No operational and in-depth information on the course and results of elections on October, 25, gave rise to doubts about the process integrity, even with no actual grounds therefor. In general, TECs and PECs are ready to run the “second round,” and the candidates’ campaigns are less dynamic or noticeable. At the same time, a key challenge for the organization and conduct of the repeat vote is still the growing number of people infected with COVID-19. Representatives of the Civil Network OPORA shared about the issues at the press conference on November, 13 in Kyiv.
Establishing Voting Results for October, 25
Pursuant to the electoral provisions, territorial election commissions should have established voting results by November, 6, and should have published them by November, 12. As of November, 12, the data from the CEC official website confirm the received results from the elections of people’s deputies from 1,406 out of the 1,577 local councils, or 89% of their total number. At the same time, on that date, the CEC informed about the election results established by TECs for 1,566 of the 1,577 local councils (99%) voted on October, 25, 2020. On the other hand, the CEC website has promulgated the results of electing city, village, and township heads for 1,394 out of the 1,421 territorial communities (98%) with the TEC established voting results in 1,415 communities.
In 18 cities with the number of voters 75,000 or more, TEC made decisions to have the second round of voting with two candidates collecting the highest number of votes. Within three weeks from the date when TECs made the decision on the re-vote, the voting was scheduled for November, 15, in 6 cities, with 75,000 voters or more (Kamyanets-Podilskyi, Kramatorsk, Lutsk, Odesa, Sumy, Kherson). The city of Ukrayinka, Kyiv Oblast, will have the second round of elections on the same day, too. The place does not have the 75,000 voters but there are two mayoral candidates with the close vote. On November, 22, the “second round” for city mayors will take place in 11 cities (Berdyansk, Dnipro, Drohobych, Lviv, Mykolayiv, Nikopol, Poltava, Rivne, Slovyansk, Uzhgorod, Cherkasy). On November, 12, Chernivtsi City TEC set the second round of voting for mayoral seat for November, 29, thus breaking the terms for making the relevant decision. Due to court disputes, the date has not been settled yet for the second round to elect a Kryvyi Rih city mayor. On the other hand, a decision was cancelled on setting November, 22 as the date for the second round for elections of Brovary city mayor. As to this city, the mayoral elections may be recognized as invalid. Thus, the community may have to re-vote. The elections of Boryspil city mayor have been declared by court as such that have not taken place. Therefore, Boryspil city TEC scheduled the repeat election for January, 31, 2021.
Breaking the procedures for establishing voting results in certain regions and territorial communities provoked heated public debate and conflicts. In response, Oleksiy Danilov, a secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, addressed Oleh Didenko, Chair of the CEC, on November, 11, 2020, and requested to take the urgent measures to establish voting results at elections on October, 25, 2020, and to promulgate them on the CEC website without undue delay. The letter stated that the NSDC executive office recorded the increase in social tensions and risks for national security due to underinformed society on official election results.
In the process of establishing local elections results, OPORA observers documented cases of breaking the statutory terms, signs of unstable and politically biased actions of TEC members, and incidents with elements of faking the voting results. In some cases, the situation required direct response from the CEC, such as to terminate the powers of certain TECs: Kherson regional TEC, Chernivtsi regional TEC, Marhanets city TEC in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Vasylkiv city TEC in Kyiv Oblast, Karolino-Buhaz village TEC in Odesa Oblast.
The Readiness of Commissions for the “Second Round”
When making decisions on setting the date for repeat vote, TEC failed to take into full account the terms needed to duly organize the process for production and transfer of ballot papers to election commissions on lower levels. Thus, Odesa and Sumy TECs printed and transferred ballot papers later than set by the Electoral Code. Although the procedural breach did not have any serious impact on the course of preparing the election process, it could have been avoided with proper planning of commission operations for the second round of voting.
Overall, the observers positively assess the organizational status of precinct election commissions to prepare for the second round. The fact that PECs in regional centers and in big cities have the maximum membership (or near the maximum) instills confidence that the commissions will be fully qualified to operate. However, since there is a trend to reduce or update the composition of PECs, and also for the short terms before the election day, massive potential replacements may challenge the organization of voting, as it may turn impossible to have a due professional preparation and learning the election procedures by new PEC members.
