Nearly 56,000 voters are still registered in destroyed Bakhmut – Ukraine's Central Election Commission head

Oleh Didenko, Head of Ukraine's Central Election Commission (CEC), has revealed that thousands of citizens remain registered in cities such as Bakhmut that have been effectively destroyed by Russia's full-scale invasion. At present, there is no viable solution to address the issue of voter registration for potential elections. Source: CEC Head Oleh Didenko in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda

Details: When asked about the state of the electoral list, Didenko said:

Quote: "There are two aspects here. One is the legal accuracy of the State electoral roll... But then there's the real-life aspect: we have millions of internally displaced persons, and millions more have gone abroad.

We have occupied territories. We have areas that have been completely destroyed. And the actual information about residents of these settlements is not reflected in the register.

If a citizen hasn't re-registered at their new place of residence, then they remain in the system under their previous address - even if that's a place like Bakhmut. To give you an idea, at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, around 57,000 voters were registered in Bakhmut. Today, that figure is around 56,000.

Although the change is only one thousand, it is obvious that no one is actually there.

So the question arises: which mechanism may reflect and account for this real discrepancy? At the moment, no one has proposed a viable option. It's very unclear what to do; not even a census would solve this.

That is our reality." Details: Didenko explained that relevant authorities submit monthly updates about changes in voter data. However, the CEC suspended updates to the register at the start of the invasion.

Work to restore the register began in December 2023. Quote: "During the first six months, we filled the database with data that government agencies had been submitting for nearly two years but hadn't yet been recorded in the register. Then we moved on to updating the "address database," which contains information about polling stations. 

The second phase, which is currently ongoing, entails establishing a Personal Voter Account. This will allow voters to check their information in the register, modify their voting address, and so on. So, as of now, the State electoral roll is now up to date."

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