Political geography of “doubles”
On 18 August the Central Election Commission completed registration of parliamentary candidates. Among the trends of the 2012 parliamentary election campaign is the use of “doubles”: candidates bearing the same name as well-known politicians. An analysis of the decisions taken by the CEC found 30 electoral districts where doubles are supposedly standing for election. The technique is intended to confuse voters on Election Day so that they don’t vote for the candidate they in fact support. OPORA reports that this applies to 43 candidates.
Most doubles (with three people with the same name) were found in 4 single-mandate electoral districts:
No. 60 – three Volkovs
No. 98 - three Boikos
No. 122 – thre Kozaks
No. 225 – three Parkhomenkos
The list of districts with two people of the same name is long.
OPORA points out that despite the dubiousness of such methods, there are no legal ways of countering it. CEC was obliged to register all the doubles who submitted the necessary documents.
It mentions also that CEC refused to register 7 people with criminal convictions who wanted to stand for election in single-mandate electoral districts.