On Feb. 9, the Ukrainian anti-corruption watchdog Chesno recorded five instances of MPs casting multiple votes through parliament’s electronic voting system, marking 161 documented cases of such fraud since the organization began keeping count in December 2014. Videos uploaded to YouTube by Centre UA, an organization that advocates transparency and government accountability in Ukraine and partners with Chesno, show five MPs from three political parties casting ballots on their absent colleagues’ electronic voting machines.
Knopkodavstvo, or button pushing, as the tactic is known, has plagued voting in Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, for years: MPs use other deputies’ identification cards and surreptitiously press the “for” or “against” buttons on their absent colleagues’ voting machines in order to help approve or reject a piece of legislation. Though defenders say voting by proxy helps parliament make quorum when attendance is low, knopkodavstvo clearly violates the constitution, which mandates that deputies vote in person.
