DEMOCRACY IN UKRAINE

Bagging up an election

If Ukraine's democracy is in the hands of the chairman of polling station #61, may God help this country.

More than five hours after the polls have closed, the chairman here is personally applying glue to paper sacks of unused ballots. There are 22 people on the commission sitting around this guy, but he insists they stay seated while he himself wrestles with paper bags an can of glue and "control documents" which describe the contents going into the sacks. These parcels are bound for the regional election commission warehouse and will only matter if someone disputes the outcome of the voting here.

Even now, the boxes of live, valuable Ukrainian ballots are untouched as everyone watches as the chairman neatly bags up and seals various receipts and unused ballot materials.

Hey… action… movement from the opposite end of the counting table.

The women are taking over. Despite the chairman's protestations, now maybe 10 angry women are taking matters into their own hands. They have tape! An argument is raging over the suitability of tape versus glue.

"The rules clearly say glue," asserts the chairman. He breaks to find the exact section in the codebook.

"You read your book, we'll tape up the sacks," says the most assertive female commissioner. "When you find your rule, you can dump glue over top our tape. I'm sure the rules don't forbid tape even if glue is required. Besides, we're almost done."

Oops! A woman found a piece of paper that was supposed to be in one of the sacks.

Whoo — close call. The document needs to go into one of the sacks sealed with glue, not tape. The glue is still wet. The bag opens easily. The document is inserted. The bag is taped shut. Crisis averted.

What's next.

"I need each commissioner to sign seventy pieces of paper which certify the contents of these documents," announces the commission secretary.

The women have very nice penmanship.

Mike calls to the IRI chief in Kyiv. It turns out we're not alone. Most of our other IRI observers report that, for a variety of reasons, ballot boxes are still untouched in many polling stations throughout the country.

We decide to leave and go to bed — our station is well-manned by other partisan observers.

We're giving our cell phone numbers to the others. If they see any irregularities they'll call and we'll double back. Our hotel isn't far.

The women are losing their patience. I think a coup is about to occur. This is not the kind of revolution I came to see, but one might be fun if one breaks out here nonetheless.

It's 3:50 a.m. We took a one-hour nap this afternoon in anticipation of a long night of observing ballot counting. These polling commissioners were on the job site yesterday at 6:30 a.m. and they've been working since.

They do get paid — about $4 for their trouble and service to democracy. Soon their 20 cents per hour salary will drop to 19 cents as a function of time.

Of course, we're paid even less, come to think of it.

Our domestic monitoring companions have our phone numbers. It's their country. They plan to stay as long as it takes. We'll leave this stage if the election at polling station #61 in their capable, glue-free Ukrainian hands.

Former U.S. Congressman Bob Schaffer, a member of the Colorado State Board of Education, is an election observer for the Parliamentary elections in Ukraine. The election is coming up this Sunday, March 26.