Moldova's diaspora tipped the scales in a pivotal election. Critics question the vote's validity

CHISINAU, Moldova (AP) — Moldovans living abroad voted in record numbers in a presidential runoff that secured victory for pro-Western President Maia Sandu, in a pivotal race that pitted her against a Russia-friendly opponent amid ongoing claims of Russian interference, voter fraud, and intimidation.

Sandu's win, on a campaign promise to advance Moldova's candidacy for European Union membership, was a major boon for the pro-Western government, which strongly backed her candidacy.

However, her opponents claim her victory relied too much on Moldovans living outside the country — which has a population of about 2.5 million, excluding expatriates — to be considered legitimate.

With 100% of ballots counted in the second round of Sunday's presidential election, Sandu obtained 55.33% of the vote, according to the Central Electoral Commission, compared to 44.67% for Alexandr Stoianoglo, who was backed by the pro-Russia Party of Socialists.

A record number of 327,000 voters cast ballots abroad in the runoff, more than 82% of whom favored Sandu. But inside Moldova, Stoianoglo, a former prosecutor general, obtained 51.3% of the vote, compared to Sandu's 48.67%.

Although the former Soviet republic signed a deal with the EU in 2014 to forge closer political and economic ties, years of rampant corruption and lack of reform hindered development, and an exodus of hundreds of thousands of citizens sought better futures abroad.

Former president Igor Dodon, the leader of the pro-Moscow Party of Socialists, was quick to question Sandu’s electoral victory by telling Russia’s state news agency, TASS, that she has become “a president of the diaspora” and suggested it undermined the vote, noting Stoianoglo “won the presidential elections inside the country.”

Dodon's party stated in a post on social media on Monday that it did not recognize the results, calling Sandu “an illegitimate president, recognized only by her sponsors and supporters abroad” and claimed Moldovans “feel betrayed and robbed."

Cristian Cantir, a Moldovan associate professor of international relations at Oakland University, told the AP that the reaction from pro-Moscow politicians “was to be expected” since they have “criticized the diaspora vote in the past, especially votes by Moldovans" residing in Western countries.

“This message about illegitimacy and the diaspora will be used to amplify one specific Kremlin talking point," he said, “that pro-EU politicians aren’t actually popular in Moldova, and that they’re only staying in power with support from the diaspora in the West, as well as Western countries.”

Moldova's diaspora also played a key role in a national referendum on Oct. 20, when a razor-thin majority of 50.35% voted to secure Moldova’s path toward EU membership. Like Georgia and neighboring Ukraine, Moldova aspires to join the EU but is caught in a constant geopolitical tug between Moscow and the West.

In a victory statement early Monday, Sandu told voters they had “given a lesson in democracy, worthy of being written in history books” and also noted the significant role the diaspora played in her reelection.

“Our diaspora has given us yet another lesson today, one that we should all learn from,” said Sandu, a former World Bank official. “Moldovans abroad have shown once again that Moldova beats as strongly in their hearts as it does in ours back home.”

She also went on to say that the vote had been overshadowed by an “unprecedented attack” through alleged schemes including dirty money, vote-buying, and electoral interference “by hostile forces from outside the country” and criminal groups.

The results of both the October ballots and Sunday’s runoff were indeed dogged by allegations of a major vote-buying scheme, Russian interference, and voter intimidation — which exposed Moldova’s judiciary as unable to adequately protect the democratic process.

In the wake of the two October votes, Moldovan law enforcement said that a vote-buying scheme was orchestrated by Ilan Shor, an exiled oligarch who lives in Russia and was convicted in absentia last year of fraud and money laundering. Shor denies any wrongdoing.

Prosecutors say $39 million was paid to more than 130,000 recipients through an internationally sanctioned Russian bank to voters between September and October. Anti-corruption authorities have conducted hundreds of searches and seized over $2.7 million (2.5 million euros) in cash as they attempt to crack down.

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, congratulated Sandu on the win “despite unprecedented interference by Russia, including with vote-buying schemes and disinformation,” which he said had “sought to undermine the country’s democratic institutions and its EU path.”

“I hope the government will understand the results, especially the one obtained on Moldovan soil that was a negative one for them, both in the referendum and the presidential election,” 20-year-old student Artur, who did not give his surname, said in Chisinau on Monday, referring to the more than 50% support for Stoianoglo from voters within Moldova. “Maybe they’ll change things for the wellbeing of Moldova.”

