The local elections to take place in Romania this June and the parliamentary elections to be organized in September will come with a novelty: computerized polling stations.

The new system will monitor the number of voters and will prevent illegal voting.

Within this project, those who want to vote will no longer present their ID cards to members of the polling stations as it has been done before, but to a computer operator. The system will indicate if the person has reached the age of 18, if he has lost his right to vote, if he should vote at another voting station, or if he has already exercised his right to vote in the same election, reports local Agerpres.

Based on the results generated by the system, the president of the polling station’s electoral office can stop the voting process if the person in question hasn’t reached the age of 18 or no longer has the right to vote. The president can also direct the person to the polling station where he should vote, based on his address, or can add him on the additional list.

At least 30,000 people should be trained to operate this system, and the Permanent Electoral Authority (AEP) has already launched a recruiting campaign.

According to recent data from AEP, 18.27 million Romanian citizens have the right to vote as of January 4, 2016, slightly lower than on December 3, 2015, when there were 18.28 million registered voters.

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Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com