A mayor from Prahova, sent to court for falsifying electoral documents in favor of the PNL, is running for the sixth mandate, but from the PSD

The mayor of Ciorani, Prahov commune, Voicu Marin, sent to court for falsifying electoral documents, in favor of the National Liberal Party, in the local elections of 2020, is now running on the PSD side for the sixth term of mayor and for the Local Council of the Ciorani commune, reports News .ro.

Voicu Marin, one of the longest-serving mayors in Prahova county, sent to court in a case whose object is “falsification of electoral documents and records”, a case in which several people have already signed plea agreements, is running for a new mandate from the PSD, after, in the 2020 elections, he ran under the PNL logo, the party in favor of which he is accused of having rigged the elections.

Electoral office of municipal constituency no. 39 Ciorani, Prahova county admitted, on Friday, the candidacy proposal of Marin Voicu for the position of mayor of Ciorani commune, formulated by PSD. Voicu is also the first on the list of candidates for the Local Council from the PSD in Ciorani.

For a long time, Marin Voicu, in his fifth term, which he obtained with 83.18% of the votes, was the mayor with the highest electoral score in the local elections, at the level of Prahova county. After four mandates in which he ran for PSD, in 2020 he switched to PNL supporting Iulian Dumitrescu for the presidency of the Prahova County Council.

How Marin Voicu allegedly defrauded the 2020 local elections

In October 2020, a few months after the local elections, Prahov prosecutors began to investigate a possible fraud regarding the result of the elections in Ciorani commune, at the local poll. During this investigation, in the spring of 2021, the theft of bags with ballot papers from the archive of the Mizil Court was found. There were ballot papers from Ciorani, where the mayor had still obtained a remarkable electoral score, and the National Liberal Party, which for years had had modest electoral results in the elections from Ciorani, had managed to obtain a record score of 76.12% of the votes for Local council.

On June 9, 2021, the prosecutors descended on the Ciorani City Hall, but also on the residences of the mayor Voicu Marin and several of his close associates, many of them employees of the City Hall. 17 people were accused of vote fraud in the 2020 local elections.

• “From the images captured by the STS tablets, it follows that none of them have absolutely any criminal record, they are natural in what they do. They are naturals when they stamp ballots that were actually void, they are naturals when they move ballots from pile XXXX to pile XXX, taking advantage of the fact that XXXX’s precinct representative takes other ballots from the ballot box, they are naturals when shouts a different political option than the one expressed on the ballot, are natural when holding ballots assigned to XXXX but place them over the ballots of XXX or XXX, are natural when requesting to change the focus area of ​​the tablet camera STS in order not to notice the criminal activity, they are natural when they place the void ballots or those assigned to XXXX over the votes assigned to other candidates/formations, they are natural when they laugh about their own way of rigging the elections (in the case of the members of the vote no. 375), it is stated in the reasoning of the Prahova Tribunal, which decided on the preventive arrest of 16 of the 17 defendants, including the mayor Marin Voicu.

According to the document, “what stands out in the manner in which the defendants acted in this case is the very crude manner in which they acted, “stealing” voters’ votes without any resentment, the way of organization and operation being a chaotic one, without respecting in any way like the legal provisions”.

During the investigation, some of the defendants signed plea agreements, admitting the facts they were accused of. Not the mayor Marian Voicu. He escaped arrest, was sent to court, the case is pending before the Buzău Court, and the mayor re-enrolled in the PSD.

Marin Voicu, suspected of defrauding the parliamentary elections

In the meantime, the prosecutors opened a new file on his name, this time suspecting him of having also defrauded the parliamentary elections. In this file, by the ordinance dated 22.03.2024, it was decided to confirm the further execution of the criminal prosecution against 51 persons, who had duties regarding the organization of the parliamentary elections of 06.12.2020, from Ciorani commune, Prahova county, among which also towards Marin Voicu.

The call was interrupted before PSD leader Prahova explained why he supports Voicu Marin

Contacted by phone, the PSD Prahova president, Virgiliu Nanu, candidate from the formation for the presidency of the Prahova County Council, confirmed for News.ro the candidacy of Voicu Marin from the PSD.

When he was asked what exactly determined PSD to support a candidate sent to court, the call was interrupted, and Virgiliu Nanu could no longer be contacted for explanations regarding PSD’s decision to support the accused mayor.