Reformer of the week – Andriy Grudkin
Andriy Grudkin, an election observer from civil society group Sylny Gromady at district commission No. 52 in the town of Toretsk, told the Kyiv Post that there had been large-scale ballot stuffing in favor of President Petro Poroshenko in Toretsk in the March 31 election.
Kostyantyn Khivrenko, a spokesman for the Central Election Commission, denied the accusations of voting fraud. Poroshenko’s campaign spokesman Oleg Medvedev also denied the accusations, saying that international observers had praised the election as transparent.
Your New City, a civil society group in Toretsk, also said that large-scale vote rigging and assaults on election observers had taken place in the city. The group also said that “suspicious groups of people” had been present at most polling stations.
The group said that unknown people had stuffed ballots at polling station No. 140702 and fled. Your New City also published a photo of the allegedly stuffed ballots.
Presidential candidate Yuriy Karmazin’s representative Valentyna Erimicheva published a video from polling station No. 140704 in Toretsk in which she shows what she says is neat stack of stuffed ballots in favor of Poroshenko.
Donetsk Oblast police reported on April 2 that they have opened criminal cases into alleged voting fraud in the city of Bakhmut, the town of Pokrovske, and in Mangush District. The Opora election watchdog also said it was looking into the alleged violations.
Russian mathematician Sergei Shpilkin, who has for many years been analyzing Russian voting fraud, U.S.-based electoral geographer Alexander Kireev and Roman Udot, who works at the Russian independent election-monitoring agency Golos, have also published charts that they say show large-scale deviations from the normal distribution of votes in Donetsk Oblast, which they interpret as tampering in favor of Poroshenko.
Anti-reformer of the week – Tetiana Slipachuk
Tetiana Slipachuk, chairwoman of the Central Election Commission, has failed to react to evidence of alleged vote rigging in the March 31 presidential election.
The commission previously denied the accusations of voting fraud in Donetsk Oblast, while Slipachuk did not respond to a request for comment. President Petro Poroshenko’s campaign spokesman Oleg Medvedev also denied the accusations, saying that international observers had praised the election as transparent.
Videos of alleged vote rigging in Donetsk Oblast in the March 31 presidential election have emerged over the past week.
One of the videos shows a person taking ballots out of a mobile ballot box at polling station No.140807 in the town of Druzhkivka, with all of them in favor of Poroshenko. The person interprets this as evidence of ballot stuffing.
Presidential candidate Yuriy Boyko published what he says are final vote count reports from No. 140154 in Novotroitske and No. 140432 in Urzuf. The figures for Poroshenko and Boyko in the reports are, respectively, smaller and bigger than the Central Election Commission’s figures for these polling stations.
The Central Election Commission said in its response that it had found no discrepancies at these polling stations.
Slipachuk has also failed to react to the investigation into vote buying. In February Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, who reportedly has a conflict with Poroshenko, exposed the Poroshenko campaign’s alleged nationwide vote-buying scheme. Avakov said that voters identified as loyal to Poroshenko were asked by campaign workers to fill in applications for such state subsidies.
Poroshenko’s campaign denied the existence of the alleged scheme, which is being investigated by the police.
Slipachuk was delegated to the Central Election Commission by the People’s Will faction, which has often voted in the interests of the Presidential Administration. In 2016 Slipachuk was delegated by Poroshenko to the commission for selecting the leadership of the State Investigation Bureau.
Meanwhile, Slipachuk and Oleksiy Filatov, who is currently a deputy chief of staff for Poroshenko, used to be partners at law firm Vasyl Kysyl and Partners.
Slipachuk has also been accused of ties to Poroshenko Bloc lawmaker Oleksandr Hranovsky, who has denied promoting the candidacy for the commission’s head. In 2015 she praised Hranovsky in a comment under a Facebook post.
