Main issues on voting day - voter bribery and attempts to falsify the vote

During today's briefing, the Committee of Voters of Ukraine (CVU) presented a report on the results of monitoring on voting day.

CVU experts noted that as of 6pm, the most serious problem detected was voter bribery. During the preparation stages of the election campaign, evidence of systems to bribe voters were repeatedly encountered, including the distribution of products, money, and offers of protection. Most violations were detected in the election process before the official registration of candidates.

CVU encountered evidence of bribery or attempts to organize systemic bribery on election day. In the Odesa region, four buses were seen transporting people to vote in other settlements: the city of Belgorod-Dniester and the town of Zatoka. This was an attempt to vote in different voter registration addresses. There is evidence that these voters were offered UAH 400 each to travel to vote centrally.

In the Cherkasy region, evidence was recorded of the transportation of voters to the polling station. In the Dnipropetrovsk region, observers noted that when voters were offered 200 UAH to vote for one of the political groups, representatives of the National Police were called, and a corresponding act was drawn up. The violators escaped. Voters were also transported to a specific polling station in the Donetsk region, organized by the "Opposition Platform - For Life." CVU experts noted that the technology of transportation is often a component of voter bribery.

There were reports of ballots being taken outside the polling station, as part of the “carousel” technology. Such acts were registered in Zhytomyr and Cherkasy regions, in the city of Dnipro.

The second major issue is the falsification and attempted falsification of ballots. CVU observers witnessed a voter being forced to vote by a medical worker in the Dnipropetrovsk region. The medical worker was observed telling the voter where the ballot box was located, taking the ballot from the voter and lowering it into the ballot box. A similar situation occurred in Zakarpattya. It was also revealed that 100 ballots were stolen, which may indicate further attempts to falsify votes. In the Donetsk region, a voter noticed that the ballot paper already contained marks for voting. The CVU noted that the briefing at 12 pm focused on certain violations, and as of 6 pm, the openly criminal nature of election violations became apparent.

The briefing also raised the issue of spoiled ballots due to typographical errors or voters’ misunderstanding of how to fill them out. This led to the loss of some votes.