President Volodymyr Zelensky has signed Law No. 805-IX, which provides for a number of changes to the electoral legislation, his Office reported Wednesday.
The MPs passed the relevant bill with a constitutional majority on July 16.
"The document settles inconsistencies, clarifies terms, simplifies and unifies electoral procedures.
It is established that national and local elections can be regular or extraordinary. Regular local elections shall be held simultaneously throughout Ukraine, with the exception of restrictions set by law. Extraordinary local elections shall be held in the event of early termination of powers of individual local government bodies and/or village, settlement, city heads.
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Extraordinary, midterm, first, and bypass local elections shall be held twice a year – on the last Sunday in March and the last Sunday in October.
In the year of the regular local elections, all such elections shall be held once a year – on the last Sunday of October of the fifth year of powers of local councils and village, settlement, city heads elected at the previous regular local elections.
The Central Election Commission is allowed to introduce innovative technology, including for processing applications and vote count. Such experiments and pilot projects could be held at designated polling stations.
The new law introduces a fee worth 650 minimal wages for each presidential candidate and 1,000 minimal wages – for those running for the legislature.
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The new concept of electoral quota has also been introduced. Candidates running for parliament who have gained votes equaling 25% of the quota or over shall be put on top of the list drawn by the local party unit.
The legislation envisages tougher administrative and criminal prosecution of election and referendum violations, including vote count fraud, bribing voters, breaches of campaigning rules, and obstruction of electoral rights.
The law shall be enforced on the next day after its official publication.
