On June 2, 117 special election campaigns, city, village, town heads, and by-election to local councils of different levels, came to an end. However, an information explosion occurred on the basis of special elections of city mayor in Vasylkiv (Kyiv oblast). This story, particularly manipulations practiced during the Election Day, should be considered as a case-study. Some experts have already managed to label this campaign as "preparation to 2015 Presidential election", similarly to election of Mukachevo city mayor on April 18, 2004. I truly hope that it's not. In other case, it will be extremely difficult to protect citizen right on free voting and fair vote count.

A small community with an expensive land near Kyiv, which remained without a mayor for two years, and finally managed to realize its right provided by Article 38 of the Constitution of Ukraine. It guarantees citizen participation in state administration, local self-government, the right to choose and be chosen. According to the parallel turnout tabulation, conducted by OPORA at all the polling stations, only 32.28% of voters came to vote. Official percentage is slightly higher – 35.27 %. The margin between main candidates, Serhii Sabov nominated by the UDAR and Volodymyr Sabadash nominated by the Party of Regions, is almost 240 votes according to the TED. Why such divergence exists and where are the votes of people who came, put signatures in voter list, received their ballots, and vanished? OPORA was counting only ballots which voters put into ballot box, not those received by voters. The conclusion of this detective story is simple: we witnessed a crime attempt, which would have been realized if not the social resonance.

If the devil hides in details, than those in Vasylkiv was hiding in overestimated voter turnout. The crime was the following: preparation of almost 400 ballot papers for ballot-box stuffing in 4 polling stations, stealing election documents with criminal purpose. If commission members, involved in the falsification, will not be punished, there will be no protection against organized criminal group which stole ballot papers, as well as against their successors. Re-election of MPs in 5 problematic districts, which will be sooner or later appointed, may become irreversible fail for the whole country, in case the same falsifications occur. On polling station #321181, 1,061 control coupons were present, and according to the commission member who counted signatures in voters’ lists, there were also 1,061 of them. However, the number of ballots in boxes was 844. Similar situation occurred on polling station #32185 – 115 ballots lost, #321280 – 97, and 321286 – a commission member was caught red-handed, putting 70 ballots with votes for the same candidate on the stage of vote count.

Such manipulation couldn't have happened without participation of commission members. It seems that ballots were stored during morning sittings, which were mainly closed for observers and journalists, and control coupons were torn off. As for authenticity of signatures in voter lists, we may only guess how did they emerge.

I'd like to add from myself, that there were two reasons why they decided not to finish ballot-box stuffing: the candidate has won, and the case became widely discussed by the media. It's quite difficult to finish such activity when 18 commission members are opposed by 40 observers/journalists/sportsmen/MPs from different forces. No matter which the division of forces is, the realization of planned was risky. However, the fact that the system was ready for it may be proved by calm faces of commission members when they heard the protocol, which didn't correspond to any norms. There were also no measures taken to investigate carrying out of the electoral documents. To be continued, I suppose...