Law on introduction of video monitoring of elections came into force

The law, providing for the introduction of video monitoring of elections in Ukraine, came into force.

The texts of the laws on peculiarities of openness, transparency and democratic character of parliamentary elections in Ukraine on October 28, 2012 and on amendments to the law of Ukraine on state budget 2012 were published in the Holos Ukrayiny (Voice of Ukraine) newspaper of August 4 and entered into force on August 5.

The law provides for the creation and introduction of the system of video monitoring at the polling stations on a regular basis during the parliamentary elections in Ukraine.

With this purpose, the voting stations shall be equipped by at least two web cameras, as well as the means to record and store information, process data for image transfer, information transfer to the appropriate Web site on the Internet.

According to the law, the webcams shall be located in a way not to violate the privacy of voters' will expression, at the same time ensuring public scrutiny of compliance with the voting procedure and counting ballots.

These systems shall be applied mandatory. However, the requirement for video monitoring does not apply to district and overseas election commissions, as well as the Central Election Commission.

The video from all 33.5 thousand polling stations shall be broadcasted on the Internet web-site. The materials of video monitoring shall be stored for one year from the date of official publication of the results of parliamentary elections, after which they shall be erased according to the procedure established by the CEC.

The materials of monitoring shall be provided upon request, according to the procedure established by the CEC.
The law on amendments to the budget 2012 provides for 993.6 million UAH for introduction of video monitoring.

Earlier, the head of the CEC Volodymyr Shapoval said that video monitoring will be organized by the Russian company, which fulfilled the same task during the last presidential elections in Russia.

According to Shapoval, the CEC will give just technical specifications for the organization of video monitoring. The means, allocated for these purposes, will actually be managed by the Cabinet of Ministers.