Modelling Local Elections in Ukraine: Controversial Draft Law 2831-3

Ukrainian Center for Social Data conducted have analyzed the controversial draft law 2831-3 on local elections in Ukraine, to understand how the establishment of results and distribution of seats in local councils may look like under this unique electoral system. As far as we know there was no such electoral system in the world before.

We reviewed all the stages of the vote count and establishing of results, distribution of seats in the councils, step by step, using the real data of real elections to the Kyiv city council that took place 25 May 2014 for the modelling.

The results of the modelling are published at the link below:

https://sites.google.com/site/socialdataua/modelling-local-elections 

Some conclusions about the proposed electoral system:

? The candidate of the party can get the majority of votes in the district but would not get the mandate and not get to the council, if his party will not get enough votes throughout the city to pass the
threshold.

? Representatives of that or another party may lead in all districts, but will not get all seats if at least one other party will pass the threshold.

? Some districts may be not represented in the council at all, and some other district may have several deputies elected. Deputies from some districts may be the candidates who have taken even third or fourth (or lower) place.

? If a political party underestimates its popularity and nominates fewer candidates than seats it eventually gets in the council, those seats in the council would remain vacant – until the end of the term of the local council.

The electoral system, proposed by the bill 2831-3, however unique worldwide, raises some questions about the fairness of the elections. It completely negates the principle of representative democracy, and is even more "unfair" to the voters than the current majority system, under which half of the deputies are elected in the municipal, district and regional councils. Thus, if under the current system of relative majority the candidate may become a deputy receiving 30%, 20%, 15% of the total votes - provided that other candidates got even less, the bill 2831-3 provides that candidate can become a deputy in the district with even scanty support of voters.

Experts of the Ukrainian Center for Social Data forecast that should the law be adopted in its current form, the local elections of October 2015 will witness a dramatic increase of time needed for the
establishment of election results and the likelihood of errors. We can also expect a wave of mass resentment of voters who could not understand by which "perverse" logic some candidates would perfectly legally (!) become members of local councils.