Committee of Voters begins “voting” according to open candidate lists

On 18 May a new Internet resource “National Primaries – 2009. Model voting according to open candidate lists ” was launched.  The initiative is part of an apolitical educational campaign being run by the Committee of Voters of Ukraine [CVU] regarding the introduction of an electoral system of open regional candidate lists.

In each of the 27 regions, on the basis of the wishes of the political parties themselves, as well as CVU expert assessments, “model lists” were created of candidates from the most popular political forces. Over 2 thousand candidates have been placed on the lists from 15 political parties and blocs. All leaders of the political forces were added to the lists from Kyiv city.

CVU notes that in creating the lists they encountered incomprehension, sometimes an aggressive response from representatives of certain political forces. Two of the main parties – the Party of the Regions and BYuT [Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko) refused to provide suggestions, so CVU drew up their own lists. It stresses that all information was obtained from open sources, and the results will have no legal ramifications. CVU therefore rejects any suggestion that their actions are unlawful.

In order to avoid multiple votes distorting the results, in 24 hours it is possible to vote from one computer only once.  

When asked if this meant that voters can in principle vote more than once, just on different days, we were told by CVU management that in principle yes, but the numbers involved were unlikely to make a major difference.

We are also informed that the initiative is being run by CVU alone, using its internal resources.

The online model voting will take place from 18-31 May, after which the results will be made public.

From information provided by Oleksandr Chernenko, Head of CVU, and from www.cvu.org.ua