Extremely disappointing. Here's a breakdown of the vote.

We show that an increase in turnout levels took place in localities with signature collection points & present individual-level data suggesting that the initiative likely contributed to core voter mobilization. The share of signatures in locality is a strong predictor of USR vote

The initiative, “No Convicts in Public Office!” was part of USR’s ownership claim over the issue of anti-corruption. Our matched diff-in-diff design corroborates the positive impact of the initiative on USR’s results at the 2019 European Parliament elections & 2020 national elections

Our case study focuses on a citizen legislative initiative sponsored by the Save Romania Union (USR). This amounts to a typical case as most party-sponsored citizen legislative initiatives are launched by opposition parties, which are relatively small and often new