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 the annulation is indeed based purely on the social media algorithmic skew, then?