Peculiarities of electoral system for parliamentary elections
The Election Code suggests to use an open-list proportional representation system for organization of parliamentary elections in Ukraine. Voters will have be able to vote for a certain candidate in regional party list and, at the same time, for the party represented by that candidate. Only parties that overcome the 5% national threshold will be eligible to participate in the distribution of parliamentary seats.
Territorial election administration
Parliamentary elections are held in single national multi-mandate district, which covers the whole Ukrainian territory and foreign constituency. Voting takes place in 27 electoral regions, which are created with consideration of administrative and territorial structure of Ukraine, and whose boundaries mostly coincide with the boundaries of oblasts. Exceptions are Dnipropetrovsk oblast and the city of Kyiv (that also includes the foreign constituency), which have two electoral regions each. Instead, Kherson oblast forms a single electoral region (Southern) with the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol.
It is possible that a part of the electoral region will not participate in holding of an election, while the certain territories hold a status of temporarily occupied. Thus, voters will be able to realise their voting rights by changing a voting location without changing of an election address. In its turn, the CEC is obliged to determine the results of parliamentary elections, regardless of the quantity of polling stations and territorial districts where the voting was not organized and held. Thus, all territories of Ukraine will have a formal representation in parliament.
Nomination of candidates
The right to nominate candidates in parliamentary elections is reserved exclusively to political parties, and there is no possibility of self-nomination. Nomination of MP candidates, formation and approval of electoral lists is realized be a party at its congress (meeting, conference).
Each party forms two types of lists: a national list (comprising under 450 candidates) and regional lists comprising the same candidates in each of 27 electoral regions (must include at least 5 candidates) Therefore, every candidate in a national party list (except for the first number) must be included in one of the regional lists. At the same time, a candidate can not be included in a national party list more than once, and in more than one regional list. An MP candidate, who holds the first place in a national party list must not be included in any of the regional lists. Monetary pledge for parties, which nominate the list of MP candidates, is one thousand minimum wages.
Parties determine the priority of all candidates in both national and regional lists at a congress. When forming their lists, parties must keep the gender balance, ensuring there are at least two persons of the same sex in each five candidates. However, the Code does not establish formal sanctions for non-compliance with this regulation.
Ballot form
Text of the ballot paper contains a list of all parties participating in an election (placed in the order determined by the draw of lots), and an empty box next to each party name for the sequence number of a certain MP candidate from regional list of a given party. Thus, having found the party to vote for, a voter writes in the empty box next to its name of the sequence number of a certain MP candidate he/she supports. A vote for the candidate is simultaneously a vote for the party. Each booth has information boards with the list of political parties (and their sequence numbers) and list of candidates from each party (and their sequence numbers).
If a voter places in the box any number other than existing sequence number of an MP candidate, or it's impossible to determine which number is written in, or there is any other mark made by the voter, the voter is considered to support the whole regional candidate list without supporting any individual candidate on this list.
Name, first name and patronymic of a candidate, who holds the first place in the national party list, is next to the full name of the party in ballot paper.
Distribution of mandates
Only parties that receive 5% of valid votes or more, participate in the distribution of parliamentary mandates. There are several stages of tabulation and distribution of mandates between parties. Main of them are the following: determination of electoral quotas (number of votes requires to receive one mandate), determination of the number of mandates that a party receives, and determination of winners firstly in electoral regions and then in the national district.
Step 1. Determination of total valid votes for all parties that overcome electoral threshold. To do this, the total number of votes given for these parties in all electoral regions is calculated.
Step 2. Determination of the election quota. To calculate the quota, the total number of votes given for lists of parties that overcame the threshold, divided by the total number of parliamentary mandates, which is equal to the number of MPs established by the Constitution.
If we take the last parliamentary elections as an analogy, where parties that overcame the threshold (5%) received 11,448,549 votes and the parliament comprises 450 MPs, the election quota in Ukraine would be a little more that 25 thousand votes (11,448,549/450=25,441). This would be a price for parliamentary mandate in the national district.
Step 3. Determination of parliamentary mandates, received by each party in regional electoral districts. To do this, the number of votes given for the party in an election region is divided by the electoral quota. The whole number received would be the number of mandates, received by MP candidates in the given regional list of the party.
A side effect of such procedure would be dependance between activeness of the voters and representation of each region in parliament. Thus, the higher the voter turnout the bigger representation of the region in parliament. An alternative allocation of seats in electoral regions based on the number of registered voters, instead of the turnout itself, would guarantee more proportional representation of regions.
Step 4. Determination of the list of candidates, who received mandates in electoral regions. MP candidates are placed in the regional list of a given party in descending order of the number of votes given for a certain candidate. Candidates, who receive the biggest number of votes in the regional electoral list of a party, are considered elected. The number of such candidates equals to the number of mandates received by the party in its region. If candidates receive equal number of votes, the candidate that holds upper place in regional electoral list of the party goes first. Candidates, who receive zero votes, are placed in the bottom of regional electoral list in a sequence, established by the party during the nomination.
Step 5. Determination of the total number of mandates, distributed in each electoral region. The CEC summarises the number of mandates, received by MP candidates, who are included in regional electoral lists of all parties in each electoral region.