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moldova applied to join the EU. It was granted candidate status in June of that year, and in summer 2024, Brussels agreed to start membership negotiations. The sharp westward shift irked Moscow and significantly soured relations with Chisinau.

The pro-Western government led by the Party of Action and Solidarity has been in power in Moldova since 2021, and a parliamentary election will be held in 2025. Moldova watchers warn that next year’s vote could be Moscow’s main target.

Mihai Mogaldea, the deputy director at the Chisinau-based Institute for European Policies and Reforms think tank, told the AP on Monday that the EU should focus on extending more funds to Moldova to “produce an immediate effect on people’s lives.”

“We must understand that we only won a battle,” he said, “and the war will continue till after the parliamentary election — and actually that’s where all Russia’s bets are on.”

McGrath reported from Bucharest, Romania. Associated Press reporter Vadim Ghirda in Chisinau, Moldova, contributed to this report.

A woman casts her vote in a mobile ballot box during a presidential election runoff, in the village of Ciopleni, Moldova, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

A woman wipes her eyes before casting her vote in a mobile ballot box during a presidential election runoff, in the village of Ciopleni, Moldova, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

Alexandr Stoianoglo, from left, presidential candidate of the Socialists' Party of Moldova (PSRM), watches his daughters Cristina and Corina cast their votes during a presidential election runoff, in Chisinau, Moldova, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

Alexandr Stoianoglo, presidential candidate of the Socialists' Party of Moldova (PSRM) gestures after casting his vote, in Chisinau, Moldova, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024, during a presidential election runoff. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

Moldova's President Maia Sandu claps her hands next to media as preliminary results are announced for the presidential election runoff in Chisinau, Moldova, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

Moldova's President Maia Sandu smiles while holding a bouquet of flowers as she celebrates with supporters the preliminary results of the presidential election runoff, in Chisinau, Moldova, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

Moldova's President Maia Sandu celebrates with supporters as preliminary results are announced for the presidential election runoff in Chisinau, Moldova, late Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

Moldova's President Maia Sandu smiles after winning a second term in a pivotal presidential runoff against a Russia-friendly opponent in Chisinau, Moldova, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

A woman walks by graffiti done in 2016 by Moldovan artists celebrating 25 years since the country declared its independence from the Soviet Union, in Chisinau, Moldova, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

The presidential campaign comes down to a final push across a handful of states on the eve of Election Day.

Kamala Harris will spend all of Monday in Pennsylvania, whose 19 electoral votes offer the largest prize among the states expected to determine the Electoral College outcome. Donald Trump plans four rallies in three states, beginning in Raleigh, North Carolina and stopping twice in Pennsylvania with events in Reading and Pittsburgh.

Follow the AP’s Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

Here's the latest:

Unions knocking on doors on behalf of Vice President Kamala Harris are finding what they say is an effective line of attack against Republican Donald Trump — that he’ll defund Social Security.

The former U.S. president has said he would make Social Security income tax-free. That’s problematic because those revenues help to fund the program and the loss of that money means Social Security would be unable to pay out its full benefits in fiscal year 2031, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a fiscal watchdog.

“That’s one of the big issues for our folks,” said Laura Dickerson, the United Auto Worker’s Region 1A director in Michigan. “People need to think about that they do not want to fully fund Social Security.”

The UAW has twice as many staff working on turnout compared to 2020 and 2016, enabling the union to directly contact all of its members and retirees and families of its members in support of Harris.

Donald Trump seemed to reference the video that nearly sank his 2016 campaign as he expressed amazement at how two giant mechanical arms caught Elon Musk’s reusable rocket — “like you grab your beautiful baby.”

“See, I’ve gotten much better. Years ago I would have said something else. But I’ve learned,” Trump said, prompting laughs from his crowd in Raleigh, North Carolina. “I would have been a little bit more risqué.”

Trump’s 2016 campaign was nearly derailed by the “Access Hollywood” tape, in which he was caught bragging about grabbing women by their genitals.

On Saturday, Trump made a similar remark, saying that in the old days, he would have said the movement of the rocket-catching arms was “like you grab your ... girlfriend.”

Trump has been expressing amazement at Musk’s engineering feat in which mechanical SpaceX arms caught a Starship rocket booster after it returned to Earth.

