The new amendments to the Election Code keep a series of special clauses for students, which, if they are applied with malicious intentions, could be a starting point for manipulating the election outcome in single-member constituencies in communities with a large number of voters, consider experts of Promo-LEX Association. In an analysis, these say that by a compactly placed vote, the students can decide the fate of elections in particular constituencies and there are thus legal preconditions for particular political forces to use this electoral potential, IPN reports.
The analysis says the election observation missions of Promo-LEX repeatedly recommended that the authorities should withdraw the special voting regime enjoyed by students in the parliamentary elections and should apply equal conditions for all the categories of voters. The Election Code stipulates that the students with the right to vote will be able to vote at any polling place in the town where they study. According to the experts, the Code does not yet impose rules that would ensure direct connection between the location of an education institution and the single-member constituency where the given institution is situated. Such a connection exists only between the institution and the settlement.
This way, in such large towns as Chisinau, where a large number of single-member constituencies will be set up, the students will be able to vote at polling places established near the institution, student dorms, rented accommodations or any other part of the town.
As regards the electoral potential of students with the right to vote, the experts say 390,985 voters of the 618, 76 written on the main electoral rolls or 63.25% voted in the single-member constituency Chisinau, except for the extraterritorial polling places, in the November 30, 2014 legislative elections. Under Article 74, the single-member constituencies on Moldova’s territory will be set up based on a relatively equal number of voters, ranging between 55,000 and 60,000 people with the right to vote. Thus, about ten single-member constituencies will be established in Chisinau municipality. Official statistics show that 66,691 students studied at universities and 18,190 at post-secondary professional education institutions in Chisinau municipality during the 2016-2017 academic year.
Therefore, the over 80,000 students eligible to vote represent an important electoral potential and these can decide the fate of elections in particular single-member constituencies. Thus, there are legal preconditions for particular forces to be tempted to use this electoral potential by stimulating and controlling the migration of students from one single-member constituency to another within the same settlement.
The experts recommend amending the Election Code to exclude the preferential right given to students, who can vote at any polling place in the town where they study, and to stipulate that these should vote at the place of domicile, to hold elections on a Saturday so as to enable students to travel home to vote and to have enough time to return to the place of studies, to provide public transport concessions to students to facilitate their movement to the place of domicile to vote.
