Half of the elections marked by voter bribery schemes and incidents of this increased significantly
Local election commission count votes in Boyarka, Kyiv Oblast, 25.10.2020, Source: kyivpost.com (Kostyantyn Chernichkin) Briefing summary According to the Committee of Voters of Ukraine (CVU), the second round of mayoral elections on November 22 was mostly held in accordance with international standards of fair and free elections, but in five cities, there was […]
Highly competitive runoff elections with deliberate disinformation and smear campaigns
OPORA STATEMENT PRELIMINARY FINDINGS FOLLOWING OBSERVATION OF RUNOFF CITY MAYOR ELECTIONS HELD ON 22 NOVEMBER, 2020 On 22 November, runoff mayoral elections took place in Berdiansk, Zaporizhia Oblas; Dnipro; Drohobych, Lviv Oblast; Lviv; Mykolaiv; Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast; Poltava; Rivne; Slovyansk, Donetsk Oblast; Uzhhorod; and Cherkasy. OPORA observers conducted long-term and short-term observations of the elections focusing […]
No widespread violations, but need for professionalization of election commissions
SUMMARY OPORA INTERIM REPORT The OPORA civil network will conduct the observation of the runoff mayoral elections that will take place on 22 November, 2020, in Berdiansk, Zaporizhia Oblast; Dnipro; Drohobych, Lviv Oblast; Lviv; Mykolaiv; Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast; Poltava; Rivne; Slovyansk, Donetsk Oblast; Uzhhorod; and Cherkasy. Between these eleven Ukrainian cities, four mayoral candidates […]
Increase in black PR and manipulative schemes to gain votes
Polling station in Dnipro, 25.10.2020. Source: rferl.org Briefing summary CVU Chairman Oleksiy Koshel noted that the CVU recorded many cases of black PR on the eve of the second round of elections. “Before the election, we are seeing massive use of black PR. We have the impression that black PR has grown significantly compared […]
Second round elections see similar violations and issues to first round, but of no significant extent to impact election results
OPORA civil network conducted independent non-partisan observation of the repeat mayoral election held on November 15, 2020 in Lutsk, Odessa, Sumy, Kherson, Kamianets-Podilsky of Khmelnytsky Oblast, Kramatorsk, and Ukrainka of Kyiv Oblast. In all localities, except Ukrainka, the runoff election was called because none of the candidates had won more than 50% of the votes […]
Lowest turnout in 10 years due to weekend quarantine order
Source: atlanticcouncil.org (REUTERS/Stanislav Kozliuk) Committee of Voters of Ukraine (CVU) Chairman Oleksiy Koshel noted that elections took place in seven city communities. In five of these communities, typical violations of electoral law were recorded, which did not significantly impact results. These included mistakes in commissions’ work, several examples of obstruction to observers’ work, including that of […]
Interim report before run-off elections: need to revise system for processing and publishing election data
Source: euromaidanpress.com Summary of interim report The process of establishing voting results and the results of the local elections of October 20, 2020, being predictably long-running and not entirely transparent, has provoked excessive suspicion and sometimes reasonable criticism of the election administration bodies on the part of various election participants and voters, too. As […]
Second round of elections: main problems and risks
Source: kyivpost.com (Kostyantyn Chernichkin) Committee of Voters of Ukraine (CVU) Chairman Oleksiy Koshel noted during a press briefing that the second round of elections will take place on November 15 in 7 communities, and on November 22 in other communities. The second round will likely take place during the weekend quarantine, which may affect […]
When and where are second rounds of local elections being held?
When will be the second round held in communities with 75,000 voters or more, if none of the candidates receives 50% + 1 vote? The date varies for each community. According to Article 281 (1) of the Election Code, the second round shall be scheduled for Sunday, within three weeks following the date when the […]
Findings and conclusions: local elections in Ukraine
Image source: Civil Network Opora On October 29, 2020, EPDE hosted a post-election expert Round Table to discuss the outcomes of the local elections held on October 25 in Ukraine. Representatives of domestic and international election observation missions together with international election experts summarized main findings and discussed take-aways of these elections for the […]