Musk has spent tens of millions of dollars helping to elect Trump.

Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller would not rule out the possibility that Trump once again might declare victory in the election before news outlets have determined the winner.

News organizations, including The Associated Press, will call the winner of the election when a candidate has won at least 270 Electoral College votes needed to be elected president.

Pressed by reporters Monday, Miller only said Trump “will declare victory when we’re confident we have 270 electoral votes that we need.”

In 2020, Trump falsely declared victory from the White House before the final result was known. Trump lost the 2020 election but has refused to accept it.

Trump took the stage in Raleigh, North Carolina, calling the Southeast state “ours to lose,” on a marathon final day of campaigning.

He began by railing against the Biden administration over immigration, attacking the Democratic president and Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s opponent, for crime he attributes to illegal immigration.

Trump sounded confident, telling his audience, “With North Carolina, I’ve always gotten there.”

“Here’s my only purpose in even being here today: Get out and vote,” Trump said, loudly but hoarsely.

After Raleigh, he's expected to head to Pennsylvania, perhaps the biggest prize on the electoral map, for rallies in Reading and Pittsburgh.

Trump has taken the stage to roaring applause in Raleigh, North Carolina — and the arena is now much fuller than it was an hour ago, with only a smattering of empty seats.

He sounds a little hoarse after a busy campaign schedule that will include another three stops later Monday.

Trump says of the presidential race: “It’s ours to lose.”

The joint statement Monday by the National Association of Secretaries of State and the National Association of State Election Directors said election officials have been working for four years to prepare for the Nov. 5 presidential election and have devoted “extensive time, energy and resources to safeguard America’s elections.”

They cautioned that “operational issues” could happen, such as polling places opening late or long lines at voting locations, but election officials have contingency plans to address these.

They also urged the public to be patient, saying “accurately counting millions of ballots takes time” and noting recounts may be needed for close races.

More than a dozen counties in the presidential battleground of Pennsylvania have received bulk challenges from conservative activists to voters’ mail-in ballot applications that voting rights lawyers and Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration say are illegal.

The deadline to challenge a voter based on their residency in Pennsylvania was Friday, but voting rights lawyers say such challenges must be individualized and be supported by credible evidence.

The challenges — to more than 4,000 voters total — are based on “theories that courts have repeatedly rejected and appear to be two separate, coordinated efforts to undermine confidence in the Nov. 5 election,” Shapiro’s Department of State said in a statement.

Many of those voters also received form letters from the activists urging them to cancel their registration. Some challenges target voters living overseas, while others target voters who appeared in the U.S. Postal Service’s change-of-address database.

RALEIGH, N.C. — From what Noah Frederick, 23, has seen in the lead-up to Election Day, he thinks Trump is going to win the presidency. He attends Duke University as an electrical engineering student but cast his mail-in ballot for his home state of Pennsylvania about two weeks ago.

Something Frederick said surprised him is that several friends from his hometown of Pottsville who used to be more “Democrat-friendly” are now pro-Trump. His decision to cast his ballot for Trump came a few months ago when former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney endorsed Kamala Harris.

“Their supporting (of) Kamala kind of tells kind of tells you all you need to know about her foreign policy and Trump’s,” he said.

Frederick said there was “no way” he would have voted for Harris because of foreign policy issues and the Biden administration’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

RALEIGH, N.C. — A smattering of Trump’s supporters are once again wearing yellow and orange safety vests to his rally — copying the uniform Trump donned last week when he climbed aboard a garbage truck to draw attention to President Joe Biden’s comments calling his supporters “garbage.”

Among them was Trey Gainey, 21, a barber from nearby Clinton.

“Joe Biden called us supporters ‘garbage’ so I decided to show up like I saw Trump do,” he said as he waited for the former president to take the stage in Raleigh.

Gainey, who said he cast his ballot for Trump on the first day of early voting, said he’s confident Trump will emerge the winner, but is worried about a nebulous force interfering.

“I feel like Trump already beat Kamala. I feel like now we have to beat the people we can’t see,” he said.

RALEIGH, N.C. — There are plenty of empty seats at the Raleigh, North Carolina, arena where Trump is kicking off a busy last day of campaigning, with four rallies planned across three battleground states.

