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Voting may be described as a recurring constitutional tradition, but not as a linear democratic tradition. The constitutionally enshrined phrase „the democratic traditions of the Romanian people”
acquires a particular meaning when tested against the history of voting. The distinction between historical tradition and constitutionalized tradition is essential: tradition may perform identity-related, legitimizing and interpretative functions, but it cannot be presumed from constitutional language alone. It must be verified through the relation between constitutional text, institutional practice and public consciousness. Romanian electoral history reveals an institutional continuity of voting accompanied by a persistent democratic discontinuity. Census-based suffrage, electoral colleges, male universal suffrage, the interwar electoral bonus, authoritarian plebiscites, the ritualized elections of the communist regime and the post-1991 democratic reconstruction each show a different way in which voting was preserved, transformed or distorted. In this sense, the democratic tradition of voting in Romania is not the history of an uninterrupted democratic practice, but the history of a recurring return to popular sovereignty as a necessary language of political legitimacy. Contemporary digital distortions (i.e. microtargeting, psychological profiling, bots, astroturfing, deepfakes, disinformation, etc.) add a new layer to this fragile tradition. The protection of voting must therefore extend beyond the ballot itself and include the informational and cognitive conditions under which electoral will is formed.
