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Наталя ХандусенкоHot News
31 March 2025, 11:15
2025-03-31
"Electronic voting is a system that is much easier to discredit than traditional voting," the CEC chairman said about electronic elections.
Presidential and parliamentary elections have been postponed due to a full-scale invasion, but the issue is being raised again amid international negotiations involving the US, Ukraine and Russia. The number of voters abroad has increased at least 10-fold, which could be around 5-6 million people, and the massive movement of citizens within the country and other factors are making it difficult to organize the vote. One option is electronic elections, but the Central Election Commission is against this. Now is not the time for experiments, says CEC Chairman Oleg Didenko.
Presidential and parliamentary elections have been postponed due to a full-scale invasion, but the issue is being raised again amid international negotiations involving the US, Ukraine and Russia. The number of voters abroad has increased at least 10-fold, which could be around 5-6 million people, and the massive movement of citizens within the country and other factors are making it difficult to organize the vote. One option is electronic elections, but the Central Election Commission is against this. Now is not the time for experiments, says CEC Chairman Oleg Didenko.
According to the head of the Central Election Commission, Oleg Didenko, electronic elections are possible under two conditions: when there is a sufficient level of development of technologies in the country, and when there is a sufficient level of awareness of voters and all participants in the electoral processes. So that no one abuses and everyone trusts the results. But Didenko believes that Ukraine probably does not have these conditions now. Instead, there are great risks of cyber threats and interference from the aggressor.
"And electronic voting is a system that is much easier to discredit than traditional paper voting. Because voting takes place in an uncontrolled environment, no one sees where and how people vote. It is impossible to ensure the secrecy of the expression of will so that observers or anyone else can make sure that the voter casts his vote freely, without anyone's influence. It is impossible, for example, when there is a dispute, to take and count the votes. I often say that post-war elections are not a place for experiments," the CEC chairman said in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda.
Didenko also added that all participants in the electoral process, all subjects of the political process, must be aware of this responsibility. Elections are primarily about trust, not about technology.
"The post-war elections will be very responsible and sensitive. Any careless moves, and even more so abuses, can provoke internal conflicts. And they can have very negative consequences, especially considering that after the war, our voters will have, on the one hand, a heightened sense of justice, and on the other, a lot of weapons. It is important that we do not get an internal conflict with even worse results than defeat in the war," Didenko explains.
To hold elections,an appropriate law must be passed.
"We are currently working on proposals for the law on post-war elections and will propose to the Verkhovna Rada to further simplify and expand these opportunities," says the CEC chairman.
The CEC created three groups to develop possible changes to the legislation. One of them focused specifically on voting abroad.
"For them, we are currently preparing a proposal to introduce another mechanism. If the Verkhovna Rada supports our idea, there will be a third opportunity to vote — the so-called active registration," Didenko notes.
At the beginning of the invasion, the CEC stopped maintaining the voter register. In December 2023, it began to be restored.
"For the first half of the year, we filled the databases with information that the competent authorities had been submitting for almost two years, but we did not enter it into the register. Then the so-called address database was updated, that is, information about polling stations. The next stage, which is still ongoing, is the opening of the so-called Personal Voter Account. So that voters can check their data in the register, change their electoral address, and so on. That is, as of now, the state voter register is formally up to date," the CEC chairman said.
