Ukrainian laws and international treaties adopted by Ukraine guarantee the citizens free elections. According to these legislations the term “free election” is not limited to free voting itself but also presumes the creation of proper conditions to form the voters will, the observance of legal procedures during the election campaign. We will show you how it works in Ukraine in practice. The objective of our project “Maidan Monitoring: Election-2012” is to collect and analyze the documented evidence of violation of electoral law during the election to Ukrainian Parliament.

1. Maidan Monitoring:
Election 2012
Monitoring the observance of the Law
“On elections of people’s deputies in Ukraine” during the
Parliamentary Election in Ukraine on October 28th 2012
http://world.maidan.org.ua

2. Maidan’s Story
Maidan.org.ua Online community formed in 2000 by activists united to protest
the murder of independent journalist Georgiy Gongadze.
2004 – Maidan was the main internet hub for Orange Revolution;
Volunteers reported up to 1500 news a day.
Monitors aggregated election reports from 30 countries
70 cars patrolled election precincts in Kyiv and coordinated via site
Reports were used in the Supreme Court
2006 – Parliamentary election, first project on citizen sociology, we compared
voters’ preferences and priorities of the politicians and correctly predicted very sad
future of the Parliament
2010 – President’s election, we documented the total lack of communication with
citizens and predicted the failure of social dialog with the next elected President
Site gets 120.000 visitors per month for 8 last years.
Most of our visitors are dedicated activists. Our projects
traditionally involve hundreds of volunteers
http://world.maidan.org.ua

3. The Monitoring Team
2012 – Parliamentary election, we formed a team of dedicated professionals to
properly monitor and document the observance of election law.
The project name is “Maidan Monitoring: Election 2012”.
Maidan is a network of experienced human rights activists, law,
psychology, communication and IT experts, journalists and technically
savvy concerned citizens.
We
telecommute
for 12 years.
Our core team
members live in
Kyiv, Kharkiv,
Lviv, Odesa,
Simferopol,
Ternopil,
Kremenchuk,
USA and
Canada.
Throughout all of it's history Maidan has been bringing together
civil activists from Ukraine and abroad dedicated to strengthening
democracy in Ukraine. http://world.maidan.org.ua

4. Interactive Map
of Election Violations
Crowdsourced reports are only added to the if they are properly accompanied by
photo and/or video evidence and after verification by project's law experts
The map functions
since June 9th.
Citizens submit
reports since
July 9th.
784 complaints regarding violations of the electoral law added to the interactive map
http://maidanua.org/vybory2012/main?l=en_US as of September 27th 2012.
The total number of violations reported to Parliamentary election in Ukraine will
the project team is 2742. be held on October 28, 2012.

5. Violations with Most
Impact on Election Results
1. Administrative pressure
2. Widespread deception of voters, e.g. public works funded by
the state budget are presented to voters as results of private
efforts of a certain candidate or party.
3. Widespread indirect bribery of voters, which is expressly
forbidden by the law.
4. Direct physical violence
5. Pressure on and close-down of independent media
Our first detailed monitoring summary had been sent to
all international observers. We had officially submitted it
to Ukrainian government authorities.
http://world.maidan.org.ua

6. Worst Offenders
The major violator of the Law is the Ukrainian government, who:
1. Did not provide the stable, transparent, unambiguous election law thus
having failed to maintain the principle of legal certainty.
2. Did not guarantee that the organization of district election commissions
in carried out in perfectly transparent and legitimate way.
3. Does not protect the citizens from manipulations and extralegal coercion
which is becoming the major threat to society along with corruption.
Most reports of violations are related to Party of regions and affiliated
candidates.
Our first detailed monitoring summary had been officially
submitted it to Ukrainian government authorities. It has
already been used by Cabinet of Ministers.
http://world.maidan.org.ua

