First of all, the main way Romanian elections work are based on manual counting of ballots, in the presence of representatives from all political parties and outside observers, filled in on paper forms signed by all who observed the count. Then all those paper forms are centralized at the district (județ) level, and then to the central electoral bureau. This is all done on hand, with paper forms, with numerous observers all along the process. There is a digital process based on scanning these paper forms, but that is only done to report partial results faster to the public (and the count only happens after the vote has ended everywhere in the country, so false information in the partial results can't influence other voters).
So, even if the digital systems had been entirely compromised and under Russian control, that wouldn't have mattered one iota for the final results. And even after all this, a full hand recount was carried out last week which found the same results, with very little difference and no doubt whatsoever that CG won more votes than any other candidate).
And even the news stories you shared, which are anyway irrelevant to the final paper results, have misunderstood what our authorities are saying. The part of the our secret services which handles the cybernetic parts of the election (named the STS, Special Tellecomunications Service) has been very explicit, both in public declarations and in the classified briefing they gave to the President, that there were no risks to the core infrastructure, and that checks have been made before, during, and after the elections to confirm this.
Interesting. I appreciate you taking the time to lay this out; as all I have to go off of is global news articles, if those misunderstand Romanian authorities, then I'm not getting good information.
So the annulation is indeed based purely on the social media algorithmic skew, then?
Edit: the motivation was just published [0], here is a translation of the most relevant part:
> In the present case, the Court notes that, according to the aforementioned "Information Notes", the main aspects imputed to the electoral process regarding the election of the President of Romania in 2024 are those regarding the manipulation of the vote of voters and the distortion of equal opportunities for electoral competitors, through the non-transparent use and in violation of electoral legislation of digital technologies and artificial intelligence in the conduct of the electoral campaign, as well as through the financing of the electoral campaign from undeclared sources, including online.
The court has not yet published the motivation of its decision (its expected to be published tonight), so we're not sure yet.
Still, given that the same court unanimously decided on Dec 2nd, after receiving the results of a full recount, that the vote was fair and that the first round was valid, it seems extremely unlikely that they would cast any doubt on the vote count today.
Also, all of the discussions in the local press are about Russian influence on the campaign process. This includes allegations of algorithmic skew by Tik Tok, allegations that Tik Tok ignored Romanian campaign laws that require electoral clips to proeminently show some registration numbers, of illegal contributions to CG's campaign (including foreign, probably Russian, financing), of foreign nationals (again, probably Russians) coordinating to spread his campaign on Tik Tok and other social media, etc. The Supreme Council for National Defense (CSAT) papers that were declassified that triggered this late decision by the court were mostly about this.
To my mind, all of these might well have been disqualifying before the election, but give that the people have voted for him fairly, even if manipulated through social media, it's absurd to cancel the entire process and restart it. Especially considering that this will move the elections to at least February or March, months past the regular end of the current President's term. Consider also the huge costs for redoing this whole election, which we as taxpayers will cover.
I will note that the campaign financing fraud allegation is almost self-evidently true itself - CG has filed in official papers that his campaign was run for 0 RON. The fact that the authorities who received these filings months ago were unable or unwilling to do anything about it is absurd. I still don't believe that canceling the entire process when it was two days away from finishing is an acceptable moment to right this.
So, even if the digital systems had been entirely compromised and under Russian control, that wouldn't have mattered one iota for the final results. And even after all this, a full hand recount was carried out last week which found the same results, with very little difference and no doubt whatsoever that CG won more votes than any other candidate).
And even the news stories you shared, which are anyway irrelevant to the final paper results, have misunderstood what our authorities are saying. The part of the our secret services which handles the cybernetic parts of the election (named the STS, Special Tellecomunications Service) has been very explicit, both in public declarations and in the classified briefing they gave to the President, that there were no risks to the core infrastructure, and that checks have been made before, during, and after the elections to confirm this.