Last week, one of the regular and important stages of this electoral cycle — the formation of precinct election commissions — has started. Representatives of the Civil Network OPORA in Kharkiv Oblast have held monitoring of the procedure of the draw, and also heard the views of various participants of the electoral process on such method of determination of the composition of a PEC.
According to the Law of Ukraine On Elections of People's Deputies of Ukraine, a precinct election commission, of a regular or special polling station, shall be created by an appropriate election commission not later than thirty one day before the election day. I.e. 26 September became the last day when district commissions had to approve members of precinct commissions as well as heads, deputies, and secretaries.
Back on 17 May, the Central Election Commission approved the Regulation on Procedure for the Draw On the Inclusion of Candidacies into the Composition of Precinct Election Commissions for the Election of People's Deputies of Ukraine. Then, the regulation provided for the draw for each station separately.
On 13 September, the CEC introduced amendments to this regulation, now No.895, indicating that one draw should be conducted. However, then, according to its results, in proposals of each polling station, appropriate numbers are chosen, which fell in order of priority during the draw.
According to the secretary of the DEC of the SMED No.180 Yelyzaveta Vasylivna Solovykh, under the old scheme, the draw could have lasted up to three days.
The number of stations in the districts of Kharkiv Oblast ranges from 76 to 192. The number of submissions of candidacies for PECs from participants of the electoral process varies between 57 and 62. I.e. considering that for one station, the process of draw takes a minimum of 10 minutes, meetings of district commissions then could last from 12 to 32 hours.
September amendments to the regulation have not only reduced the time of processing results of the draw but also simplified the procedure of determination of the composition of precinct commissions itself. An important role in it played the introduction of the Election 2012 Electronic System.
The Election 2012 Electronic System itself would minimise the human factor involved in determination of the composition of PECs. Members of respective district commissions simply had to set the order of lots, and then enter data into the system — a computer itself would determine the composition, notes Vasyl Yakovych Lesyk, the agent of the FPP candidate of the All-Ukrainian Union Fatherland in district 177 Andriy Yakovlevych Rovchak.
However, due to instability of the CEC server connection, the meetings of commissions regarding the draw had to be adjourned.
Indeed, the start of the DEC meeting of the SMED No.171 was declared as 2pm on 21 September. In fact, due to technical breakdowns and failures on the CEC server, it started at 9pm. Afterwards, data processing had continued until four o'clock in the morning, the Network OPORA observer Yuliia Pakhomova informs of the events.
In another district commission No.174, the meeting lasted two days — it started on Thursday, 20 September at 9.30am, and ended on Friday, 21 September at 3.30pm. According to the official OPORA observer Kateryna Shcherba, who was present at the meeting, on 20 September, due to system failure and inability of the system administrator to enter the draw data into the CEC base, the meeting had been constantly interrupted. Since neither the Head of the commission, nor the members could clearly explain the procedure of the draw, it was decided to contact the CEC for further explanations and continue the meeting the next day. As the Head of the DEC of the SMED No.174 Yaroslav Yuriyovych Pavlukhin interpreted the regulation, the lots determined with the help of the draw corresponded to the number of participants of the electoral process, subject to the proposal at each station.
In another manner, this problem was solved by the DEC of the SMED No.177 — under nearly unanimous decision (14 in favour, 1 against, 1 abstention), after a 40 minute draw, the meeting was closed so that the working group could have continued to determine the composition of each PEC according to the order of lots.
The secretary of the commission of the district 177 — Vitalii Mykolayovych Klymenko — during the meeting emphasised that the draw should have been conducted for each station and not for a district. For in the respective regulation No.895, paragraph 11 reads as follows — “To conduct a draw for each precinct election commission separately, a list of candidacies that meet the requirements of the Law and may be included into its composition by a draw shall be tabulated.” Paragraph 6 of Section 15 of this document reads that “the specified procedure shall be repeated with other precinct election commissions in the ascending order of their numbers.”
The vague procedure of draw had caused ambiguity of the content of the regulation. Though all district commissions, before the day of the draw, held previous meetings where the procedure of creating a PEC itself was explained and experience obtained at the training, held by the CEC for heads, deputies, and secretaries, was shared, there were some misunderstandings.
Indeed, Kostiantyn Oleksandrovych Starkov, the candidate of the CPU in the single-mandate E.D. No.173 says it is not yet clear to him how with the maximum number of vacancies — 19, the lot under number 14, which fell to the CPU, gave it an opportunity to have its representatives only in two commissions. As the Head of this district commission Yana Hryhorivna Chernihivska explained at the meeting, the lot drawn didn't determine the party but only the number in proposals at stations. Therefore, it doesn't mean that No.14 in all the proposals will indicate candidates for a PEC from the same political force. For not all participants submitted could cover the whole district with candidacies. Due to such difference, the number of a representative of each participant submitted varies from one station to another.
Due to misinterpretation of the regulation of DECs of SMEDs No.180 and 181, the draw had to be held twice. In both commissions, such situation occurred because in the first draw, the total number of participants submitted was taken as a basis, and not the highest number of candidacies proposed for inclusion into the composition of the PEC, as stated in the regulation (paragraph 2, Section 12). Indeed, for example, in district 180, at first, 59 lots were drawn, which caused computer failure. After further clarification, the number of lots was reduced to the one required — 56. In district 181, the first draw started at 12.25pm; the repeat draw was held from 8pm to 11.45pm.
