Personal composition of precinct election commissions As OPORA already noted, candidates for the post of President of Ukraine and their election headquarters in many cases treated their right to participate in the formation of election commissions (DECs, PECs) insufficiently responsibly. The latter were 50% staffed by citizens who had no prior experience in organizing and conducting elections. A mass of cases was recorded of PEC members refusing leadership positions or work in commissions in general. If in December 2009 OPORA recorded isolated refusals to perform the duties of a commission member at the DEC level, then with the formation of PECs this process took on hundreds of times larger scale. After all, overly formal compliance with the legislative norm on the quota principle of appointing commission leadership and failure to take into account recommendations of candidate representatives on the ground led to the election of the least experienced and least prepared persons for such responsible work as commission heads. Such citizens, fearing to take responsibility for the work of the commission, refused primarily membership in PECs, because of which many commissions were "decapitated" for a long time. Cases were detected when authorized persons and local headquarters indicated in submissions regarding candidates for PEC membership persons who had not given consent to this, that is, in fact, falsification of citizens' applications took place. DECs, for the sake of timely formation of commission membership, paid less attention to verifying the information submitted to them by headquarters. As a result, in a number of cases, by DEC decisions, the same person was included in PEC membership from two candidates for the post of President of Ukraine, or included in two different election commissions. Also, local headquarters submitted unreliable or incomplete information, especially contact information, about persons proposed to the election commission. Since PECs did not have contacts of all commission members, they were forced to hold their meetings without a full complement. At times, DECs, "tired" of receiving applications refusing to work in the commission, unreasonably refused PEC members acceptance of such applications and sent these persons to election headquarters, thereby violating the law. The headquarters themselves, in fact, postponed work on staffing election commissions to the background, because of which many PECs worked for a long time without a full complement. Even this week, all five DECs operating in the region considered at their meetings the issue of replacing members of precinct election commissions. It is not excluded that this process will continue on voting day as well, since the absence of a quorum due to the non-appearance of a certain number of commission members will block the start of voting. Information is increasingly being confirmed that persons to election commission membership from various candidates for the post of President of Ukraine were submitted by headquarters of the Party of Regions. Thus a situation is emerging where one of the candidates for the post of President of Ukraine will have an advantage in the number of votes in election commissions. The problem of legal unawareness of commission members remains relevant, since many people began working in commissions without knowing the Law "On Elections of the President of Ukraine." That is why situations arise when commission members use pens with agitation for certain candidates in their work, or when campaign posters of candidates are pasted up in precinct premises and the commission takes no action to stop the violation. Only individual headquarters organized training for their representatives in commissions, and even then only for leadership. Therefore, training of precinct election commission members conducted with the support of the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine was for precinct election commission members the only source of information about the correct application of election legislation.
Activity of election commissions in exercising their powers The low competence of election commission members, the tight deadlines of the election campaign, and the beginning of the New Year and Christmas holidays led to the fact that most election procedures defined in legislation were carried out in violation of deadlines. Thus many PECs began their work with significant delay: if by law commissions were to hold their first meetings within three days from the day of creation (approximately by December 24), then in practice not all PECs began their work even by the end of last year. In some cases this occurred through the fault of DECs, which did not promptly inform the newly elected heads of precinct election commissions about the need to convene such a meeting; in other cases, due to frequent refusals of people to work in PEC leadership, there was simply no one to convene the meeting. The low professional level of election commission members and the material and technical problems superimposed on this led to the fact that in the Volyn region commissions delivered invitations to elections to voters late, although according to the law they were to do so by January 1 inclusive. With significant delays, precinct election commissions received their seals, preliminary voter lists, information posters, and other necessary documentation, including copies of the law.
