Establishment of Election Commissions for the Second Round of Elections

On the last day allocated by the Law (April, 10, 2019), Central Election Commission compiled the membership of 199 district election commissions to organize and conduct the second round of presidential election in Ukraine to take place on April, 21, 2019.

Petro Poroshenko  submitted the maximum possible number of candidates (7 persons for each) for membership in all 199 district election commissions. Thus, he is represented in the DECs by 1,393 persons. Volodymyr Zelenskyi also made the maximum use of his quota and delegated 1,379 candidates for 197 DECs. There is no single representative from Volodymyr Zelenskyi in two district election commissions (No. 57 and No. 58) with the center in the city of Mariupol. These commissions were additionally staffed in accordance with the procedure stipulated by the law as nominated by the CEC head.  

CEC distributed managerial positions between the two candidates included on the ballot list for the second round of election in a balanced and proportionate way. Volodymyr Zelenskyi received among the DEC members 99 positions of heads of commissions and 98 positions of commission secretaries. Petro Poroshenko received 100 positions of heads of commissions, and 99 positions of secretaries. Two persons who were appointed as secretaries of commissions were nominated by the CEC head. 

69% (or 1,898 persons) of the staff of the newly created district election commissions are people who worked in the DECs during the so-called first round of 2019 presidential elections. Other 31% (or 861 persons) are new people who have not been members of district election commissions created to organize elections on March, 31, 2019.

Petro Poroshenko nominated for the members of the newly created DECs 82% (or 1,142) persons who already worked in district commissions to conduct the first round of election, Out of them, 168 (15%) were delegated for the membership of previous DECs by Petro Poroshenko himself, while others represented other candidates. In particular, 144 persons (13%) used to be members of DECs as nominated by the candidate Yulia Lytvynenko, 132 persons (12%) were nominated by Volodymyr Petrov, 120 persons (11%) were nominated by Vasyl Zhuravlov, and 112 persons (10%) were nominated by Yuriy Tymoshenko. Moreover, a big number of DECs members delegated by Petro Poroshenko to be members of the newly established commissions have been nominated before by Roman Nasirov, Serhiy Kaplin, and Oleksandr Moroz.

54% (or 746) candidates nominated for the members of the newly created DECs by Volodymyr Zelenskyi also worked in district election commissions before the so-called first ballot. Of them, 159 persons (21%) were members of DECs as nominated by Volodymyr Zelenskyi, while others represented other candidates. As compared to Petro Poroshenko, the number of presidential candidates whose DEC members “shifted” to Volodymyr Zelenskyi is higher but the share of such persons from each candidate is small. In particular, 44 persons (6%) used to be members of DECs as nominated by Mykola Haber, 43 persons (6%) – from Oleh Liashko, 40 persons (5%) – from Anatoliy Hrytsenko and Oleksandr Shevchenko each, 34 persons (5%) – from Yulia Tymoshenko, 29 persons (4%) – from Serhiy Taruta. 

The scale and patterns of shifting of members of election commissions who have been nominated before by some candidates and proceeded to others highlights the problem of the so-called technical candidates. On the other hand, it might be a sign of certain level of cooperation and coordination of efforts between certain candidates.

In terms of gender, out of 2,786 members of district election commissions, 40% are men, and 60% are women. Among heads of district commissions, the share of women is 53%; among commission secretaries – there are 72% of women. Among members of commissions delegated to DECs by Petro Poroshenko, there are 64% of women; with Volodymyr Zelenskyi, the share of women delegated to DECs is 56%.

Almost 86% of DEC members have prior work experience in election commissions. For election commissions established on February, 18, 2019, the share of persons with previous work experience was lower and amounted to 65%. Presidential candidates running for the second round did not have any mass substitutions of DEC members at the previous stage of campaigning (Petro Poroshenko substituted 4.5% of nominees, while Volodymyr Zelenskyi replaced 22%). Some rotation can be expected in the membership of district election commissions due to the fact that two thirds of members have already worked in these commissions during the preparation of voting on March, 31, 2019.

Updating the members of district election commissions established to conduct the second round of voting on April, 21, 2019.

Gender distribution of members of district election commissions established for the second round of voting on April, 21, 2019:

Note: OPORA observation is aimed at unbiased assessment of the process of preparing and conduct of election, at facilitation of fair and free election, and at fraud prevention. Since October, 2018, Civil Network OPORA has run a large-scale observation campaign over presidential election. From the moment of official launch of election campaign, 204 observers have been enrolled all over the country. On March, 31, 2019, and in case of the second round voting , they will be joined by over 1,500 observers more.They will also conduct the parallel vote tabulation (PVT) in order to obtain voting results much sooner than official results, and more precise than exit-polls. In addition, we are monitoring the use of budget resources for indirect campaigning, we train law-enforcement bodies on peculiarities of election process; we launched a network of public ombudsmen on voting rights protection for citizens; we made assessment for Ukraine’s compliance with recommendations of international missions on electoral reform; and we run awareness raising campaigns for voters.