As the secretary of the DEC of the SMED No.178 Oksana Leonidivna Suprun informed the representative of OPORA, computer failures didn't occur primarily during those meetings that started in the morning.
This opinion is shared by Yelyzaveta Vasylivna Solovykh, the secretary of the district commission 180. She says that those commission that started their meetings in the afternoon failed to slip through and had to work until three in the morning.
In general, all the participants of the procedure, members of commissions, and representatives of parties and candidates evaluate the draw as a pretty transparent method of determination of the composition of a precinct commission.
Indeed, Serhii Anatoliyovych Shatokhin, the Deputy Head of the DEC of the SMED No.181 notes the impossibility of fraud by any political actors. For, otherwise, Serhiy Shatokhin says, one should possess very good analytical thinking and know what the probability is, being this or that number in a proposal, for a participant to represent the highest number of members in a PEC. He also adds that a draw is random so it is simply impossible to predict its results in advance.
Authorised representatives of parties and agents of candidates also agree with the members of commissions. Oksana Oleksandrivna Zaiets, the representative of the political party Our Ukraine commented on her experience of the draw for OPORA, “I think the draw was very transparent, both the procedure and the announcement of results. The innovation which has reduced the influence of a human factor is very appropriate (despite small delays in work). I have no concerns on the DEC's work; I think the draw in our district (note — E.D. 174) was perhaps the most open and transparent in Kharkiv.“
Mykhailo Stanislavovych Novikov, the agent of a candidate of the political party Ukraine of the Future — Vitalii Yuriyovych Miroshnikov — in district 174 emphasises that the commission hadn't had a good look all the way through the respective Regulation of the CEC thus neither the lawyer, no the head of the commission could explain the substance of the Regulation, or anything that happened at the meeting. “I think this caused a long delay in work. And the commission members didn't make any reasonable effort to study the Regulation and were looking at its content only at the meeting.“
However, Volodymyr Borysovych Kostin — the agent of Dmytro Valentynovych Chornyi, a self-nominated candidate in district 174 — doesn't agree with the above, “I believe that the draw wasn't held transparently, and many mistakes were made since servers don't just freeze up like that! By any stretch of imagination, the logic of the results announced at the meeting, which — please note — was stretched out to two days, isn't noticeable. During such a break, there could be fraud, and I'm sure there was! The commission failed to give a clear answer to the question on the distribution of seats in the PEC, which shows its lack of preparation.“
Conclusions
The representatives of the Civil Network OPORA had a mixed impression on how the formation of precinct commissions in Kharkiv and Kharkiv Oblast was held.
On one hand, the use of computer technology during the procedure is definitely an advantage, which reduces the time of determination of the final composition of precinct commissions manyfold, with minimal interference of the human factor.
On the other hand, the Regulation No.895 itself doesn't preclude involvement of commission members in the work on determination of the composition of precinct election commissions. Indeed, paragraph 15 of this documents says that “persons included into the lists of candidacies for the composition of precinct election commissions under numbers specified in the form shall be included into the composition of precinct election commissions in order determined by a draw. For this purpose, two members of a district election commission (employees of the Secretariat of the Central Election Commission), assigned to process results of the draw, consecutively, for each precinct election commission, in order of priority determined by the draw, determine the presence of a candidacy of a respective number on the list of candidacies for a respective precinct election commission, and in the column to record the results of the draw make an appropriate mark opposite a candidacy mentioned.
According to the monitoring of the Civil Network OPORA in Kharkiv and Kharkiv Oblast, the meetings regarding determination of the composition of PECs by the draw were held on 20 and 21 September. Their duration ranged from 40 minutes to two days.
The procedure of the draw itself, developed by the CEC, made the opportunities of participants submitted for candidacies for the composition of PECs equal. I.e., regardless of political beliefs, a political party or a candidate had equal chances to gain representation in precinct commissions.
Ivan Mykolaiovych Horin, Head of Zolochiv Raion Headquarters of the All-Ukrainian Union Fatherland emphasises that the draw was based on luck, which was an advantage. The only disadvantage of this system is that the legislation changes several times just on the eve.
Reference:
Civic monitoring conducted by OPORA - is a type of network activity, aimed at impartial assessment of the preparation and conduct of elections, as well as preventing violations through comprehensive civic action. Professional monitoring at all stages of the election process indirectly influences the quality of the campaign. The public opinion, both foreign and domestic is formed through gathering and spreading of information among the target audience.
From a strategic perspective public monitoring of elections focuses upon improving the system and certain procedures.
In 2012, during Parliamentary elections in Ukraine OPORA is carrying out a large-scale campaign of long- and short term observation, organizing a statistical vote-count by the results of voting with the proportional component of the electoral system on a basis of representative selection, will provide 100% coverage of polling stations by observers in separate single-mandate majoritarian districts. OPORA observers will work in all 225 electoral districts, and 3,500 activists will join them on the voting day. Organization will use the latest means of spreading information on observation results, including infographics and interactive maps.