A so called 'mini-census' to check the validity of the electoral rolls that were used for the July 29 referendum to impeach Romania's president will be carried out up until August 24, according to the country's Interior Ministry. Before resigning, interior minister Ioan Rus said local authorities will pay short, 'three-second' visits to people's houses to check if they actually live there. The Mayor of Bistrita announced that he also wants to take a census of the dogs living in the area - strays and pets.

By the end of August, the updated electoral lists should be sent to the Constitutional Court, which needs to give a verdict on the validity of the referendum, which didn't reach the needed 50 percent plus 1 threshold. The Court has indicated that updated electoral rolls were requested, not that the court had requested the updating electoral rolls. Thus, the Constitutional Court did not in fact request the mini census.

Romania organized a proper census in 2011, but its results are yet to be centralized. Some data was released in February, showing that the country's population had shrunk by 1.6 million. Romania had 21.6 million inhabitants in 2002, when the previous census was organized. The census in 2011 cost Romania some EUR 45 million and final data should be available in 2013.

The referendum at end July did not use data from this census. Electoral rolls were updated by City Halls.

editor@romania-insider.com

(photo source: sxc.hu)