Campaigning Activities of Mayoral Candidates
For candidates running for local heads, the election campaign shall start on the day following the setting of the repeat voting, whereas all the expenses for campaigning shall be administered by candidates from their election funds established in advance, on the registration stage. In practice, candidates who made it for the second round continued the de-facto campaigning activities beyond the officially set terms, however on a smaller scale, and in other forms rather than at the previous campaign stage.
Considering the time limits and peculiarities of the repeat voting, with only two candidates running for elections, observers have not documented any intense campaigning cases that would simultaneously combine the outdoor tools, on-the-street campaigning, direct communication with voters and campaigning in the media. Compared to activities of candidates before the elections on October, 25, the present campaign is much less dynamic and notable. The leading topics in discussions between candidates include the highly publicized national-scale political developments, and the fact of having the pre-election debate.
A prevailing and most noticeable form of candidates’ campaigning in this period was the campaigning on Internet. According to observers, it was as highly active as on the previous stage of elections, and included more active and direct engagement of voters and candidates (parties) into the campaigning. Another most popular form of candidates’ campaigning was the use of regional media to campaign either covertly or directly. There are many more cases when candidates were using the influential national media resources for electoral purpose, in the context of no equal or unimpeded access to the same media for all other candidates.
A key peculiarity of the candidates’ public campaign was the search for allies and mobilization of support from other political forces. In other words, the political parties that are no longer electoral actors were engaged in campaigning activities. Very often, the parties’ manifestation of the support is part of a broader process of political structuring of the newly established councils and the start of creating inter-party coalitions in local councils. Another peculiarity of the campaign is public support and campaigning for candidates shown by the incumbent people’s deputies. These are often the facts of making use of their status and powers for campaigning purpose.
Political Ads in Social Media
In general, most electoral participants abided by the statutory requirements and stopped sharing political ads on the “election silence day” and on the election day. The conclusions ae also confirmed by the data from Political Ads Library. Thus, whereas on the concluding days of election campaign, over 25,000 posts were shared on Facebook, on October, 24 and 25, the number of active posts was as little as 3,500. In other words, some electoral subjects ignored the “silent day” and continued sharing their promoted posts. Some most active posts included signs of the “black PR”, and covert campaigning shared by anonymous pages. Moreover, OPORA documented numerous facts of sharing opinion polls on social media and other rankings published on the election day.
Generally, after the election day, activity levels of political parties and candidates on social media dropped. During the two weeks from October, 25, to November, 7, over 4,000 promoted posts were published on Facebook, worth over USD 144,000. Typically, the highest amounts were spent for Facebook ads by political parties. About 30 political forces spent the total of USD 34,000 (over UAH 900,000) for 857 promoted ads. In their ads, parties mostly told about the voting results and campaigned for their candidates running for the second round. The highest amounts were spent in the two weeks by the “Servant of the People” party. It is over USD 8,000 (UAH 230,000) for 89 ads. Next follows the “For the Future” party that spent for political ads over USD 6,000 (UAH 175,000) for 164 posts. “European Solidarity” spent for political ads over USD 3,700 (over UAH 105,000) for 122 posts. Candidates running for the second round also showed high activity levels. The highest amounts were spent by a Lviv mayoral candidate from the “European Solidarity” Oleh Syniutka who competes with the incumbent city mayor Andriy Sadovyi. Mr. Syniutka spent over USD 3,500 for 44 ads.
Financial Reporting
According to OPORA, campaigns for 2020 local elections were running in the context of inefficient system of reporting for electoral finance and with no due control over it. The Electoral Code establishes the submission of interim and final reports to TECs on the money used from election funds but the statutory and practical circumstances disabled the proper monitoring of funding for election campaigns. The reports, especially the interim reports, failed to fulfil their function to inform voters and to provide for transparent funding of the campaign, which was due to massive failure to abide by statutory requirements on the publication of reports. TECs, on the other hand, were not competent to practically analyze them, regardless of the relevant duties they had.
