This year within the framework of long-term elections monitoring campaign, OPORA observers will work in all 225 electoral districts, and 3,500 activists will join them on the voting day. Despite the long-term and short-term monitoring campaign, OPORA plans to implement a quick statistical vote-count of the elections results on the basis of proportional component of the electoral system, using representative selection, and to provide 100% coverage of polling stations by observers in separate single-mandate districts.
Why is public monitoring important? And what can change the presence of public observer at polling stations?
The elections are a form of direct democracy, with help of which the citizens chose the representatives, who they are ready to delegate their powers to express the common will and to govern the society on their behalf. This is why the citizens have to be the most interested in transparency and openness of elections, and compliance with democratic procedures and international standards. Thus, on the one hand, the state should provide these conditions; on the other hand, it should provide the society with a possibility to observe the course of election campaign. And only in case of combination of the choice and right to observe, results of the declaration of will be really legitimate, meaning supported and recognized by the society.
The general voting right enables every citizen to conduct monitoring of the elections. In particular, while demonstrating their attentiveness, they are able to react on the violations of election laws both during the Election Day and during the election campaign. However, in practice, only a small number of voters exercise this right. Usually it is the representatives of the NGOs, who are conducting the monitoring of election process, or the observers from political parties or candidates. Another part of citizens limits its involvement in the election process to the voting for this or that candidate or political party during the Election Day.
International standards of Monitoring
In order to ensure the recognition of the election results, the state has to create all necessary conditions for the unbiased and objective monitoring of the elections. In order to increase the level of trust to the election results abroad, the election laws have to comply with the international standards.
The detailed criteria of honest and just elections are defined in the Copenhagen document. One of the requirements of this act is the presence of international and local observers. In accordance to this norm, member states of the OSCE undertake obligation to invite the observers from other member states and from all respective private institutes and organizations, interested in monitoring of the election process. It is worth mentioning, that the given document does not set up the standards of monitoring and also emphasizes that the creation of favorable conditions for local (domestic) and international monitoring may have a positive impact on the election process, and on the democracy in a given country.
The international standards are described in more details in the Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters. In the document it is said that the both national and international observers should be provided with the widest possibilities for their participation in the monitoring of the election process. The key requirements of the Code are the creation of conditions for the long-term observation aiming at revealing of the possible violations at preliminary stages (proper composition of the lists of voters, obstacles during the registration of the candidates, instances of limitation of the freedom of speech and violations of access rules to the media or state funding of election campaign), during the elections (e.g. the check of instances of pressure on voters, multiple voters, violation of secret voting, etc.) and after the voting (especially during the vote-count and announcement of the results). During the observation attention is paid to the determination of neutrality of the body of government.
Peculiarities of elections monitoring in Ukraine
The main goal of public monitoring in its classical understanding is: prevention of violations through qualified public control and unbiased evaluation of elections. In addition, the independent monitoring provides wide and objective informing of society about the course of elections.
The observation can be long-, short-and middle-term. Middle-term observation starts 1 -1,5 months before the voting and covers the last stage of elections. The long-term observers work during all stages of election process that enables them to detect the election laws at each stage.The short-term observers usually work on the Election Day. The long-term observation gives the NGOs a possibility to make more objective and grounded conclusions on whether the elections were democratic. It is impossible to give an objective evaluation of the whole election process using just short-term observers. For example, at a certain constituency on the Election Day the observers will not record any significant violation that could influence the election results, however, such violations could take place on he earlier stages of election process. Thus, few days before the elections Territorial Election Commission could withdraw lets say 3 candidates, including the potential winner in the district. It results that only combination of long- and short-term observation can give an unbiased and objective evaluation of elections at all stages.
Traditionally there are three categories of observers: from parties or candidates, from NGOs and international organizations. The observers from NGOs and international organizations can be conceived of as politically unbiased. During the election process, tin their activity the independent observers should comply with the principle of strict political impartiality - not to support any party or candidate.
The observers from political parties and candidates cannot be considered as independent, because they represent their interests in the election process and are guided by them. NGOs, which decided to monitor the elections, have to include this item in their statute. The current election laws do not put any limits on the participation of NGOs in the election control on the basis of their territorial status or date of registration.
Earlier this right could use only those organizations, which were registered no less than 2 years before the elections. This approach enables a bigger number of NGOs to be engaged in monitoring, and it can increase the quality of control over the election process. And although the opportunities widened, the participation a significant number of biased organizations, which will announce their own results of observation in favor of certain political parties, will be a negative impact and will discredit the idea of independent observation. Oversaturation of information space by dramatically different evaluations of monitoring organizations can become a manipulation tool.
New election laws extended the rights of public observers as subjects of election process. It enables them to address a respective election commission or court on the issue of elimination of violation of legislation, in case they are detected, and note the bills of detected violations.
The Law On the Elections of People's Deputies of Ukraine, which regulated the Parliamentary elections 2006 and 2007 vested the unequal amount of rights for different categories of official observers. According to the norms of Law, the status of subjects of the election process had only the observers from parties, blocs and candidates. Observers from NGOs did not have a status of the subject of election process.
Since the Parliamentary elections 2012, the public observers will have equal rights with those from political parties and deputies, which will allow them to:
- Be present at polling stations during the voting process, observe the activity of the members of election commission at any distance, including during the issuing of ballots and vote-count, not putting any physical obstacles for the members of commission.
- Make photos, record video and audio, not committing infringement of secret of voting.
- Be present at passing the ballot papers to the members of district election commission, including the organization and conduct of mobile voting.
- Be present at sessions of territorial and district election commissions, including the vote-count at polling station and announcement of the results.
- Take necessary measures within the legal framework regarding the clampdown of illegal activities during the voting process and vote-count at polling stations.
- Receive copies of protocols on the transfer of ballot papers, election results and other documents in cases provided by the Law of Ukraine on the Elections of People's Deputies.
- Exercise other rights provided by the Law of Ukraine on the Elections of People's Deputies for the official observers.
It has to be mentioned, that a norm, which is granting an observer a right to take necessary legal actions to stop the illegal activity during the voting and vote-count at a polling station, is quite detailed. Thus, it is not clear what an observer should do in order to stop the illegal actions. Law-creating sources did not give a clear answer to this question. The members of commissions have a right to interpret this norm and to define whether the actions of an observer are necessary means or intrusion into election process.
Conclusion
During the Parliamentary elections 2012 it will be possible to evaluate the effectiveness of changes in the main election law of Ukraine in terms of observation. Theoretically, a lot of innovations were designed to improve the quality of observation and democracy of election process. The effectiveness of observation in the new circumstances will be ensured if the observers are qualified enough to fulfill their duties in full extent, the government properly reacts on the information regarding the violations, and media provides the publicity of the election monitoring process.