Electoral Systems workshop for the members of Election Administration

IFES Ukraine in cooperation with Central Election Commission of Ukraine and with the financial support of USAID, Global Affairs Canada and UK Embassy in Ukraine organized BRIDGE modular workshop on Electoral Systems during 20-23 February, 2017 in Odessa, Ukraine.

The workshop was conducted for the members and secretariat staff of the Central Election Commission of Ukraine and Moldova. The objective of the BRIDGE workshop was to discuss electoral systems’ technical aspects from the perspective of its administration challenges. The workshop was led by IFES consultant/BRIDGE expert facilitator Natia Kashakashvili, IFES project manager/BRIDGE workshop facilitator Yuliya Shypilova, IFES project officer/BRIDGE workshop facilitator Anna Bandurka and USAID/RADA program officer/BRIDGE workshop facilitator Tanya Bibik. The working language of the workshop was Russian.

In total Twenty-one participants (12 male, 9 female) attended the workshop out of which three were representatives of Moldova Central Election Commission and eighteen – Ukraine Central Election Commission.

It’s important to mention, that due to the audience specifics, i.e. senior election administrators who were attending the workshop with BRIDGE methodology for the first time, facilitators had to modify some welcome activities; e.g. code of conduct of the training was introduced as the as it exists as ethical code of conduct of electoral administration and the participants were asked to sign the code of conduct. During the session on expectations, participants have expressed the willingness and readiness to broaden and systemize the knowledge on electoral systems.

The workshop content was structured in sequential manner: first to understand principles and main components of electoral systems, then to deconstruct technical characteristics of each electoral family and finally to analyze/compare electoral systems from their strong and weak sides. Due to the targeted audience, the electoral systems were analyzed from the complexity of its administration, starting from planning phase to actual implementation of voter information, training of staff, actual polling and counting processes.

The workshop has met expectations of its organizers as well as participants: electoral administration has full capacity to assess electoral systems from technical as well as political perspectives.