Where the UVR Commission stands as the 31 May deadline nears

The UVR Commission is operational. It has adopted its rules of procedure, work plan, budget, and audit methodology, reaching consensus among its members, and has begun initial activities such as visits to local self-government units. By its own estimate, however, only the preparatory phase is complete; the substantive verification of the register has not yet started.

The obstacle is data access. The methodology, adopted unanimously in April, rests on aggregate analysis of the register, review of the record of changes, document-based validation of entries, and cross-checking against source registries. The access actually granted is limited to looking up one voter at a time, with no way to aggregate data, see the history of changes, or cross-reference registries in bulk. By CRTA's analysis, of roughly ninety sub-procedures in the methodology, only a narrow subset can be carried out under these conditions - and even those fall short of the threshold the Commission set for its own findings.

The Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government (MDULS), which manages the register, has so far not provided the access the law guarantees. Talks with ministries, the Government, and Parliament in April produced verbal assurances and some initial steps, but no substantive delivery. Critical categories - records of changes, system logs, citizenship and residence data, and cross-check registries - remain entirely inaccessible.
A recent proposal by members tied to the ruling majority would send the Commission to verify around 1,300 voters listed as aged 100 or older - 0.02 percent of the electorate - through field visits. CRTA notes that this reverses the Commission's own methodology, which places field verification last, after documentary analysis; roughly a quarter of those names can be resolved on paper, since they are not even in the citizenship register. Activity of this kind, however visible, does not move the audit forward.

The stakes are immediate. Under its work plan, the Commission faces possible automatic termination if data access is not secured by 31 May 2026, with the first audit report due to Parliament in October. Without full access, no amount of procedural or symbolic activity can substitute for the comprehensive, independent audit the register needs.