Committee of Voters unimpressed with the low quality of electoral lists

The Committee of Voters of Ukraine has issued a statement regarding the number of people who were unable to vote because their names weren’t on the list. The Committee suggests that hundreds of thousands of citizens may have been deprived of their constitutional right.

It believes that such infringements should not go unpunished and points out that under the Code of Administrative Offences a fine is payable. 

The Committee is therefore advising anybody who was in this way prevented from voting to approach the Ministry of Internal Affairs with a complaint against the head of the working group drawing up the relevant voter list.  Such applications must be submitted by 9 November.

The Committee also has words of criticism about the voting abroad.  There were problems in the USA with how the voting areas were divided up between different consulates with this sometimes having little logic to it.

Another problem which suggests thoughtless planning rather than design was the explanatory note issued by the Central Election Commission on checking electoral lists abroad. According to this voters needed to personally hand in the relevant application to the electoral commission to be included in the list.  Now this may be fine if you live next door to the consulate, but clearly most people do not, and for most people two trips was simply impossible. Some commissions agreed to accept the applications by email or fax as long as the person brought the application to them on voting day.

From information on the CVU website at: www.cvu.org.ua