Election day

I had another opportunity to observe in Ukraine's election process, this time for the 2nd round of the presidential vote.  It was definitely worth a second go.  Visiting six polling stations in and around Sevastopol, I met a good number of voters, election workers and local observers and got some nice photographs as well.  I am really glad to be one of many observers to say that the polling stations I visited were poster-children for a high school civics lesson.

A closed city during Soviet times and still home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet, Sevastopol is a sailor's town.  Almost every long time resident from taxi driver to bartender seemed to be a former sailor, or related to one.

If my experience in the first round had me thinking about how much "Russian" Sevastopol is, this second round I got to see a bit more and move past that simple observation.  I heard people talk about their hopes for the future of their country, had a good number of people offer to speak Ukrainian with me in case I preferred (I didn't, but perhaps someday), and saw representatives of both parties working well together in the polling stations.  I was lucky enough to observe with Jim, someone with a lot of life and work experience in Ukraine, and tried to take his lead in engaging the people we met at the polls to show we were there as part of the democratic process instead of an implicit accusation of fraud.  

The result was a long but rewarding day, and lots to think about on my part in terms of Crimea, Ukraine, and (cornball alert) democracy.  See my Picasa album here.

Of course the vote in the end was not surprising - Yanukovich carried Sevastopol by quite a large margin.  The voting breakdown at our final polling station was:

1190 - Yanukovich (82.8%)
164 - Timoshenko (11.5%)
76 - Against all candidates (5.3%)
7 - void

At a national level, Yanukovich has edged out over Timoshenko by a few percentage points. Timoshenko has yet to concede.