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Article 55
 

The Procedure for Collecting and Considering Signatures in Support of the Candidate to the Post of President of Ukraine

1. Ukrainian citizens who have the right to vote at the time of collecting the signature s may, on the writ­ten instruction of a candidate or his/her proxy, collect voters' signatures in support of a candidate.

2. The person who collects signatures of voters must, prior collecting them personally, enter his/her personal data, envisaged by paragraph 3 of part four of article 49 of this Law, in the signature lists.

3. The columns of the signature list that refer to a voter shall be filled in by the voter or, if that is impossible due to health reasons, - on his/her request, by the person who collects the signatures. The accuracy of the data, entered in the signature list by the voter or the person who collects the signatures, shall be certified by the voter's personal signature.

4. All entries in a signature list shall be made in pen (not pencil) and without abbreviations.

5. An error made on the signature list shall be corrected by the person who made it, in a manner that shall maintain the legibility of the previous entry; the correction shall be certified by a separate signature of the person, who made the correction.

6. Nobody shall have the right to force a voter to support a candidate to the post of President of Ukraine with his/her signature. It shall be prohibited to buy signatures in support of a candidate with money, goods, or services or to prevent a voter from supporting candidates.

7. It is prohibited to collect signatures at bodies of the state executive power and bodies of local self-government, enterprises, establishments, institutions, and organizations.

8. Only the signatures of voters from one populated area shall be accounted for in one signature list.

9. The person who collected the signatures of voters shall sign the completed signature list and in figures and words state the number of voters' signatures collected in this signature list.

10. State executive bodies, executive bodies of local self-government and their officials, owners or managers of enterprises, institutions, organizations, or authorized bodies of those shall be prohibited from participation in collecting voters' signatures in support of candidates to the post of President of Ukraine.

11. It shall be prohibited to establish restrictions to the procedure for collecting signatures that are not envisaged by this article.

12. The authorized representative of a candidate to the post of President of Ukraine shall submit the signature lists to the Central Election Commission not later than forty days prior to the day of the elections. The Central Election Commission shall issue the authorized representative a statement on the quantity of the accepted signature lists and of the signatures contained in them.

13. The Central Election Commission shall ensure control over the compliance with the requirements of this Law regarding signature lists by way of random checks of them performed by members of the Central Election Commission involving staff members of the secretariat of the Central Election Commission and the experts envisaged by part twenty of e article 28 of this Law.

14. When determining the number of voters, who have supported a candidate to the post of President of Ukraine, on the basis of signature lists, signatures of certain voters shall not be taken into account:

1) in case the signature list does not contain all or certain data on the voter , who supports the candi­date with his/her signature, envisaged by the form of the signature list;

2) in case the entry of data on the voter , who supports the candidate with his/her signature has been done in violation of the requirements of parts three, four or five of this article;

3) if made by a person other than the voter;

4) if made by a person, who had no right to vote on the day of signing;

5) who are not residents of the populated areas where the signatures were collected;

6) in case the same voter put his signature several times in support of the same candidate.

15. When determining the number of voters who have supported a certain candidate, the following signature lists shall be disregarded:

1) in which voters' signatures were collected by a person who had no right to vote on the day of collecting the signatures;

2) those containing inauthentic data on the person who collected the signatures of voters;

3) in which data on the person who collected the voters' signatures is missing;

4) in which a person, other than the one who collected the signatures of voters, has signed the list on his /her behalf;

5) in which the signatures of voters have been collected at bodies of the state executive power and bodies of local self-government, enterprises, institutions or organizations;

6) of an unapproved form;

7) forged;

8) in which signatures have been collected by force, by way of bribery or fraud.

16. The Central Election Commission shall, no later than on the tenth day from the receipt of signature lists , execute the respective protocol on the results of collection of signatures in support of a candidate to the post of the President of Ukraine and take the respective decision which signatures in the signature lists and (or) signature lists to disregard. The Central Election Commission shall provide a copy of the decision to a representative of the party (bloc) or to the candidate within three days from the day the decision was made and he/she may review the respective protocol within the same period.

17. The persons specified in part thirteen of this article , as well as the representative of the candidate to the post of the President of Ukraine in the Central Election Committee , shall have the right to review the signature lists , submitted to the Central Election Commission.