On 15 November 2020, the second round of mayoral election is being held in Lutsk, Odesa, Sumy, Kherson, Kamyanets-Podilskyi (Khmelnytsky oblast), Kramatorsk, Ukrainka (Kyiv oblast). OPORA provides an assessment of electoral procedures in the second round, representative for precincts, formed in the corresponding cities. The second round is held in tougher anti-epidemic measures introduced by Ukrainian Government, including special quarantine restrictions for Saturday and Sunday.
OPORA assessed how precinct election commissions (PECs) started to work in the second round in 7 cities of Ukraine. According to observers, about 16% of PECs did not meet the requirements for the timing of preparatory meeting, which is open to official observers and other electoral subjects. According to the Election Code, TECs shall start the preparatory meeting no earlier than 45 minutes before the start of the vote (07:15). The clearly defined timing allows electoral subjects to get proper conditions for observation of each election day procedure. Thus, the first meeting started before 7 am at 1.53% of PECs, and after 7 am but earlier than is allowed by the law at 14.5% of PECs.
Despite the situation with COVID-19 has worsened, the majority of PECs didn't have problems with gathering a quorum at meetings. Thus, 97.04% of PECs have gathered quorum at their morning meetings, and 2.96% of PEC had problems with gathering a quorum.
Morning meetings of PECs were accompanied by some procedural violations. At almost 10% of polling stations, PEC members did not complete the meeting protocol, which shall include information about the preparation of the vote.
OPORA's monitoring shows that 19.08% of polling stations were opened before 8 am, while 0.76% of PECs did not start the vote even after 8:30 am. Thus, 80.15% of PECs gave the voters an opportunity to vote on time.
OPORA's observers at 97.71% of covered polling stations reported that they had the opportunity to comprehensively observe the PEC preparatory meeting and the start of the vote. 2.29% of OPORA's representatives faced obstructions in their observation of the quality of election procedures.
As of 10 am on 15 November, OPORA had detected and verified 43 violations of the election law at polling stations. For example, 23 of 43 violations concerned problems with materials and technical means at polling stations. Violation requirements for setup and arrangements at polling stations is a traditional problem of elections in Ukraine. However, it has become especially acute in the context of the need to ensure anti-epidemic measures. 5 out of 43 incidents concerned attempts to obstruct the legitimate activities of OPORA's observers by election commission members. These incidents made it impossible for observers to fully assess the legitimacy of morning meetings.
After the opening of the polling stations, observers recorded 4 cases involving the issuing or receiving of ballots without verification of relevant documents. OPORA emphasizes to PEC members that illegal issuance of ballots is inadmissible, and calls on law enforcement agencies to promptly document such incidents.
OPORA has deployed observers to 133 polling stations, located evenly throughout the country. Before the observation, OPORA held 2 rounds of trainings and special Election Day simulations, involving possible situations and incidents. The observers are deployed based on random stratified sampling. The maximum margin of error for this report is below 6.86%. OPORA's statistically based observation is an independent activity, realized exclusively by OPORA, aimed to provide Independent information on the course of election.