11/20/2004 | Sztefan von Seitz

----- Original Message -----
NEWS ALERT- Ukrainian Presidential Election 2004
From: Darren Spinck, Darren@dbcpr.com
Sent: Monday, November 08, 2004 5:14 PM
Subject: Ukrainian Presidential Election Monitoring Report from the
Alliance for Democracy and Transparency

Attached is the statement of the Alliance for Democracy and Transparency
delegation to the October 31, 2004 Ukrainian presidential election. The
election monitoring delegation included seven former members of the U.S.
House of Representatives.

Statement of the Alliance for Democracy and Transparency Delegation to
the October 31, 2004 Presidential Election in Ukraine

November 2, 2004
SUMMARY CONCLUSION
A delegation of seven former members of the U.S. House of Representatives
and five political campaign professionals witnessed what all 12 members
concluded were proper, legal, and professional election administration
procedures in all of the polling stations visited. The delegates certainly
did not witness systemic problems with the administration of this election
at the polling sites observed.

Some relatively routine and understandable problems were noted at several
polling stations, but they were of the nature and type that were readily
resolvable by prescribed administrative procedures that could be applied at
either the polling site (PEC) or the Territorial Election Commission (TEC).
These problems, considered individually or collectively, did not, in the
judgment of the delegates, have material affect on the fairness,
transparency, or security of the balloting process.
THE DELEGATES
The delegates, both former elected officials and campaign experts, have a
total of more than 60 years of electoral experience and have personally gone
through over 40 elections. The members of the group have all had extensive
electoral experience, not only in the U.S. but also in number of countries.

Within the group, direct electoral experience in the region included Russia,
Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Bosnia, Albania,
Estonia, and Latvia.

The delegation split into three teams and were deployed to three regions of
the country anchored by the cities of Kiev, Odessa and Donetsk. The
regional teams then broke up into smaller teams to visit individual polling
stations. On October 30, the delegates visited numerous stations as final
preparations were being made for election day, and then again on election
day, to observe the voting process, and, in many stations, the actual
counting of the votes once the polls had closed. The following day, November
1, the delegates reconvened in Kiev to compare our first-hand observations.

The delegates, in alphabetical order, were:
Michael Arno, Peter Barca, Bernie Campbell, Bob Carr,
Ron Coleman, Norm D'Amours, Jay Johnson, Mark Meissner
Jim Moody, Richard Pollock, Mike Ward, Bernard Whitman

SITUATION ANALYSIS
As we left Ukraine on the morning of November 2, the results of the first
round of the 2004 presidential election were not yet final, but early
returns showed a close race between the two top vote getters with the
next two candidates tied in distant third and fourth places.
Yanukovych 39.88%; Yushchenko 39.22%;
Moroz 5.83%; Symonenko 5.03%

With most of the votes counted and reported, preparations are now
underway for the runoff election scheduled for November 21, 2004.

Although widely predicted both inside and outside Ukraine, and even
reported by the media, the delegation witnessed absolutely no incidents
of election-related mass demonstrations leading to violence, civil strife,
and police action.

In addition, most reporting of the election results by the national and
international media, regional experts, and observer missions included
prominent references to significant and widespread electoral fraud, voter
intimidation and disenfranchisement, and procedural irregularities.
FOCUS OF MISSION
The delegation focused on three regions of Ukraine anchored by the cities
of Kiev, Donetsk, and Odessa. With the prevalent conventional wisdom
anticipating most, if not all, of likely fraud being perpetrated by
administrative abuse on behalf of, or to the benefit of candidate
Yanukovich, the observation mission chose these locations based on a
combination of two criteria: population and high potential for predicted
fraud.

As the delegation did not have the opportunity to visit Ukraine during the
pre-election campaign period, observers were realistically only able to
focus on and make judgments about the quality, fairness, and accuracy of
the administration of the election process itself.

