Online training system for election commissioners in Ukraine developed with OSCE support

KYIV, 17 July 2013 - The OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine, in co-operation with the Central Election Commission (CEC), presented a recently developed online training system for election commissioners at an event in Kyiv today.

During the event, parliamentarians, representatives of political parties and civil society organizations, experts, current and former election commissioners learned about how the system works and about the new training opportunities it provides, such as the swift adaptation of materials to the changes in legislation, testing knowledge of the course participants, offering consultations for users, conducting statistical analysis of issues of concern, and creating a roster of current and prospective election commissioners who received training.

“The introduction of the system designed as a comprehensive information resource about election rules and procedures is a significant step forward in strengthening the electoral processes in Ukraine,” said Ambassador Madina Jarbussynova, the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine. “We hope that with our assistance the Central Election Commission, political parties and candidates will be able to effectively train large numbers of people throughout the country at a relatively low cost.”

Some 690,000 district and precinct election commissioners worked during the 2012 Parliamentary Elections, and more than 800,000 during the 2010 Presidential Elections in Ukraine.

“The first stage of putting the system in operation is the development of a training curriculum for senior staff of commissions at parliamentary elections,” the Deputy Head of Central Election Commission Andriy Magera said, adding that this stage is already underway. “The  curriculum will encompass all key electoral procedures, as they are important for potential commissioners to understand their rights and obligations”.

Olexandr Chupakhin, the Member of the Central Election Commission said: “In future we will seek to expand such training courses to cover all participants of the electoral processes. Our goal is to help them easily and in a timely manner receive comprehensive replies to urgent questions related to legislation. This would improve their knowledge and have a positive impact on administering elections and bringing them in line with international standards”.

Today’s event in Kyiv concludes a series of 26 presentations of the system that were conducted all over Ukraine from May to July, in which some 1,000 people took part.

The system was developed and presented as part of the project “Developing Election Training Capacity and Enhancing Voter Awareness” implemented by the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine with the support of the Government of Canada and the Foreign Ministry of Norway.