From 4 PM to 8 PM, OPORA's observers continued to observe the second round and assess the adherence to legal procedures by all electoral subjects.
As of the time the polling stations closed, observers had not reported any serious abuse by election commission members or illegal attempts to interfere in the election process. Voter turnout, according to OPORA, was higher than in 15 November second round, and PECs have provided proper conditions for the maximum realization of citizen voting rights in difficult epidemic conditions.
The last four hours of voting were calmer and more organized than in the morning of 22 November. Besides that, the scale and intensity of typical procedural violations has decreased. According to OPORA's observers, minor election violations at this stage of voting were recorded at 11.25% (margin of error 4.01%) of polling stations, while major procedural violations were not detected at all.
Ballot photography, which was detected the most often during the voting day and potentially posed the greatest threat to the free vote, has decreased in number. Attempts to photograph ballots occurred at 4.17% of PECs, while this percentage reached 7.5% of PECs during the day. However, there were not so many such cased during the second round last week (only at 1.54% of PECs). Therefore, all identified incidents (more than 40 only according to OPORA) require careful study and assessment by law enforcement agencies.
Closer to the end of Election Day, we got some reports affirming attempts of ballot box stuffing, but the number of such cases detected at 0.42% of PECs was within the statistical error.
At 2.5% of polling stations, observers noticed attempts to disclose the secret vote by a voter via showing a ballot paper. This type of violation is the second most common, after the ballot photography. Another issue is the statistics of issuing ballots by commission members without verification of documents - detected at 2.08% of PECs, what is similar to the figures recorded by OPORA on 25 October and 15 November.
In general, the quality of election administration and organizational support of the voting process was ensured at a high level, and voters had the opportunity to vote freely throughout the voting day on 22 November. 99.58% of polling stations did not have queues at the end of voting and when polling stations were being closed.
OPORA has deployed observers to 300 polling stations, located evenly throughout the country. Before the observation, OPORA held 2 rounds of trainings and special Election Day simulations, involving possible situations and incidents. The observers were deployed based on random stratified sampling. The maximum margin of error for this report is below 4.01%. OPORA's statistically based observation is an independent activity, realized exclusively by OPORA, aimed to provide Independent information on the course of election.