Thus, the work of this mission was structured to attempt to meet two
objectives:
* Determine whether the balloting process was conducted in a free
and fair manner as prescribed by Ukrainian law and regulation, and by
comparable international standards;
* Determine whether the results of the election reflected the will of
the electorate, considering all observable evidence, factors, and
impressions.
OBSERVATIONS
The delegation used a set of objective and observable criteria to assess
the fairness and transparency of the balloting process that included the
following:
* Free and open access to the polling site, including on-time openings
and closings;
* Organization and security at the site for protection of the integrity
of the balloting process, as well as for the protection of the voters;
* Properly staffed and trained election commissions to ensure that the
work of the commission could be completed in the manner envisioned by
the law on elections;
* Presence of multi-candidate representation on election commissions to
ensure that candidates' interests were protected;
* Absence of partisan campaign material or electioneering in or around
the polling place;
* Thorough verification of voter identity by commission officials;
* Control and management of ballots and boxes
* Availability of remedies for errors and omissions at either the PEC or
TEC;
* Strict adherence to counting and reporting procedures.

The Ukrainian system of conducting the election and tabulating the vote was
geared toward the finest methods of ensuring fairness and accuracy. There
were several sections of the election code that required extraordinary
checks and balances of dealing with minor, and sometimes major, problems.
From what we saw, each election supervisor followed legal guidelines for
settling disputes to the satisfaction of all observers. In some cases,
elections supervisors went out of their way to appease minority view points
and conducted certain processes at their request.
THE DELEGATION DID OBSERVE PROBLEMS, HOWEVER .
There were difficulties with voter lists at a number of polling locations
ranging from misspelled names and improper addresses to the complete
absence of a voter's name from the voter list. In many instances, the
election workers at the polling locations we visited proactively addressed
these difficulties at the polling place and if that was not possible
referred those voters to the TEC. Our delegation was impressed that the
Ukrainian elections system was flexible enough to correct voter list
problems the day of the election, something the US has not yet implemented.
Voters who discovered themselves not on the voter list could, with some
effort, receive certification from the TEC to have their name added to the
voter role so as to vote that day.

We spoke with several people who were required to verify their address at
the Territorial Election Commission. While frustrated with long waits, there
was no suspicion of anyone we talked with that they were left off the list
or sent to the TEC because of their voting intentions. In fact, all seemed
quite surprised to be asked such a question. It was our team's belief that
it would have been inconceivable to create a system that would determine
voting intentions and then keep these names off of voting lists. Instead,
voters whose names did not appear on voting lists were omitted due to an
abundance of caution, and in response to charges of double voting that had
occurred in previous elections. While it is true that most voters (and some
election staff) were unaware of the new procedures, it should be said that
the fact that names were not on lists is not indicative of coordinated voter
fraud and was instead yet more proof of a system that aimed to keep with
a one person, one vote principle.

This process, no doubt, did reduce the votes cast at such polling sites as
some prospective voters surely did not travel to the TEC or bother to
return to the polling site.

It is important to note that individual members of our delegation have
separately visited hundreds of election day polling places in the United
States over several election cycles both as candidates for high elective
office and as election day workers for candidates. Given that experience,
delegation members are quite familiar with the fact that few if any election
day processes are perfectly conducted, but we are also familiar with what
the United States considers an acceptable standard of transparency and
fairness in the election day process.

Therefore, the delegation does not consider that these problems,
considering the relatively few instances observed, had a material affect on
the balloting or counting process.
REPORTING
The members of the delegation who served as members of congress meet
with Ambassador Herbst to report the delegation's findings, observations,
and impressions on Monday, November 1, 2004.
CONCLUSION
To reiterate, outside of common election day difficulties, this delegation
did not witness or discover any systemic fraud that would lead to any
conclusion other than that these elections were fair and free, and reflected
the will of the electorate.
APPENDIX A:
OBSERVATIONS ABOUT THE ROLE OF INTERNATIONAL
ELECTION OBSERVERS
While the delegation's primary responsibility was to monitor the election
day activities in the Ukrainian election, it is important to put it into a
context and by implication come to some assessments of the role of
monitors themselves.

The delegation was aware that other international observers observed the
campaign period and the election day activities as a whole. We did not. We
took notice of what others had said about the campaign period, but it in no
way affected our objectivity in reporting our observations of the election
day itself. We think this is a better approach.

