Voters will be informed they are not watched when casting a vote
The Central Election Commission of Ukraine decided to place very visible text in every polling station “there is no video surveillance in the voting booth” during the parliamentary elections.
September 23: Maidan Monitoring team and volunteers sent an appeal to the Ukrainian Parliament, Cabinet of Ministers and Central Election Commission demanding to provide transparency of upcoming parliamentary election. We noted that according to polls 35% of Ukrainians consider cameras filming the district precincts a threatening measure, “big brother” that observes how people actually vote. Therefore we demanded placement of public and visible notices in district precincts explaining that cameras do not film the actual process of casting a vote.
October 9: We got the response from Central Election Commission that confirmed that there will be no warning sign that the voting booths are not being watched by the cameras.
October 15: At the press conference of Maidan Monitoring project in Kyiv we informed that the international election observers in communication with our team voice their concern over the influence of webcams to election outcome. Erik Herron, professor at the University of Kansas, USA, who contacted our team, had sent us his scientific research of presidential election of 2008 and referendum of 2009 in Azerbaijan that the voter turnout at polling stations monitored with webcams was 8-12% lower than at those unmonitored one.
During the press conference the representative of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights responsible for observation of electoral rights Mykhaylo Chaplyga had supported the Maidan team’s concern about the surveillance webcams in polling stations as a possible tool of voters’ intimidation. He announced the intention to prepare and to submit an official appeal of the Commissioner requesting placement of mandatory notices at all polling stations “you are not observed when you vote”.
October 19: We sent an appeal to the President requesting to put up this warning sign.
October 22: The Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Valeria Lutkovska sent a public recommendation to the head of Central Election Commission to require placement of such warning sign.
October 24: Maidan’s campaign to notify voters, that there will be no surveillance inside the actual voting boths, was successful and the CEC decided to place very visible text in every polling station “there is no video surveillance in the voting booth”.
The Maidan Monitoring Project is supported by the International Renaissance Foundation.
Contacts:
Maidan Monitoring Project
Nataliya Zubar
panimaidan@gmail.com
***
Main objective of the International Renaissance Foundation is to provide financial and operational assistance to the development of an open and democratic society in Ukraine by supporting key civic initiatives in this area.