Step 6. Determination of the number of residual mandates in national district. The number of mandates that are subject to distribution in national electoral district is gained by subtracting the number of seats that are already distributed in electoral regions (see step 5) from the total number of parliamentary mandates (450).
Step 7. Determination of the number of unused votes. Firstly, the CEC determines the number of unused votes cast for regional party lists (separately for each party participating in the distribution of seats). For this purpose, the election quota is multiplied by the number of seats already received by the party in the election region. The difference between the total number of voters cast in support of the corresponding regional list of the party and the number just received is the number of unused votes. The CEC then determines the total number of unused votes cast in support of the regional party lists.
Step 8. Determination of the number of MP mandates, received by each party at the national level. To do this, divide the total number of unused votes (Step 7) by the election quota. The whole number received would be the number of mandates, received by candidates in national list of the given party. Fractional part (three digits after the decimal separator) is also taken into account in distribution of parliamentary mandates. Parties that have the biggest fractional parts receive an additional mandate (the procedure continues until there are not mandates left). If fractional parts in two or more electoral lists of candidates from parties are equal, the additional mandate goes first to electoral list of a party, which received bigger number of votes in the national district.
Step 9. Determination of the list of candidates, elected in the national district. Candidates chosen by the party are considered elected as MPs based on their sequence in the national electoral list of this party. At the same time, candidates, who are already elected in the corresponding electoral regions, do not participate in distribution of mandates in the national district.
Thus, the electoral system allows voters to influence the order of mandate distribution between the certain party candidates and their chances of getting into the parliament. This is the fundamental feature of open-list system. At the same time, the system allows election of candidates from the national list by their sequence determined by the party. Thus, the first number receives the seat automatically, and all the other may receive fractional mandates.
Modeling the results of the 2019 parliamentary elections based on the system proposed in draft Election Code: the distribution of mandates at regional and national levels
|
Party |
Mandates in regional lists |
Mandates in the national list |
Total mandates received |
|
EUROPEAN SOLIDARITY |
33 |
13 |
46 |
|
HOLOS |
22 |
12 |
34 |
|
OPPOSITIONAL PLATFORM - FOR LIFE |
63 |
12 |
75 |
|
SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE |
235 |
13 |
248 |
|
“BATKIVSHCHYNA” |
35 |
12 |
47 |
|
Total |
388 |
62 |
450 |
Modeling the results of the 2019 parliamentary elections based on the system proposed in draft Election Code: the distribution of mandates in regions
|
Electoral region |
EUROPEAN SOLIDARITY |
Holos |
OPPOSITIONAL PLATFORM - FOR LIFE |
SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE |
BATKIVSHCHYNA |
Number of mandates in the region |
|
Vinnytsia oblast |
2 |
0 |
1 |
9 |
2 |
14 |
|
Volyn oblast |
1 |
1 |
0 |
6 |
2 |
10 |
|
Dnipropetrovsk oblast (two districts) * |
2 |
1 |
7 |
28 |
2 |
40 |
|
Donetsk oblast |
0 |
0 |
10 |
6 |
0 |
16 |
|
Zhytomyr oblast |
1 |
0 |
1 |
8 |
1 |
11 |
|
Zakarpattia oblast |
0 |
0 |
1 |
7 |
1 |
9 |
|
Zaporizhia oblast |
1 |
0 |
5 |
13 |
1 |
20 |
|
Ivano-Frankivsk oblast |
2 |
2 |
0 |
6 |
2 |
12 |
|
Kyiv Oblast |
2 |
1 |
1 |
13 |
3 |
20 |
|
Kirovohrad oblast |
0 |
0 |
1 |
7 |
1 |
9 |
|
Luhansk oblast |
0 |
0 |
4 |
2 |
0 |
6 |
|
Lviv oblast |
7 |
9 |
0 |
8 |
3 |
27 |
|
Mykolaiv oblast |
0 |
0 |
3 |
8 |
0 |
11 |
|
Odesa oblast |
1 |
0 |
7 |
15 |
1 |
24 |
|
Poltava oblast |
1 |
0 |
2 |
12 |
2 |
17 |
|
Rivne oblast |
1 |
1 |
0 |
6 |
1 |
9 |
|
Sumy oblast |
0 |
0 |
2 |
8 |
1 |
11 |
|
Ternopil oblast |
2 |
2 |
0 |
5 |
2 |
11 |
|
Kharkiv oblast |
1 |
1 |
10 |
17 |
1 |
30 |
|
Kherson oblast (plus AR of Crimea, Sevastopol) |
0 |
0 |
2 |
7 |
0 |
9 |
|
Khmelnytsk oblast |
1 |
0 |
1 |
9 |
2 |
13 |
|
Cherkasy oblast |
1 |
0 |
1 |
9 |
1 |
12 |
|
Chernivtsi oblast |
0 |
0 |
0 |
5 |
1 |
6 |
|
Chernihiv oblast |
1 |
0 |
1 |
7 |
2 |
11 |
|
city of Kyiv (two districts and foreign district) * |
6 |
4 |
3 |
14 |
3 |
30 |
|
Total |
33 |
22 |
63 |
235 |
35 |
388 |