Material and technical support for the work of election commissions As OPORA warned back in November last year, part of the state authorities and local self-government bodies took a rather passive attitude toward fulfilling their duties to create proper conditions for the work of election commissions. It was precisely based on the results of monitoring the situation with imperfect material and technical support for the work of DECs that observers appealed to the authorities with a recommendation to take care in advance of quality conditions for the work of precinct election commissions. Despite this, the issue of incomplete material and technical support for PECs is again on the agenda. Moreover, central authorities also contributed their share to this problem, in particular the Cabinet of Ministers, which significantly delayed financing of the election process. Because of this, DECs in the first weeks of their work were placed in a deadlock situation when they had to work but there were no funds to implement certain tasks. We also associate problems with opening DEC accounts in the territorial bodies of the State Treasury of Ukraine with the inaction of the central authorities. Delays in financing the elections negatively affected the organization of the entire election process. Newly created PECs did not even have basic office supplies, that is, pens and paper, to keep minutes of their meetings. Signs with the names of polling stations were produced for a long time. Many premises in winter are unsuitable for conducting elections due to the lack of heating. Moreover, this is characteristic not only of rural areas but also of cities. At the beginning of the week, not all polling stations had their own landline telephone number. Commission members are forced to use their private mobile phones to resolve the commission's work issues. It is already known that there will be fewer ballot boxes at polling stations than required by law. Local authorities explain this by saying that some boxes were damaged and written off, and the CEC is not ordering new ones. For a long time, the normal work of commissions was hindered by the uncertainty of the situation with employment centers, which en masse began to deprive persons included in PEC membership of unemployed status. This seriously affected people's motivation to work in commissions.
Readiness of district election commissions for the elections As OPORA noted earlier, the composition of the region's DECs does not fully correspond to the level of responsibility and workload placed on these commissions. In fact, 5-6 people work systematically in the commissions. All others mainly only participate in commission meetings. Therefore, DECs do not manage to carry out all election procedures within the deadlines defined by law, make mistakes in their decisions, and cannot control the work of all precinct election commissions. In addition, the commissions still lack coherence and mutual trust, which gives rise to disputes and conflicts. The quality of premises provided for DEC work is a cause for concern. After all, when receiving documents from PECs and establishing election results in the district, district election commissions will be very crowded, and therefore it will be difficult to organize this work with quality in small premises. The same applies to office equipment used by DECs. It is known that for certain special polling stations the CEC printed fewer ballots than necessary. Therefore, additional ballots must be produced for the PECs of such stations.
Observation conclusions: - District and precinct election commissions are working under very difficult conditions. The instability of commission membership, significant problems in material and technical support, and the incomprehensibility of legislation may significantly affect the quality of the commissions' work and create obstacles for the proper preparation and organization of voting on January 17, 2010.
Recommendations: 1. To district election commissions: - pay more attention to the work of precinct election commissions; before voting day, check the readiness of PECs to conduct voting; - mobilize all members of district commissions to work on the eve and on election day in order to promptly collect information about problems and emergency situations and respond promptly to them; - on voting day, be ready for prompt adoption of decisions on changing the composition of PECs and accordingly prepare a reserve of people to work in commissions. 2. To precinct election commissions - when adopting all decisions and performing any actions, be guided only by the norms of the law; - ensure strict compliance with the law in the part concerning the compilation of an extract from the voter list for voting at the voter's place of stay, making changes to voter lists, cooperation with observers and journalists, and counting votes; - constantly exert pressure on DECs and local self-government bodies in order to obtain proper premises, equipment and furniture, safes, telephones, booths, and boxes.
2. Work with voter lists The complex and painstaking work of the departments for maintaining the State Register of Voters, months of clarifying and reconciling information about voters, and a broad information campaign — all these expended resources and time did not yield a quality result in forming voter lists. Then the question arises: either the register maintenance departments did nothing for the last two years, or the automated information and telecommunications system "State Register of Voters" has shortcomings or is subject to external interference.
Quality of preliminary voter lists Members of precinct election commissions from across the region noted during communication the very poor quality of preliminary voter lists. In fact, according to commission members, this year's voter lists differ little from the voter lists from previous election campaigns. Again many people are not included in the lists, the same errors with incorrect spelling of voters' names, persons who died long ago are included, the same persons are included multiple times. Therefore, the departments for maintaining the State Register of Voters, especially in the region's districts, even went for a partial violation of legislation, simplifying for themselves and election commissions the procedure for verifying information about voters. Under it, PEC members, upon detecting any inaccuracies in the voter list, reported this to the register maintenance departments without submitting citizens' applications and adopting their own decisions, which themselves, on the basis of such "signal" reports, collected the necessary official information to make correct entries in the register. In fact, an unofficial reconciliation of register data was carried out. However, such situations were not mass-scale and were episodic in nature. Under the general legislative procedure, PECs did not have the authority to clarify information in the voter list on their own initiative. Therefore, most likely, the inaccuracies that occurred in the preliminary voter lists automatically carried over into the clarified voter lists, the quality of which we will be able to check only on January 17. It is likely that again a considerable number of voters, especially those who did not receive in September a notification about inclusion in the State Register of Voters and invitations to voting day from election commissions and did not apply in advance to check this information at the register maintenance departments, will not be able to vote. Thus on voting day a heavy load will fall on the shoulders of local courts, which at that time will remain the only bodies where voters can complain and receive a positive decision. At the same time, the departments for maintaining the State Register of Voters will also receive a lot of work, as they must ensure that multiple inclusion of voters is made impossible. As OPORA already noted, gaps and confusion in legislation may lead to election commissions, arbitrarily interpreting the norm of the law and following oral instructions from the CEC, beginning to include voters in voter lists on the basis of their own decisions. In our opinion, this is a gross violation of the law, which does not provide for a corresponding procedure and mechanism for this. After all, in the period from 8 to 20 o'clock on January 17, the commission cannot hold any meeting, including to consider and satisfy voters' complaints, since it organizes continuous voting. Such arbitrary interpretation of legal norms suggests the use of the unregulated nature of legal norms on voter lists for manipulation during elections. All the more alarming is information that certain headquarters are ready to pay a bonus to commission members depending on the number of persons additionally included in the voter list on voting day.
