You're reading: Ukrainians confused, amused by U.S. election fiasco

Ukrainians puzzled by Florida recount, saying the US's Electoral College stands in the way of democracy

As thousands of volunteers pored over ballots cast in the U.S. presidential election, Ukrainians appeared non-plussed by the political scandals erupting across the United States.

Many Ukrainians could not identify with bleary-eyed Floridians, saying they were puzzled by the plan to recount by hand already recounted ballots because of the small rectangular pieces of cardboard thousands of Florida voters punched out incorrectly (or insufficiently) when selecting candidates.

The pieces are supposed to fall out, but sometimes they don’t. They have to be pulled aside or removed manually with tweezers to avoid jamming the vote-counting machines, which Vice President Al Gore’s supporters say skewed voting results in favor of his rival, Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

While Ukrainians have lots of experience voting, few have experienced the thrill of pulling mechanical lever machines, punching cards, or pressing computer devices. They use ink to mark their paper ballots, which are never punched or tweezed, and always hand counted – sometimes several times.

Lyuba Steklyanova, a 29-year-old marketing executive, said Ukraine’s savvy electorate would easily figure out such diabolical ballots.

Steklyanova is not interested in who becomes the next U.S. president. She said her concern was that the dispute does not affect the exchange rate.

Any devaluation of the U.S. currency would negatively affect her meager life savings, she said.

Her boyfriend, Mykhailo Reutsky, an Internet news editor for Sigma-Blazer, has no life savings. He’s more interested in the U.S.-Ukraine bilateral dynamic.

“Just think, if it weren’t for the Electoral College, Gore would have won the election. What a disaster! It would have meant four more years of feeding Ukraine’s kleptocrats,” Reutsky said.

Members of Ukraine’s Central Elections Commission (CEC), including Chairman Mykola Ryabets, who traveled to the United States at taxpayers expense to observe the election, had  another view.

At a Nov. 13 press conference, Ryabets joined the growing chorus of Ukrainian politicians who think it’s time for U.S. lawmakers to amend the Constitution and do away with the Electoral College, which they said stands in the way of democracy.

“Is this correct when a candidate who wins less votes than his opponent becomes the president?” Ryabets asked.

Ryabets said he benefited from the trip and hoped other CEC officials would be invited to the United States to observe future elections.

According to reports filed by election monitors from the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), more than 145 complaints were filed with the CEC prior to the first round of Ukraine’s presidential elections last fall. Of those, only 17 were resolved by the CEC.

Ukraine’s campaign featured assassination attempts, forged newspapers, confiscated campaign materials, monopolized electronic media, and interference by public officials.