On June 24, ISFED has released a statement regarding the announcement of Georgian Dream about initiative to introduce proportional electoral system with no threshold for 2020 parliamentary elections. ISFED welcomes the decision to immediately introduce a proportional electoral system. Holding the next parliamentary elections under proportional system is essential for democratic development of Georgia, however decision of eliminating the threshold poses some risks such as fragmentation of parties, difficulty to form government, potential of political crises and instability, etc.

On May 22, the Ukrainian Parliament refused to vote on changes to the electoral law as they were proposed on the same day by President Zelenskiy. This issue summarizes recent developments regarding the (non)reform of Ukraine’s electoral legal framework ahead of the early parliamentary elections scheduled for July 21, 2019.

EPDE's Georgian member ISFED is observing by-elections, which take place 19 May in several electoral districts in Georgia, and presenting its 1st statement about the opening of polling stations and the voting process. ISFED observers were free to access and observe almost all polling stations. They have reported that at majority of electoral precincts, openning of polling stations and the voting process was free from significant violations. At some polling stations procedural shortcomings were found. In most districts, there is a trend of mobilization of party activists outside polling stations, who in most cases are registering voters that arrive at the polls.

In Anton Shekhovtsov’s newest study, he identifies different factors that influence the occurrence of Russian interference in international elections. This article discusses elections in France, Norway, Germany, Austria, Italy, Hungary, and Sweden that took place in 2017-2018, and shows how different combinations of these factors produced different outcomes in terms of Russian meddling.

The Committee of Voters in Ukraine (CVU)  found no systemic violations during E-Day. Those violations that were recorded included violations of voting procedures by the members of the precinct election commissions, inaccuracy of the voter lists, illegal campaigning, and photographing of the filled-in ballots by voters.

The Presidential elections in Ukraine are approaching fast, taking place on 31 March 2019. Issue no. 11 gives an update on recent developments regarding the Draft Election Code, which was approved by the Verkhovna Rada in the first reading in November 2017 and aims to harmonize Ukraine’s electoral legal framework by introducing a proportional electoral system with open regional party lists. 

Representatives of the Civil Network OPORA reported that the misuse of administrative resources and transparency of campaign financing became two major challenges in February during the Presidential election campaign. They further reported on the establishment of district election commissions and on instances of false accusations launched against certain candidates of being involved in vote buying schemes.

The fifth report includes monitoring results using the framework of the Promo-LEX Observation Mission (OM) for the period of 6 February – 20 February 2019 in the run-up to the parliamentary elections taking place on the 24 February 2019.

The Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre (EMDS) published the final findings of its observation of the April 11, 2018 Presidential election in Azerbaijan covering all major election processes – the nomination of candidates, pre-election campaigning, election day voting and vote counting.

OPORA has published its first observation report on the presidential election campaign where it has been recording the wide-scale early campaigning efforts organized by over ten potential candidates over the last few months. There remains some legal uncertainty about the character of such campaigning and there is also a problem of shadow campaign financing occuring during the official election process.

Promo-LEX Association launched its third Observation Mission Report on the Parliamentary Elections of 24 February 2019. It reveals a series of worrying trends, in particular, intimidation of Promo-LEX observers, early start of electoral campaigns, misuse of administrative resources and offering of electoral gifts, defective reporting of expenditure by initiative groups, as well as other cases related to non-observance of some legal provisions by the public administration.

The booklet "Politically biased election observation—a threat to the integrity of international institutions" contains EPDE reports by Anton Shekhovtsov on politically biased election observation missions to the presidential election and the regional elections in Russia, the illegitimate presidential election in Crimea, the elections in Cambodia and Zimbabwe and the illegitimate “general elections” in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, which all took place in 2018.