Reforms of the electoral legislation of Ukraine and public awareness

Abstract

The article presents a brief analysis of the new codified election legislation of Ukraine. In addition to a brief comparative description of the two pieces of legislation (the transition from a mixed electoral system to a proportional one, changes in the form of electoral lists, recount of votes  using the D'Hondt`s method and new rules for the distribution of received seats in parliament), the paper presents images of old and new ballot papers. The aim of the work is to study the public review on the subject of awareness and understanding of citizens in the electoral legislation of Ukraine. Questionnaire methodology and analysis of survey results were used to study voter answers. The survey was conducted online by filling out Google forms by respondents, which made it possible for respondents from different regions of Ukraine (with the exception of the occupied territories in the East of Ukraine and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea) to take part in the survey and express their opinion. According to the data obtained, the population is little aware of the innovations, and this, in turn, increases the degree of mistrust in the electoral process and also lack of desire to vote. That is shown in the example in this article –mistrust and low voters turnout for election on October`26, 2020 and March`28, 2021.