The atmosphere during conduction of preparatory meetings in precinct election commissions and beginning of voting was calm, without mass violations of election procedures. Only in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, where most of election commissions are not functioning and the voting is almost not conducted. In general, there are still complications with securing due voting conditions for the voters in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.
According to the preliminary data, the voting started in 7 of 22 territorial election districts in Donetsk oblast. There are some incidents of terroristic attacks against the certain polling stations. In particular, in district #61, armed criminals seized precinct election commissions #140796, 140792, 140803, 140800 (city of Dokuchaevsk). Unlawful activities aimed to hinder the electoral process still take place. Besides that, the PEC #140061 was seized in settlement of Kalinino (Artemivsk raion, TED #46). Intruders threatened OPORA's observers.
In Luhansk oblast, the voting has started in 2 of 12 territorial election districts. According to OPORA's observers, separatists have strengthened the control over roads in the oblast. They control the traffic and hinder the election process. Simultaneously, the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Mykolaiv has received the information that 7 polling stations were mined. Law-enforcement officers are verifying information in accordance with normative instructions.
Members of election commissions and other subjects of the election process in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts are being threatened by armed terroristic groups which put them under physical pressure. Terrorists seize the PECs and disrupt the voting on precinct election commissions, which are opened or ready to the open.
In all other regions, the voting is conducted in regular mode, Not including Donetsk oblast, 4,4% of polling stations haven't opened in time (at 8am). OPORA haven't noticed mass and systematic violations of electoral legislation, related to the conduction of preparatory meetings of precinct election commissions and beginning of voting.
During first hours of the voting process, observers of Civil Network OPORA have reported more than 110 incidents, which are mostly related to procedural violations, committed by election commissions and local self-government bodies. Almost 20% of election commissions have started the morning meeting too early (earlier than 45 before the beginning of voting). Thus, they have limited the possibility of official observers to control the course of morning meeting [1]. . In particular, members of PECs #800637, 800637 (Kyiv city), and 801510 (Poltava oblast) have opened the safe with ballot papers earlier than the time established by the law. Instead, members of the PEC #070071 in city of Horokhiv (Volyn oblast) have started compiling extract from voter list during the morning meeting on the election day, but were supposed to compile it yet on 24 May. The PEC #070760 (Volyn oblast) hasn't secured the opening of the polling station because its seal was lost.
In general, 5.6% of OPORA's observers were deprived of the possibility to watch all the procedures during morning meetings. In particular, similar incidents were reported in the polling station #800545 (Kyiv city), #070110 (Volyn obl.), #121481 (Dnipropetrovsk obl.).
The seal on the safe was damaged in more than 12% polls. Morning meeting's protocol wasn't filled in at 7% of precinct commissions, 5% of commissions lack the seal, and more than 5% were not guarded by law-enforcement officers. The presence of such violation is in the first place due to the lack of experience and unsatisfactory level of professional training of commission members. However, such violations won't have considerable influence on the election results, and were made without an explicit intention to violate the legislative course of electoral process.
[1]All future statistical calculations don't include polling stations, which didn't open in Donetsk.