respondents and the perception of vote fraud is concerned, 56 percent of those with a primary school background believe the elections are rigged, and so do 72 percent of those with a high school background and 66 percent of those with a university background.

As many as 63 percent of those saying they vote the Democratic-Liberal Party (PD-L); 71 percent of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) voters; 74 of the National Liberal Party voters; 68 percent of the Greater Romania Party (PRM) voters ; 77 percent of the Christian Democratic New Generation Party (PNG-CD) as well as 71 percent of the supporters of the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR) believe the elections are rigged.

The poll was conducted, November 7-11, on a representative sample of 1,348 persons. It carries an error margin of 2.7 percent and a probability accuracy of 95 percent.