On July, 9, 2020, the Verkhovna Rada Committee on the Organization of State Power, Regional Development, Local Self-Government, and Urban Planning completed the process of preparing the draft Law of Ukraine No 3485 for the second reading. The draft law introduces substantial changes to the Electoral Code, the Code on Administrative Offense, the Criminal Code, the Laws of Ukraine “On Central Election Commission” and “On the State Voter Registry.”

We have actively discussed yesterday the decision of VRU committee concerning the increased party influence of local self-government (in communities over 10,000 voters). Although this problem has many sides, the violations of international standards for fair and free elections did take place.

In June, 60 MPs missed more than 30% of votes in the Parliament. These were 25 MPs from the Servant of the People faction, 9 non-faction MPs, 8 from the Batkivshchyna, 7 from the Opposition Platform for Life, 4 from the Holos, 4 from the European Solidarity, and 3 from the For the Future.

Committee on Organization of State Government, Local Self-Government, Regional Development and Urban Planning has considered a part of amendments to draft law #3485. They also included amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses and the Criminal Code, which were once submitted by the Civil Network OPORA (in the former draft law #8270). The Committee rejected most of the amendments from MPs. This was discussed on July 1 meeting.

Signatories of this statement express their concern about a possible pilot online voting in local elections.

Press-conference "Millions of voters now can vote in local elections", held in the UNIAN press-center on 24 June 2020, covered the following: peculiarities of the election process this year, consequences of the legislative amendments, and the need to promptly inform the part of society subject to these amendments.

Civil Network OPORA has joined an initiative aimed to update the list of state data sets that need to be made public. Our proposal concerns the data related to elections: information about the membership of precinct election commissions; information about the completion of protocols in the "Vybory" Information and Analytical System; information about the registered official observers; information about the number of voters per an election precinct or election address.

People are exercising the power directly and via the public authorities and self-government bodies.1 In the opinion of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, an element of the process of direct exercise of power by the people includes the exercise of Constitutional rights and freedoms by Ukraine’s citizens, such as the right to vote at elections and at a referendum. Additionally, people have the exlusive right to directly, via the all-Ukrainian referendum, to identify the constitutional rule in...