The President of the Permanent Electoral Authority (AEP), Toni Grebla, declared, in an interview granted to AGERPRES, that he entered the right line with the organization of the May 4 presidential elections. The head of AEP recommends to the candidates who will enter the race for Cotroceni Palace to look carefully at the law, to have „this culture of respecting the legal provisions”, and to the voters to come to the polls in as large a number as possible.
Grebla specified that this year’s elections will be held, „from a technical point of view, as the others were held”. He added, however, that the problem is more complicated with regard to online advertising, because the law only regulates the advertising made by political competitors. „The messages sent between individuals, between natural persons, if they do not represent electoral political advertising, not really can be censored, because it is about the freedom of expression of every citizen, which cannot be fenced, neither by the decision of the AEP, nor by an administrative measure”, explained, in the interview, the president of the AEP.
Toni Grebla also referred to the measures in case of a cyber attack on the electoral infrastructure, mentioning that the AEP database is stored in seven servers, located in seven locations. „It is impossible that a cyber attack, which would even compromise the database on one server, could attack, at the same time, all the servers. So, the other six servers remain untouched with the database. We don’t keep all the hatched eggs in the same basket,” Grebla pointed out.
The chairman of AEP also says that he does not regret anything in the organization of last year’s elections. „Absolutely nothing. The authority carried out all its activities to organize and so that, from a technical point of view, I repeat, from a technical point of view, the elections take place normally,” he emphasized.
AGERPRES: The presidential election period started on February 18. At what stage are you with the preparation of the May elections? How many polling stations will there be? And the Government adopted a budget in the amount of over 1.186 billion lei for these elections.
Toni Grebla: Right from the beginning, I specify that all the normative acts necessary for the organization and conduct of the elections were adopted by the Government. On Thursday, the last two normative acts were adopted through Government decisions, which establish the level of expenses and the program of technical measures necessary to carry out the activities, more precisely the activities that each institution carries out for the smooth running of the elections, respectively the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Institute of Statistics, the Special Telecommunications Service, other institutions and authorities of the state, the Reserves of State, Monitorul Oficial, ANI, CNSAS and so on.
And so we enter in a straight line. Today (ed.n – Thursday) the five judges from the High Court who will be part of the Central Electoral Bureau were drawn. They elect the president and deputy of the Central Electoral Bureau. Then, probably during the day of Friday, the Central Electoral Bureau will be completed with legal representatives, with legal members of the Permanent Electoral Authority, the president and the two vice-presidents, as members of the Central Electoral Bureau, and, immediately after this, with the seven representatives of the seven parliamentary political parties.
The period in which documents can be submitted that show that electoral alliances or political alliances have been concluded also starts from Friday. The term is very short. It expires this Sunday at 11:59 p.m. So that the representatives of future, possible electoral or political alliances must register as such, submit the document establishing the alliances and the possible logo under which they are running until Sunday, February 23, at 11:59 p.m. Then, we enter the usual calendar, which involves several activities, the most important of which are: at any time, after this date, candidacies can be submitted, the candidacy files for the political competitors who will enter the presidential race, a period that ends on March 15.
AGERPRES: There are new regulations regarding voting abroad, that it will not continue after the polling stations in the country were closed on election Sunday.
Toni Grebla: There is only one change in the sense that on Friday (May 2 – ed.n) voting started at 12:00, now it starts at 7:00 in the morning, so there are 5 more hours in which Romanian citizens who will be abroad on May 4 can vote at any of the voting stations abroad, starting on Friday, 7:00 a.m., local time of each polling station, and voting will end on Sunday (May 4 – ed.n), at 9:00 p.m., local time of Romania. There is also the possibility that where there are people who have not yet had time to vote on each of these three days, i.e. Friday evening, Saturday evening, Sunday evening, that the president of the polling station office may extend the voting until 24:00, I repeat, if there are citizens in the station or in the yard of the polling station waiting in line to vote.
AGERPRES: There were complaints and accusations that the right to vote in the diaspora was affected. What was the reason for this change?
Toni Grebla: Because it was noticed that, after the presentation of the exit polls, at 21:00, Romanian time, there are political competitors who have a tendency to continue the electoral campaign, to make appeals to citizens to bring them to the polls in order to vote for a certain political competitor and, for this reason, this measure was taken so that, after the exit polls are presented, the election can no longer take place. I want to say that this affects only the voting stations or, mainly, the voting stations in the United States and Canada, where in the elections of November 24, approximately 26,000 citizens voted after 21:00 local time of Romania. So it is not a very, very big weight in this regard, and the few hours that are lost for the voting stations abroad, in the United States and Canada, are compensated by practically 5 hours on Friday, when the voting time was extended.
I would also like to assure Romanian citizens who are abroad that they can vote, based on a valid identity document issued by the Romanian state, anywhere, at any polling station abroad, regardless of whether or not they have their domicile or residence established abroad, and also regardless of whether they are registered in the permanent electoral lists for abroad or not.
AGERPRES: Regarding the monitoring of the financing of the electoral campaign of the candidates, what sanctions and what new measures are there, considering what happened last time when there were candidates with zero expenses, such as Calin Georgescu?
