The first local elections in united territorial communities proved that the law on local elections needs a complex improvement to guarantee the legal certainty of electoral procedures. Unequal application of the legislation by election commissions and other subjects of the election process did occur during the electoral process in 201 communities.
According to OPORA's data, 85.6% of PECs started their preparatory meetings not earlier than 45 minutes before voting, providing observers and other electoral subjects an opportunity to watch the preparation of polling stations to the voting. However, 14.4% of PECs started their preparatory meetings at 7:15 AM. When the PECs ignore the legislative requirements concerning the timing of preparatory meetings on the election day, electoral subjects can't verify the number of ballot papers at an election precinct, examine ballot boxes and sign control sheets, which are put to the corresponding boxes. At 98.3% of polling stations, OPORA's observers had opportunities to provide a comprehensive observation of preparatory meetings of PECs and the beginning of voting process. According to observers of Civil Network OPORA, the PECs had a quorum on their preparatory meetings. Thus, at 100% of polling stations, included in OPORA's representative sampling, more than a half of PEC members attended the preparatory meetings. Almost 6% of PECs didn't keep the minutes of their preparatory meetings. 1.7% of polling stations opened later than 8:00 AM, due to the issues in preparation to the voting process. However, 98.3% of polling stations opened on time.
In general, the voters had a free access to the voting since the opening of polling stations. At the same time, a number of PECs have failed to provide comfortable conditions for exercise of the franchise, causing lines at election precincts and additional inconveniences during the voting. Lines at PECs occured because the majority of commissions are formed in minimal membership. Although precinct election commissions are responsible for the arrangement of voting premises, they didn't have proper conditions for making such arrangements because of passivity or inaction of local government bodies.
According to OPORA's data, major violations detected by observers are attempts to issue ballots without passport verification or on the basis of unauthorized documents (for example, copies). Thus, such incidents were detected at 13.1% of PECs (particularly in Sumy and Zhytomyr oblasts). In most cases, OPORA's observers prevented the commitment of such criminal offenses. However, even though independent observers respond to such violations, the illegitimate issuance of ballot papers is tolerated by election commissions. Moreover, there were even attempts to legitimize such actions by collegial decisions of commissions. The fact that illegal actions of election commission members are often tolerated and supported by the voters shows the poor legal culture of the latter, as well as their knowledge of the legislation and consequences of its violation. Ballot papers shall be issued to the voters exclusively after they present their passports or a temporary Ukrainian citizenship certificate. 92.6% of election precincts consistently followed this regulation.
The problems with ballot printing were critical on the election day. Thus, from the very beginning of voting process, observers of the Civil Network OPORA reported a number of incidents involving low-quality production of ballot papers. The ballots lacked names of candidates, had errors in personal data of candidates and name of the elections themselves.
During the election day, the observers detected more than 10 incidents in different communities, related to errors in ballot papers. Although such incidents caused by irresponsible attitude of PECs to their duties, they undermine the trust in election process and question the adherence to the principle of electoral competitiveness.
Not all PECs did stick to the requirement demanding that only the voters, candidates and their proxies, official observers, mass media representatives, and CEC members may be present at voting premises. In particular, in Zaporizhia, Poltava, Kherson, Vinnytsia, Rivne, Luhansk, Donetsk, and Volyn oblasts, observers noticed officials of local self-government bodies, law-enforcement officers, MPs and other unauthorized persons at PECs. Although the election commissions duly respond to attendance of unauthorized persons at election precincts, the problem is that officials and MPs, who are usually attend, misuse their status and powers. Their actions are illegal and urge the commissions to ignore such violations of electoral legislation.
During the voting day, OPORA's observers detected violation of the voting secrecy at 0.8% polling stations. Taking pictures of ballots was also detected at 0.8% of PECs. Taking into consideration that the number of such incidents has significantly decreased compared to the previous local elections, we may suggest that such violations have little impact on election outcomes.
There were solitary reports from observers about transportation of voters to polling stations during the election day. In case of voter transportation, law-enforcement bodies should have checked which financing is used for the transportation, and whether the voters are supporters of a certain candidate or all voters. Unfortunately, law-enforcement officers didn't check the circumstances of such incidents.
The average turnout on the voting day of 29 October 2017 first local elections was 48.2% (margin of error 3.7%).
The PEC had closed at 8:00 PM and all precinct election commissions started their evening meetings on time. The complaints concerning violations of electoral legislation were submitted during the voting day and before the evening meetings at 2.3% of precinct election commission. According to the information gathered by observers of Civil Network OPORA, 99.2% of PECs worked in compliance with the vote count procedure. 0.8% of PECs, however, violated the procedure. The process of vote count was free from conflicts. Observers didn't report any incidents of obstruction to vote count by commission members, candidates of their proxies at 98.4% of polling stations. In general, 99.2% of observers stated they trust the results of vote count process at election precincts, and that they could freely observe each stage of the tabulation.
In general, we noticed the typical violations during the first local elections in united communities, held on 29 October 2017, the same as we detected in December 2016, related to violation of the voting procedure by electoral stakeholders and attempts to influence the legitimate course of electoral process by unauthorized persons. In general, the procedural violations, witnessed by OPORA's observers, were caused by low quality of work and incompetence of some PEC members. Although the scale and statistics of electoral violations has decreased in comparison to the previous elections, unprecedented incidents criminal interference in the election process (like at polling station #120505, Dnipropetrovsk oblast) are inadmissible because they directly hinder the realization of voting rights by the citizens.
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