Declaration by a Precinct Election Commission of the Invalidity of Voting at the Election Precinct
A precinct election commission shall be entitled to declare the voting in an election precinct invalid if it establishes that there have been violations of the requirements of this Code that make it impossible to determine the true results of the expression of the voters’ will, only under the following circumstances:
1) discovery of cases of illegal voting (filling in, depositing the ballot into the ballot box for a voter by another person, except for the cases provided for in parts five and ten of Article 248 of this Code; voting by persons who do not have the right to vote in the respective elections; voting by persons not included into the list of voters at the election precinct or included in it unwarrantedly; voting by a person more than once) in the amount exceeding 5 percent of the number of voters who received ballot papers at the election precinct for the respective local election;
2) destruction of or damage to a ballot box (ballot boxes) that makes it impossible to establish the content of the ballot papers, if the number of such ballot papers is exceeding five percent of the number of voters who received ballot papers at the election precinct for the respective local election;
3) discovery in the ballot boxes of ballot papers in a number that exceeds more than ten percent of the number of voters who received ballot papers at the election precinct for the respective local election.
If the circumstances provided for by Part One of this Article are discovered, the precinct election commission shall, in each case, write an act thereon, which shall be signed by all present members of the precinct election commission present and certified by the seal of the election commission. Such an act (acts) shall be the basis for consideration by the precinct election commission of the issue of declaring the voting at the election precinct from the respective local election in the respective election district as invalid.
Should a decision be made on declaring the voting in a specific local election at the election precinct invalid, all ballot papers found in the ballot boxes at the election precinct shall not be subject to counting. In this case, the protocol of the precinct election commission on the counting of votes cast at the precinct for territorial electoral lists of candidates for the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, an oblast, rayon, rayon in city, as well as city, village or settlement council (of a territorial community with 10,000 voters and more) must contain only the information specified in paragraphs two to nine of part two of Article 251 of this Code, and the protocol of the precinct election commission on the counting of votes cast at the election precinct for candidates in the multi-member district, or for the position of village, settlement or city mayor – the information specified in paragraphs seventeen to twenty-four of the second part of Article 251 of this Code. In the other places, a dash shall be inserted. The protocols of the precinct election commission on vote counting shall be completed by the precinct election commission in accordance with the procedure prescribed by Article 251 of this Code.
If a precinct election commission adopts a decision to declare voting in a specific local election at the election precinct invalid, the ballot papers shall be packed. The inscription “Ballot papers” shall be made on the package, with an indication and/or the number of the election district, the number of the election precinct, the number of the packed ballot papers, the date and time of packaging; the package shall be signed by the precinct election commission members and affixed with the election commission’s seal.
The decision of a precinct election commission to declare voting at the election precinct invalid and the act (acts) on the basis of which such decision was adopted shall be attached to the first copy of the protocol of the precinct election commission on the vote counting at the election precinct for the respective local election.