7. Data Flow
Reports are crowdsourced from a quickly growing
network of concerned citizens determined to hold those responsible
for violations of the law accountable. Information is being submitted
through a web form, email, phone, or social networks.
Reports include video or
photographic evidence or
official documents and are
verified by the editors and
evaluated and commented on
by the lawyers.
We engaged 250+ volunteers from all
regions of Ukraine.
There are reports from 280+ locations.
Most violations are reported from Odesa region,
Kyiv city and Kharkiv region. http://world.maidan.org.ua

8. Reporters : Making a
Difference
1. Citizens submit not only final cases but also inform us on upcoming
events.
2. Volunteers “pick up” on information and make photos and videos.
Sometimes it takes traveling to long distance.
3. Activists are using the reports on the map in courts and sometimes win.
Crowdsourced photos of flags of Party of
regions displayed at local councils in villages
near Odessa caught attention of the
Ombudsman. As a result the violation
stopped.
Roman Bilyk, volunteer,
submitted 7 reports

9. Empowering Citizens
We encourage netizens to look for and document violations by providing them with
simple visual HowTos - Motivators based on real reports.
Our visual motivators are eagerly shared. They spark legal discussions and make
people talk about the ethical issues in the elections.
The photo (left) shows political
advertising of party of Regions on a
public transport in Luhansk.
Gifts branded with political logos,
given to kids in a school near Kyiv.
The legal discussion about this (above) picture started our
communication and cooperation with Ombudsman’s
office. http://world.maidan.org.ua

10. Impact. Sharing Findings
Our original content is eagerly shared (with credits or not) by major news media
including Ukrainska Pravda, UNIAN, etc. However, our major distributors are
volunteers - active citizens who share it via social networks. Peak traffic on our
facebook page was 56000 views.
We offer weekly summaries of verified reports added to the interactive map and
custom publication for particular
The preliminary results of the project were presented in UNIAN press agency in
Kyiv on September 18th. The next presentation is planned for October 15th.
Our data is actively used by the government authorities and international
observers as a reliable source of information on elections.
Project Results are covered in the national media, and our partners
include Ukrainian Service Voice of America”
http://world.maidan.org.ua
(TV broadcasts on Ukraine’s “Channel 5”).

11. Internationally
Aknowledged
We have working contacts with international election observers from:
Canada (CANADEM), USA, Japan and the European Parliament and seeking more.
Meeting with CANADEM representatives in Kharkiv -
Sept 26th 2012
Our expert Yuriy Lukanov (on the right) – key speaker
in the debate on "The Ukrainian parliamentary
election 2012 in the perspective of the Civil Society
Representatives" in the European Parliament, Brussels
- Sept 26th 2012
English language summaries of our project findings are very
popular and are used by many observers
http://world.maidan.org.ua

12. What's Next?
Our future projects will aim to involve general public to report and document
violations of the political rights of Ukrainian citizens. So far we focus on
freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.
We will continue to focus on the freedom of speech on the Internet especially
considering new threats to the freedom of expression that emerged recently.
We encourage you to :
 Consider project's reports and data in evaluation of Ukrainian elections
 Provide assistance to project team in spreading awareness on Maidan's efficiency
in carrying out a large scale crowdsourced monitoring project
 Involve project's experts into discussions, round-tables and experts meetings
dedicated to Ukraine's upcoming elections as wells as freedom of speech, human
rights and civil freedoms monitoring.
We are positive that we bring a unique expertise and perspective on Ukraine
Currently our long-term partners include the International
Renaissance Foundation and the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection
http://world.maidan.org.ua
Group

13. More Info
Contact Maidan
Natalka Zubar, Kharkiv, Ukraine
Phone: +380 50 401 23 83
Email: pani@maidan.org.ua Skype: nelliza111
Oleksiy Kuzmenko, Washington, DC
Phone: 202 549 20 68
Email: oleksiy.kuzmenko@gmail.com Skype: oleksiykuzmenko
Our site in English http://world.maidan.org.ua
The monitoring summary and periodic reports could be found there
Interface map is available in English
http://maidanua.org/vybory2012/main?l=en_US
Reports are Google translated,
human translations are available upon request.
The “Maidan-Monitoring” project is supported by the International
Renaissance Foundation and the contributions of team members
http://world.maidan.org.ua