Civil Network OPORA continues to monitor the voting process and the adherence to election procedures on the nationally representative number of precinct election commissions.
During the first hours of the Election Day, observers haven't noticed systematic violations of electoral legislation or conflicts, which could significantly impact the election outcomes. However, typical procedural violations, caused by voters and/or incompetent members of election commissions, have a negative effect on the voting process.
We are especially concerned about the issuing of ballots without verification of relevant documents or repeated attempts to vote for another person.Such incidents are recorded in different regions of Ukraine at 6% of polling stations.This type of violations prevails in the statistics of violations, which is being constantly summarized by Civil Network OPORA.The current situation is similar to the tendency of 2014 early parliamentary elections, when the amount of similar violations for the same period reached 7.4%.Voting secrecy was violated by showing marked ballots or incorrect placement of booths and arrangement of voting sites at 1.5% of polling stations.This is almost twice less than in 2014 parliamentary elections.In 2014, this indicator reached 2.7%.
In general, voters adhere to the restriction on taking pictures of ballots.Such problems are occasional and noticed only at 0.3% of polling stations (to compare, this figure was almost the same in 2014 - 0.5%.
There were no other critical or negative consequences of incidents related to interference in the work of election commissions or restraint in realization of voting rights at this stage of election process.According to OPORA's observers, there were no attempts of ballot-box stuffing or taking ballot papers outside the polling station.There were also no planned and repetitive actions that could indicate attempts to realize voter bribery schemes during the first hours of voting at polling stations.