Toni Grebla: So, there is a provision in the law that has remained unchanged, in the sense that political competitors, before the start of the electoral campaign, have the obligation to appoint a financial trustee. The financial representative receives an identification code from the AEP and he has the obligation to declare all the income he makes in the electoral campaign and all the expenses he makes in the electoral campaign to the Permanent Electoral Authority within three days from the date he collected the income or incurred the expense. This is an obligation incumbent on the candidates and the financial trustee. What was pursued by the recent emergency ordinance? That the electoral advertising materials, which are intended for offline and online use, include a set of data that leads to the identification of the electoral competitor, the financial trustee and also, as the case may be, the circulation number or that it represents electoral political advertising, so that the citizens, in the knowledge of the matter, see that that material belongs to a certain candidate and represents electoral political advertising.
AGERPRES: Does AEP guarantee that the elections will be more transparent, fairer?
Toni Grebla: It is not possible… I repeat, the elections will be held, from a technical point of view, as the others were held, that is, without any kind of contestation and without any kind of incidents. But, in connection with online advertising, which is probably what you are referring to, know that the problem is a bit more complicated, because the law only regulates the advertising made by political competitors. The messages sent between individuals, between natural persons, if they do not represent electoral political advertising, cannot really be censored, because it is about the freedom of expression of every citizen, which cannot be restricted, neither by the decision of the AEP, nor by an administrative measure. So, what represents electoral advertising material, which is not appropriated by a certain political competitor, which does not have identification data on it, will be, through a procedure, these materials will be removed from the platform, through a decision of the Central Electoral Bureau, a decision which is transmitted to the immediate authority, to the Permanent Electoral Authority, we in turn transmit it to the online platform, which has the obligation that, within a very in short, to remove the respective material from the site, from the platform.
AGERPRES: Sanctions are foreseen for online platforms, fines between 1% and 5% of turnover if they do not remove materials that do not comply with the law within 5 hours.
Toni Grebla: Those are sanctions that the European Commission can apply if it finds that the provisions given by the state authorities, in our case, by the Romanian authorities, have not been respected. Only the European Commission can. The Permanent Electoral Authority, if it finds such materials that do not comply with the requirements of the law, may order the confiscation of their value and apply a contravention fine between 10,000 and 50,000 RON.
AGERPRES: How will a potential cyber attack on the electoral infrastructure be responded to this time?
Toni Grebla: I want to tell you that in all the elections that we held in 2024, including the presidential elections of November 24, the Permanent Electoral Authority, on the circuit for transmitting documents to the IT infrastructure of the Permanent Electoral Authority, no cyber attack was registered that compromised, deleted, or altered the database that the Permanent Electoral Authority processed it. So that, what was established in the polling station, as a result of the vote, you can find them on the website of the Permanent Electoral Authority, they were processed almost instantly by the computer system and posted on the website of the Electoral Authority and the Central Electoral Bureau. There was no dispute regarding the accuracy of the voting data on November 24.
Cyber ??attacks exist all over the world. Every computer system is attacked dozens, hundreds, thousands of times, almost every day. The problem is if these cyber attacks, because a cyber attack means any unjustified attempt to enter a database, even by mistake if I say so, the important thing is that the measures we have taken, through antivirus programs, by the fact that we use the so-called blockchain system, that is, we store the database in seven large servers, which are located in seven different, special locations, not in the same location, and it is impossible for a cyber attack that would even compromise the database in one server to be able to attack all servers at the same time. So, the other servers remain, the other six servers untouched with the database. We don’t keep all our eggs in one basket.
So, even if the database is altered on one server, there are six other servers that in turn are connected to a central server from the European Commission, precisely to secure the database in the event of a successful cyber attack.
AGERPRES: The President of the Constitutional Court said that the determining irregularities for the annulment of the election last November concerned the equal opportunities of the candidates, the financing of the campaign and the influencing of the vote. Currently, are there enough tools to prevent getting into this situation? Would other measures be necessary?
Toni Grebla: I can tell you what the Permanent Electoral Authority has. Several state institutions are involved in the organization and running of the elections. As a result, we, as the Authority, can only do what the Central Electoral Bureau decides to do in such a way that that illegal electoral propaganda is removed from the big platforms. We don’t have the structure, we don’t have the legal competence, we don’t have the staff, we don’t have the technical equipment, we don’t have legal provisions that would allow us to check every website of the people, the users of such a large platform, as is known in the specialized literature, to see everything… in real time such measures should be taken, because it is not the attribute of the Permanent Electoral Authority. I don’t know how other state institutions will act.
AGERPRES: From the point of view of AEP, are additional measures necessary?
Toni Grebla: Measures can always be taken to secure such a process as best as possible. But each institution has its competence. I cannot, by my will or that of the Electoral Authority, close what you have on I don’t know which platform. We are dealing with the electoral campaign and political competitors, to be clear.
AGERPRES: From this point of view, do you have any self-criticism about the organization of the last election?
Toni Grebla: Absolutely nothing, absolutely nothing. The authority did and carried out all its activities to organize and so that, from a technical point of view, I repeat, from a technical point of view, the elections take place normally.
AGERPRES: But several NGOs and some parties, such as USR, asked you to resign. How do you comment?
Toni Grebla: And what is the problem? Everyone is free to do what they think. It’s freedom of speech.
AGERPRES: What message do you send to the voters, but also to the candidates who will enter the electoral race for these presidential elections, in the context where there is a public perception of distrust in the Romanian electoral system?
Toni Grebla: I would recommend, I would suggest the candidates to look carefully at the law, that we all have this habit, this culture of respecting the legal provisions, to carry out their campaign in such a way that the political programs, what they want to achieve after they have been elected, convince the citizens that they are worthy of this responsibility that they have assume. For the rest, I suggest the voters to come to the polls in as large a number as possible and to cast their vote as they think is best for Romania.
AGERPRES