The reason is that we believe that the campaign period and the election day
activities are so fundamentally distinct and different as to not allow the
conduct of one to impeach or discredit the other. We believe that it is much
harder to have internationally agreed upon standards for the campaign period
than it is for the election machinery itself. The later is governed almost
exclusively by the law and its administration. It is assumed that the
parties will operate to "game" the system to their best advantage, but their
options in doing so are rather limited.

In the campaign period there are laws to be sure, but this period is more
free to the discretion of competing parties in how they make strategies and
"game" the conduct of their campaigns. In this period it is likely that the
parties will have major asymmetries that will impact on their approach to
not only the voter, but to their message and it's delivery. The law in this
period is not as tight and controlling of every aspect as it is on election
day. Frankly we believe that it is harder to be as objective in this period
as well.

Further, the international monitors come to the task with heavy biases in
the campaign period analysis. Europe uses a different standard for political
campaigning than does the US, for example. Parliamentary democracies are
constructed and run on different premises than Presidential systems. The
campaigns for each are governed and run much differently. Yet, in both
systems the election day activities are much closer in governance and
operation.

The international observers from one system are looking at the campaign
period through the prism of their own experience, more than would be the
case on the election day. And observers that monitor both phases are
vulnerable to their opinions of one phase influencing their objectivity of
the other.

We saw all of this happening in the Ukraine on October 31, 2004 and the
statements made by various international monitors in the days afterwards.
And, it is no surprise that the result of the statements and the coverage of
those statements seemed to lack the desired balance of good and bad
comments about the election. This in our view had the unfortunate effect of
potentially discouraging the thousands of election commission members who
worked long hours and ran an election by the book and tallied the votes in a
fair way only to have their efforts deprecated.

The delegation was dismayed by what seemed to be the predisposition of the
vast majority of some international election observers that were encountered
during our mission. Our incidental meetings and conversations with these
observers suggested that the operative assumptions of their missions were:
* Massive fraud was assumed and expected;
* The failure of a certain favored candidate to prevail would, ipso
facto, be proof unto itself that fraud was perpetrated by the other
candidate or forces acting on his behalf.
Exchanges with some of these observers elicited pronouncements of fraud
in the pre-election period. These observers also leveled charges of
"vote-buying," unfair campaign tactics and practices, and even claims of the
use of untruthful campaign literature and materials. They asserted these
charges as proof that the balloting process would not meet international
standards of fairness.

It occurred to some of our delegates that the opposition viewed us and
other international observers as their allies who would blindly accept their
charges as fact. Some of our delegates were even given a few "thumbs up"
signs whenever one of the candidate observers received good news from
numerous cell phone calls as if they believed we naturally cared about
his/her candidate rather than serving as impartial observers.

Based on these charges, it appeared that these observers were issuing an
indictment of the voting process based on the linkage of their perceptions
of campaign-period activities with election day activities so that a
unfavorable assessment could be made of the latter in spite of the absence
of supporting evidence.

Therefore, our delegation reluctantly agreed that one of our first
observations was that other international observers brought with them a
highly biased and prejudiced orientation that may have severely limited
their ability to be impartial observers of election day activities and
processes.

We hope that not only will the Ukrainian government reflect upon the
quality of its campaigns and elections as it heads toward perfecting its
democracy, but also we urge upon the international monitors a better
standard of conduct in their own monitoring of elections in the future. If
all election monitors cannot do a better job than we saw, it will diminish
the credibility of the role that international election monitors can play in
the future. -30-
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FOOTNOTE: This was no further information with the above e-mail
sent from Washington, D.C. on November 8, 2004. Another "NEWS
ALERT-Ukrainian Presidential Election 2004" e-mail sent by the same
firm in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, November 18, 2004 included
the following, "This material is distributed by DBC Public Relations
Experts on behalf of Viktor F. Yanukovych, candidate for the office of
President of Ukraine. Additional information is on file with the
Department of Justice, Washington, District of Columbia." -30-