OPORA observers analyzed the situation with the publication of information on interim and final reports of election fund managers in 15 major cities of Ukraine (Mykolaiv, Odesa, Berdyansk, Lutsk, Uzhgorod, Sumy, Kramatorsk, Slovyansk, Kamyanets-Podilsky, Cherkasy, Rivne Lviv, Kherson, Poltava). In all monitored cities, local party organizations submitted 112 interim reports, of which only 55% were published by TECs with various methods. At the same time, this indicator includes cases when the reports were posted on the TEC stands, and voters did not actually have access to them. 44% of interim reports submitted to TECs by local political party organizations were not published in any manner. In other individual cases, interim reports were published by local party organizations themselves on their websites, which is also provided for by the Electoral Code, in addition to the TEC’s responsibilities. The promulgation rate is even worse for the final reports of election funds: 55% of the 133 final financial reports were not published; 44% of the reports were published in a TEC-defined manner; and 1% of the reports were posted on the party organization’s website only. TECs published the information from the 65% of all 92 interim reports of mayoral candidates in 15 communities. 36% of such reports were submitted to TECs but were not posted on websites or otherwise. The situation is worse with regard to the publication of the final reports of candidates for mayors. However, it is another evidence to the same problem. As little as 44% of the 109 final reports of mayoral candidates in 15 cities were published by TECs.
Police and Courts
Since the beginning of the election process on September 5, the territorial bodies of the National Police have registered 16,121 reports and notifications related to the election process. The highest numbers are found in the following places: 1,782 - in Kyiv Oblast; 1,742 - in the city of Kyiv; 1,228 - in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast; 1,142 - in Odessa Oblast; 1,046 - in Donetsk Oblast.
Claims to law enforcement agencies concerned events that showed elements of illegal campaigning – 6,017; production or distribution of printed campaigning materials – 1,183; breaking the rules for posting campaigning materials - 839; voter bribery - 751; breaking the procedure for maintaining the voter register - 477; falsification of election documents - 437; violation of the procedure for publishing election documentation - 431; taking photographs of ballot papers - 321.
A total of 1,075 criminal proceedings were entered into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations: 671 proceedings related to violations of the election law, and 404 cases referring to election process. In 85 criminal proceedings, 103 persons were reported as suspects; and on 23 cases, the materials have already been sent to court. In addition, law enforcement agencies drew up 2,381 reports on administrative offenses.
To date, since the launch of the election process, the Unified State Judicial Register has published 702 resolutions on cases of bringing to administrative responsibility for electoral administrative offenses (including 324 decisions from October 22 to November 10). In almost 30% of cases (237 cases) the files were sent for revision to be further duly registered. Persons were found guilty in about half of the decisions (340 cases). In 30% of cases (215 cases), the proceedings were closed on various grounds: in the absence of the event and the elements of the administrative offense (with a guilty plea or without such a confession), or cases were dismissed due to the insignificance of the offense (Art. 22 of the CoAOU). Most cases have traditionally been considered under Art. 212-13 (production or distribution of printed campaign materials that do not contain the required information, 394 cases), under Art. 212-14 (breaking the rules for posting campaign materials, 201 cases), and under Art. 212-10 (violation of campaigning restrictions, 75 cases).
Epidemic Prevention Measures
Of the seven cities to have the repeat voting on November, 15, to elect the local head, four cities (Sumy, Kramatorsk, Kamyanets-Podilskyi, and Ukrayinka) stay in the red zone, with the highest level of epidemic hazard. The growing COVID-19 disease levels are a key challenge to proper organization and conduct of the repeated voting.
The common issues with replacing members of election commissions are more probable now, in terms of increased number of disease cases among commission members, and for the need to self-isolate. It poses risks to commissions’ sustainable operations on the stage of voting, vote count, and establishing of voting results. The nominating entities face a higher responsibility to search for backup candidates in order to provide for due organization and control over the course of elections.
In addition to organizational issues, the COVID-19 pandemic may have a more expressed negative impact on voter turnout. It calls for more attention from local self-government to implement more efficient anti-epidemic measures and coordinated efforts with election commissions to raise awareness on following the requirements and security guarantees for all election participants.