On November 24, 2024, more than nine million Romanians travelled to polling stations to cast ballots in the first round of their presidential election. Less than two weeks later, Romania’s Constitutional Court annulled the result. The court cited electoral-law violations and declassified intelligence material concerning a coordinated online campaign and possible foreign interference. Calin Georgescu had won 22.9 percent of the vote.

The allegations were serious. A democracy cannot be indifferent to covert financing, undisclosed political advertising, cyberattacks, or a foreign state’s attempt to distort the information available to voters. But an allegation of interference does not relieve a democracy of its obligation to explain – in plain English, or plain Romanian – why cancelling an election is necessary.

That is the central problem. Foreign influence should be investigated. But can the response be credible when millions of votes are set aside through a process that appears to rest on intelligence assessments that citizens did not see and institutions they cannot challenge? Democracy requires the public to distinguish between a lawful defence of an election and a decision to nullify an outcome powerful people dislike.

The United States is not a bystander. Washington has supported Romania’s democratic transition, backed its accession to NATO, and developed a strategic partnership that makes it important to American policy in the Black Sea and on NATO’s eastern flank. Its stability, sovereignty, and democratic legitimacy are not peripheral concerns for the United States.

That relationship creates a responsibility. U.S. policy should not be reduced to whether the candidate preferred by Washington, Brussels, or the Romanian establishment prevails. A durable alliance requires public confidence that elections are governed by rules, rather than geopolitical preference.

The U.S. State Department’s response articulated the right principle: “It is the choice of the Romanian people whom they elect. No other country or foreign actor has that right.” That cuts both ways. Foreign states must not be allowed to manipulate Romanian voters; equally, the fear of manipulation must not become a standing justification for overriding them without the fullest possible public account.

Washington has long treated foreign election interference as a national security threat. That concern is understandable for a NATO ally bordering Ukraine. But American policy also rests on a broader lesson: accusations involving intelligence services demand scrutiny, clear legal standards, and procedures citizens can understand. Romania should not accept a lower standard because it is strategically important.

If the United States defines support for democracy only as support for institutions confronting a perceived Russian threat, it risks weakening the democratic resilience it seeks to build. An alliance cannot credibly defend popular sovereignty abroad while appearing indifferent to whether voters believe their choices can be cancelled by closed processes.

The alternative is not passivity in the face of foreign interference. It is a response that is firm and demonstrably lawful: disclose as much evidence as national security permits; submit contested claims to adversarial and independent review; explain why lesser remedies are insufficient; and make clear that any electoral intervention is constrained by transparent law rather than political expediency. The United States should encourage this approach because its stated policy is to protect the right of the Romanian people – not the Romanian deep state – to choose for themselves.

Romania’s democracy is young. The communist regime fell in 1989, and many Romanians retain personal or family memories of a state in which secret information, unchallengeable authority, and political exclusion were instruments of control. That history does not prove that today’s institutions acted improperly. It does explain why decisions grounded in intelligence reporting and which lead to subsequent imprisonment carry an unusually heavy burden of justification.

To dismiss those concerns as evidence of extremism or foreign sympathy is to misread the source of democratic anxiety. Many Romanians who did not support Georgescu still voted, expecting their votes to matter, and want to know what standard protects them if a future election produces an equally unwelcome result. They may reject his politics while questioning whether an extraordinary remedy was sufficiently explained. Nor should it be assumed that annulling an election weakens Russian influence. A foreign power can discredit liberal democracy if it convinces citizens that the game is rigged by the deep state.

The United States and Europe should insist that Romania be protected from coercion, cyber operations, illicit money, and foreign propaganda. They should also insist that this protection strengthen the sovereignty of Romanian voters. Romania’s allies should judge the episode not by whether it produced a geopolitically reassuring result, but by whether the process restored public confidence.

Democracy is not proved when it confirms the instincts of those in power. It is proven when institutions can withstand an outcome they dislike, investigate threats openly and rigorously, and still leave the final political choice to the people. For a U.S. ally on NATO’s eastern flank, that is part of national security, and America should say so, loudly and unapologetically.

Dennis Portman is a London-based writer on democracy and human rights.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.