Kharkiv Mayoral Election: Terekhov Wins, Fraud Allegations and Turnout Around 28%

Police have opened two criminal cases over the election.

On October 31, an early election for mayor of Kharkiv was held, in which Igor Terekhov, secretary of the city council, won with 50.66% of the vote based on the count of 100% of protocols. We explain how the election went. 

Terekhov's Victory

According to the protocol of the city territorial election commission, Igor Terekhov received 146,240 votes, or 50.66%. 

Terekhov's closest rival in the election, former regional governor Mikhail Dobkin, received almost half as many votes. He got 82,008 votes, or 28.4%. The results of the other candidates were extremely small. 

Dobkin acknowledged Terekhov's victory the day after the election. He said he would "monitor all the promises handed out by the temporary authorities and all the decisions they make." The former governor added that his supporters are "far more numerous" than the authorities would like. 

Falsifications

The civic network Opora said it had found falsifications of vote-count protocols at nine polling stations where voting took place in Kharkiv's Novobavarsky district. 

Violations were found at polling stations No. 631180, 631193, 631197, 631201, 631205, 631211, 631177, 631189, 631200. As a result, the vote totals for candidates Konstantin Nemichev and Alexander Skorik decreased by 160 and 237 respectively, while Terekhov's increased by 397 votes. 

Opora explained that there is a clear pattern: at those polling stations where the territorial commission protocol shows that Skorik and Nemichev received 0 or 1 vote, the precinct commission protocols that the network's observers obtained showed significantly higher vote totals. 

Activists filed a police report on all cases of falsification. The network also recalled that observers had previously recorded a falsified protocol at polling station No. 631675 in the Osnovyansky district of the city. 

According to Opora's observations, the following abuses were recorded during the election:

• issuing ballots without a passport
• use of administrative resources
• vote buying
• control over citizens' voting
• attempts to obstruct observers' access to preparatory meetings of precinct commissions and to vote-count monitoring
• campaigning on election day
• failure to follow the lawful vote-counting procedure

In total, the civic network's observers identified and verified 311 violations of election legislation and democratic election standards. 

Turnout around 28%

According to Opora, turnout in the Kharkiv mayoral election was 28.6%, while according to the territorial commission it was 28.29%. Opora noted that in the 2015 local elections, turnout as of 8:00 p.m. was 45.5% of voters. 

Police said that no serious violations of public order were recorded during the local elections. All 605 polling stations closed on time at 8:00 p.m. 

During the electoral process, police received 52 reports of possible violations of the law. Law enforcement officers assured that all of them were properly registered and thoroughly checked. 

Two criminal cases were opened: the first for obstructing the exercise of the right to vote or to take part in a referendum, or the work of an election commission, and the second for falsifying, forging, stealing, damaging or destroying election documents.