Voting to be extended by three hours

On Jan. 19 CEC Chairman Yaroslav Davydovych presented the 80-centimeter-long election ballot at the Verkhovna Rada. Five such “embroidered towels without the embroidery,” as the CEC chairman put it, will be issued to every voter. As a result, voting by one individual may take up to five minutes. The parliamentarians were apparently impressed by this information and voted to prolong the ballot-casting process.

On Election Day (March 26, 2006), the polling stations will be open from 7 a.m. until 10 p.m. This has been established by a law passed by parliament on Jan. 19. In the past polling stations were open from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. At the same time, parliament refused to introduce changes to the election law concerning electoral lists and political parties’ nominations, reports Interfax Ukraine. The draft of the law proposed to allow voters to cast their ballots in accordance with a court ruling that may be issued even on the day of the elections and may concern the inclusion of voters’ names into lists of any voting district. Parliament also rejected a proposal to authorize the election commissions to amend the electoral rolls.