Voting at the voter's place of stay The adoption by the Central Election Commission of Resolution No. 6 of January 4, 2010 "On Amendments to the Resolution of the Central Election Commission of December 12, 2009 No. 475" causes concern among OPORA observers. The CEC implemented the Decision of the Kyiv Administrative Court of Appeal of December 19, 2009 in case No. 2-a/59/09/9/03, which declared illegal parts of the Clarification on submitting together with an application requesting that the voter be ensured voting outside the voting premises of pension certificates or the like, that is, other unspecified documents. However, the CEC went even further and excluded paragraphs two and three of clause 6.2 of the Clarification altogether. Thus the commission allowed voters to submit the above-mentioned applications without any supporting documents. Therefore, the number of persons who will vote not at the polling station but at their place of stay may be critically large. And since it is precisely when voting outside the precinct premises that it is easiest to violate the secrecy of voting and control the voter's expression of will, certain headquarters may be tempted to "buy" the votes of compliant voters. OPORA reminds that it was precisely such provisions of the election legislation of the 2004 model that led to mass falsifications and manipulations of the results of the expression of will. Therefore we call on all subjects of the election process to pay maximum attention specifically to voting by voters outside the voting premises. We also address precinct election commissions with a recommendation to strictly adhere to other clauses of the Clarification. In particular: - voters' applications requesting that they be ensured voting outside the voting premises must necessarily state the reasons for the inability to move independently; - precinct election commissions are obliged to verify the information submitted in the relevant application, in particular regarding the voter's inability to move independently; - such verification shall be carried out by at least three commission members designated by a decision of the precinct election commission; - each such application shall be considered by the commission separately and a separate reasoned decision shall be adopted on each of them, except for those voters regarding whom there is a note in the voter list about permanent inability to move independently. And although PEC members do not have special education or knowledge regarding determining a person's inability to move independently and the clause on the possibility of verifying information about such persons by telephone is unclear, subject to compliance with the above-mentioned four points, falsifications using voting at the voter's place of stay can be reduced.
Observation conclusions: - Unfortunately, the automated information and telecommunications system "State Register of Voters" is still far from working perfectly. And despite the fact that voters' personal data were repeatedly reconciled and clarified, when forming voter lists the old problems again appeared: non-inclusion, multiple inclusion, erroneous data. - In fact, on voting day, courts and departments for maintaining the State Register of Voters will be overloaded due to the large number of citizens' appeals. - The existing conflict in the law, arbitrary interpretation of legal norms by members of election commissions, and technological techniques of individual headquarters may significantly influence the results of the expression of will.
Recommendations: 1. District election commissions should be guided in their work only by the norms of the current law and by CEC resolutions adopted within the framework of its powers. Any oral instructions and recommendations of CEC members or other officials that contradict legislation should not be carried out, as such that are criminal. 2. Precinct election commissions in their work should strictly adhere to the norms of legislation, according to which the PECs themselves on voting day cannot adopt decisions on making changes to the voter list and should advise voters to apply to courts. In the event of receiving court decisions on including persons in the voter list, immediately inform the relevant departments for maintaining the State Register of Voters about such decisions. 3. Courts should organize their work so that voters on voting day between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. can file a claim regarding inaccuracies in the voter lists and, if there are reliable grounds, receive a court decision on inclusion in the voter list. 4. Departments for maintaining the voter register should ensure prompt notification of PECs about cases of multiple inclusion of voters in the voter list. 5. Observers and journalists should organize the process of observing the activities of all PECs, especially in small towns and villages, where the organization of falsifications is most likely.