Parliamentary Election 2021. TOP-7 questions on the voting procedure
Elections of deputies to the Jogorku Kenesh are scheduled for November 28 in Kyrgyzstan. Voting will take place under the new electoral system. The number of parliamentarians is decreasing. Now there will be only 90 of them: 54 deputies are elected according to the proportional system (according to open lists of candidates of political parties) in a single electoral district, another 36 deputies are elected according to the majoritarian system in single-mandate electoral districts. There will be two ballots respectively.
The expert on electoral law of the Common Cause Public Foundation Bakytbek Samakov answered seven main questions on the voting procedure.
1. Who has the right to vote at elections of deputies of the Jogorku Kenesh?
Citizen of the Kyrgyz Republic who has reached the age of 18, who has passed biometric registration.
In a single-mandate constituency, a voter must be a member of the local community (permanently residing in an aiyl aimak, a city included in a single-mandate constituency). Membership in the local community is determined by a mark on the registration of a place of residence in a citizen's passport / recorded on a passport chip, or by registering an address in the State Register of National Passports (SRNP), made at least 90 days before voting day.
2. Who does not have the right to vote?
Citizens who have been declared legally incompetent by a court or are held in places of deprivation of liberty by a court verdict that has entered into legal force do not have the right to elect, to be elected.
3. What is the identification and when do you need to have time to submit biometric data?
Identification is a procedure for confirming the identity of a voter by verifying his personal and biometric data with the information contained in the corresponding basic information resource (papillary patterns of hands, face geometry, etc.);
Biometric data - data that characterize the physiological and biological characteristics of the voter, on the basis of which it is possible to establish his identity. If the identification by papillary patterns of the fingers is not passed, the voter is identified by the geometry of the face by using a camera for scanning.
You can complete biometric registration and update your passport data up to November 12, 2021, but it is recommended to do this earlier, without delaying until the last day.
4. I do not live by registration, can I vote?
You will be able to vote only at the address that is indicated in your passport or in your passport chip. At the same time, for voting in a single-mandate constituency, registration must be made no later than 90 days before election day.
Citizens of the Kyrgyz Republic who are abroad and are consularly registered are included in the voter list for voting in a single electoral district (according to the proportional, party system). Persons who are not consular registered must apply to the nearest polling station by November 12 inclusive. Otherwise, they will not be able to vote. The list of PECs and their addresses abroad can be found on the CEC website.
5. What awaits the voter at the polling station?
In the polling station, members of the precinct election commission, together with operators, identify the voter by his biometric and personal data.
Then the voter is given two ballots - one for a single-mandate constituency, the other for a single constituency. After that, the voter goes to the voting booth and makes his choice by putting the appropriate marks on the ballots.
After making the choice, the voter goes to the automatically reading ballot box (ARBB) and drops the ballots.
6. How not to get confused with the ballots?
At the polling station, the voter will receive two ballots, where several marks will have to be put at once: one “tick” for a candidate in his single-mandate constituency, the other for one or another party. Also, citizens have the right to vote for one of the candidates on the list of the chosen party.
The ballot paper for single-mandate constituencies will contain the surname, name, and patronymic of the candidate, and on the right - a square where you need to put only one tick. In the ballot paper for a single electoral district, the voter needs to select a party (square on the right) and below the candidate from the composition of this party, indicating a checkmark in the square with his serial number.
The names and surnames of candidates will not appear on the ballot. Applicants for mandates will be numbered from 1 to 54. The voter needs to remember the number of the candidate for whom he wants to vote.
If desired, the voter can vote “against all”.
7. What should a voter not do at a polling station?
- Violate the secrecy of the vote of another voter;
- Take pictures of your newsletter;
- Carry out the ballot paper outside the polling station;
- Interfere with the work of the election commission.