Trump was scheduled to take the stage at 10 a.m. at the J.S. Dorton Arena, a 5,000-seat venue with additional seating on the floor.

Trump has held events in North Carolina each of the past three days, underscoring the importance of a state he carried in both 2016 and 2020.

More people are still filing in so the arena could fill up more by the time Trump takes the stage.

RALEIGH, N.C. — Ebony Coots is excited for Trump to win but says she’s tired of seeing all the negative political ads. Coots also feels a bit nervous — not about Trump’s chances of winning but rather what Democrats “might try to do,” she said.

In 2016, Coots cast her ballot for Hillary Clinton because of the “girl power” sentiment, which she now says was a mistake.

Wearing a shirt memorializing Corey Comperatore — the volunteer firefighter who was shot and killed at Trump’s July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania — the 48-year-old delivery driver said animosity toward police during the widespread protests against the killing of George Floyd pushed her to vote for Trump in 2020 and support him since.

Monday’s rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, was her ninth since 2022, Coots said.

If Vice President Kamala Harris wins the election, Coots summed up what she’ll do in one sentence.

“You know, actually, I might try to go to another planet,” she said.

RALEIGH, N.C. — There are plenty of empty seats at the Raleigh, North Carolina, arena where Trump is kicking off a busy last day of campaigning, with four rallies planned across three battleground states.

Trump was scheduled to take the stage at 10 a.m. at the J.S. Dorton Arena, a 5,000-seat venue with additional seating on the floor.

Trump has held events in North Carolina each of the past three days, underscoring the importance of a state he carried in both 2016 and 2020.

More people are still filing in so the arena could fill up more by the time Trump takes the stage.

It’s the election that no one could have foreseen.

Not so long ago, Donald Trump was marinating in anger at Mar-a-Lago after being impeached twice and voted out of the White House. Even some of his closest allies were looking forward to a future without the charismatic yet erratic billionaire leading the Republican Party, especially after his failed attempt to overturn an election ended in violence and shame. When Trump announced his comeback bid two years ago, the New York Post buried the article on page 26.

At the same time, Kamala Harris was languishing as a low-profile sidekick to President Joe Biden. Once seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party, she struggled with both her profile and her portfolio, disappointing her supporters and delighting her critics. No one was talking about Harris running for the top job — they were wondering if Biden should replace her as his running mate when he sought a second term.

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The vice president is holding a rally in Allentown with rapper Fat Joe before visiting a Puerto Rican restaurant in Reading with New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.

She’ll also hold an evening Pittsburgh rally featuring performances by DJ D-Nice, Katy Perry and Andra Day, before rallying at Philadelphia’s Museum of the Arts’ “Rocky Steps,” featuring a statue of the fictional boxer.

The final event includes remarks from DJ Cassidy, Fat Joe, Freeway and Just Blaze, as well as Lady Gaga, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Ricky Martin, The Roots, Jazmine Sullivan and Adam Blackstone, and Oprah Winfrey.

Former President Donald Trump is closing out what he says will be his last campaign day for the White House with a jam-packed schedule that includes four rallies across three battleground states.

He’ll begin Monday in Raleigh, North Carolina, underscoring the significance of a state he has visited the past three days.

He then heads to Pennsylvania — perhaps the biggest prize on the electoral map — for rallies in Reading and Pittsburgh.

He will end his night — and likely spend the early hours of Election Day morning — in Grand Rapids, Michigan. That’s a campaign tradition for the former president who also held last-day rallies there during his 2016 and 2020 campaigns.

After a visit to Scranton, Harris will speak in Allentown — a majority Hispanic city that’s home to tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans — at an event with rapper Fat Joe, whose parents were of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent.

Pennsylvania is a swing state that could decide the election. But the stop also comes after a comic at a recent Donald Trump rally suggested that Puerto Rico was “garbage.”

Harris later heads to Reading, where she plans to visit a Puerto Rican restaurant with New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

Supporters get ready before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives to speak to a campaign rally at J.S. Dorton Arena, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024, in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Supporters get ready before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives to speak to a campaign rally at J.S. Dorton Arena, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024, in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Supporters arrive before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives to speak to a campaign rally at J.S. Dorton Arena, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024, in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Atrium Health Amphitheater, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024, in Macon, Ga. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at Jenison Field House on the campus of Michigan State University, Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024, in East Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)