The Party of Regions monitors have reported on 2381 abuses of the election law that have occurred to date in the course of the current election campaign, according to the party’s web site.
The PoR statement enumerates the violations as follows:
1. A matter of great concern is the quality of the voter lists as well as the formation and functioning of election commissions at all levels. A serious flaw in the election process is the inaccuracy of the election voter lists that still contain mistakes that were not corrected after the 2006 Election.
The disenfranchisement of large number of voters of their constitutional right to vote, which has been caused by the inaccuracy of the voter lists, can have a significant impact on the election results both in local precincts and throughout Ukraine. The poor quality of the voter lists is of direct relevance to the Party of Regions as the majority of mistakes and omissions have been observed in those areas where POR has strong bases of support.
2. A significant risk to the integrity of the election is proxy voting, as large numbers of registered voters are currently working abroad. According to various estimates between 5 and 7 million labour migrants are outside of the country, which means that the potential exists for family members to unlawfully use the internal passports of their relatives working abroad - as was the case in previous elections.
3. Another threat to the integrity of the election integrity is the ineffective functioning of a number of lower level election commissions as many precinct election commissions are staffed with commissioners who lack the requisite knowledge, skills and commitment. The Party of Regions has, at its own expense, organized a training program across the country for POR nominees to the election commissions and has provided them with the necessary support literature.
4. There is also a problem with the insufficient provisioning of election commissions as, on average, every third commission does not have an access to a telephone line and cannot connect to the Internet.
5. The basic principle of submitting party nominees to serve on election commissions is also causing problems: more often than not commissioners from different parties get into conflicts and these disputes may aggravate or even block the functioning of election commissions.
