Appeal of the Lugansk regional branch of the VCU on the results of the run-off presidential election in the Lugansk region
The Lugansk regional branch of the Voters’ committee of Ukraine has summed up the results of supervision over the run-off presidential election in the region and reckons that the announced results of the election do not represent the facts.
Without doubt, Viktor Yanukovich has absolute advantage in the Lugansk region: this agrees with our observations concerning the electoral sympathies of voters. Yet, we believe that the quantitative data on the number of citizens, who took part in the voting, and on the number of votes given for Viktor Yanukovich and Viktor Yushchenko, were falsified. This conclusion can be drawn from the following facts fixed during our observation.
1. The lists of voters for the run-off election were compiled with brutal violations of operating law. For example, in territorial election circuit No. 114 the compilation of lists and their verification began on 6-7 November, before the adoption of the CEC decision on the conduction of the second tour of the election. These lists contained names of the voters, which had not been in the lists on 31 October, and no election commissions and courts took the decisions about their inclusion in the lists. This is a violation of the order envisaged by the second part of Article 36 and parts 6 and 8 of Article 34 of the Law «On election of the President of Ukraine»
2. Opening of the envelopes with the lists of voters, carried out on 11 November 2004 at the sitting of the TEC of election circuit No. 113 in Severodonetsk, was purely decorative, and these lists were not used for compilation of the lists for the run-off election. So, the lists of voters were not opened at all at election stations Nos. 3, 62 and 63, about which the proper documents were composed and the claim was handed to the Lugansk appeal court. As a result, a great number of voters were illegally inscribed into the lists for the second tour of election, which, in accordance to part 1 of Article 80 of the Law, may be a ground for acknowledgement of the election as invalid.
3. Even before the day of voting the Lugansk regional branch of the VCU received the information about the «plan» given to the commissions, who had to guarantee the attendance of not less than 90% of voters. The commissions fulfilled the order with brutal violations of laws. In the course of voting the VCU observers fixed the facts, when the members of commissions phoned to voters and persuaded them to come to the election stations and when the members of commissions passed the lists of voters, who did not vote, to other persons. Such actions of election commissions had a mass character. The commissions exceeded their authorities, stipulated by Article 27 of the Law «On election of the President of Ukraine», and directly violated the demands of Article 5 of the Law, which prohibits pressure on voters. Besides, at the stations (or near them) representatives of power organs, establishments and enterprises stayed, registering their workers, who came to the election.
4. Another «plan task» given by the local power organs to the district commissions was the provision of not less than 15% of voting at the place of residence of voters. By the data of the VCU, this task was not fulfilled, but the proportion of «home voting» increased, in comparison with 31 October, from 4.2% to 8.7%. At that the mass violations of the procedure of such voting, stipulated by parts 1 and 3 of Article 77 of the Law, were observed: the lists for voting at the place of residence included not only those, who could not come to election stations because of poor health, but other persons too. The greater part of the applications about the voting at home, handed to the district election commissions, were made on copying equipment and signed by voters. In many cases the lists were not checked and were not approved by election commissions. The complaints were handed in connection with these facts, but these complaints were either rejected or not considered.
5. The voting at the place of residence of voters was carried out with violation of the procedure envisaged by parts 4 and 6 of Article 77 of the Law. Heads of the commissions did not inform about voting at home, the members of the commissions from V. Yushchenko were not included to the groups that conducted such voting, even if they insisted on this. At the same time the commission of the Stanichno-Luganskiy district took the decision that the voting at home would be realized not by three, but by two members of the commission, and a member of DEC 114/4 went with the ballot-box alone. Besides, the VCU observers fixed the cases, where the members of district election commissions, which came to voters’ homes, agitated for Viktor Yanukovich.
6. The VCU observers fixed various violations of the voting procedure, which had the mass character:
- repeated voting of one voter at the same station;
- giving to a voter of more than one bulletin for voting, throwing in of the batches of bulletins;
- movement of voters with off-list tickets from one station to another. So, buses with voters from Enakievo and Alchevsk accompanied by militia moved around the territory of the Antratsitovskiy district. A group of students was disclosed in Severodonetsk, who voted with the off-list tickets at election station 113/33, and then did the same at station 113/30. The complaint handed to the territorial election commission in the connection with this fact was not considered – the commission refused to include this question into the agenda. Similar situation was with the complaint handed, when about 600 bulletins, not signed by members of the commission, were acknowledged to be valid.
At a number of election stations the facts were fixed, when the members of the commissions purposely spoiled the bulletins given for Viktor Yushchenko. Some members of DEC 116/2, after the disclosure of falsification of bulletins, refused to sign the protocol of calculation of votes. After this several persons of criminal appearance armed with bats, drew them to a room and kept there for some time. At station 112/118 an observer of the VCU voted (with the off-list ticket) against both candidates, but number «0» was written in the column «against all» of the protocol.
7. There were many violations of the procedure of filling of the protocols stipulated by Article 79 of the Law: some district commissions of election circuits Nos. 111, 112 and 115, where representatives of the VCU were present during the calculation of votes, did not fill the protocols, but went to the territorial commissions with blank protocols signed by members of the commissions.
8. The conditions were created in the Lugansk region, which rendered impossible the efficient observation over the legality of work of the election commissions. So, the territorial commission of circuit 115 adopted resolution No. 129, which limited the place of location of observers with the area situated in 20 meters from the place, where the commission was working. There were mass facts of non-admittance of representatives of mass media and observers (including the international observers) to the rooms, where the voting took place. Under such conditions there are no grounds to say about the transparency of the election, on which the CEC insists.
9. At the same time, practically at all election stations of the Lugansk region (in the rooms for voting) there were persons, who had no right to be present there in compliance with part 10 of Article 28 of the Law. Militia officers were present almost everywhere, and the TEC of circuit No. 113 took the special decision about invitation of militiamen to the election stations. A claim was handed against this decision, but the Lugansk appeal court recognized that the decision was lawful.
10. The practice of consideration of the complaints against the violations of the Law of Ukraine «On election of the President of Ukraine», which had formed in the Lugansk region, made impossible or inefficient the appeals against the illegal actions of election commissions. At that, the Lugansk courts, considering the complaints against the violations of election laws, acted with partiality in interests of candidate to President’s post Viktor Yanukovich. After midday of 22 November the territorial commissions finished their work and were closed, which made impossible the appeals against the results of the voting. For instance, in Stakhanov an empowered person of Viktor Yushchenko could not hand 18 complaints prepared after the facts of violations, since there was nobody in TEC 116. The situation did not improve also after the appeal to the CEC.
The results of the observation evidence on the enormous number of violations of election laws, which noticeably influenced the results of the voting. Taking into account the fact that about 300 inhabitants of the region, especially in the «depressive» mining districts, where the attendance was maximal, in reality worked abroad, but were inscribed into the lists, one can say that the numbers published in the protocols mean that much more than 100% of voters took part in the election in the region.
Under such conditions the Lugansk regional branch of the VCU reckons that the results of election in the Lugansk region were falsified and proposes to the CEC to recalculate the votes and to verify the lists for the repeated voting in election circuits Nos. 105-116.
Approved by the board of the Lugansk regional branch of the VCU on 23 November 2004
Sent by fax to the CEC
Lugansk branch of the VCU