Lviv Monday 1:45 am

We are watching a vote count - a very slow process tonight.

Saturday seems like forever ago. It was bright clear weather – less humid than Friday. We started first thing Saturday morning with appointments with the various parties and players to discuss concerns they might have about the election, things we should be aware of in the region, and so forth.

Our first meeting was the Governor of the Lviv Oblast. He had taken a leave of absence to serve as the Our Ukraine (part of the Orange Coalition, the President's party) campaign chair. It was reported that he worked daily at the governor's office, but it was appropriate for him to be on leave due his campaign duties. We met with him in a 200 year old Administration Building. It is where Governors of the various powers that have ruled Lviv have had offices. The building is on the edge of the old (as in medieval) town. He told us that one Governor didn't like the tram right outside the building, so he had a park put in and moved the tram's track to the far side of the park. This allowed for a lovely view from the balcony.

The Governor's office itself was large, lovely, with the balcony full of flowers. But the build, like many others we visited, was in disrepair and a bit dismal. In Kyiv, some of the buildings that are in disrepair are soviet-era. In Lviv, the schools, the government buildings where we had meetings and observed voting setup are sparsely maintained. They range in age and are largely in disrepair, having suffered years of neglect and now no money for upkeep and repair.

Following the governor, we met with an oligarch (from the Greek) who was the campaign manager for the Party of Regions (the Prime Minister's party). He had been a member of parliment on and off over the past five years. Prior to serving, he had been shot in the face "over business." It was rumored that under his leadership, The Party of Regions would double its success from a showing of 5 percent in 2006, to 10% in this election.

We then went to the first campaign office of the day to meet with the campaign manager for the Block of Yuliana Tymoshenko (also called BUT- the leading member of the Orange Coalition). He was an elected member of the regional government, also on a leave of absence. While the political parties have expensive American and Canadian consultants, someone clever designed the BYT logo - a red heart against a white background. (Tymoshenko herself was setup to be Snow White - she almost always wears white. When she doesn't wear white, she wears pink.)

The last meeting before lunch was at the headquarters of Svovoda (the so-called Liberty Party). This party's base is in Lviv, with little or no support outside the Oblast. (Judging from the polling, the party has little support now, even inside the oblast - but I am getting ahead of myself.) This party complained that every other party had a plan to take away Svovoda's Votes, and they had some creative, though seemingly implausible means.

After meeting with local media, we planned out our Election Day schedule for Sunday. We wanted to include a rural location, as well as "special voting" places. We wanted to include the polling places for both our interpreter and our driver. We also wanted to end up near at a precinct near the "district election commission" (each precinct reports to a district, which reports to the territorial election commission, which finally reports to the Central Election Commission).

Sunday we started by watching a polling place prepare and open for voting. We went on to observing a "special polling place" which was a psychiatric hospital where almost every patient was allowed to vote. Next, we traveled to a precinct in the suburbs at a hotel and restaurant school, followed by a precinct at a military base. We then went on to various Lviv precincts until almost 5 pm. After a dinner break, we went to two more precincts, ending up at a third precinct in a school.

What we learned is that Ukrainians can run a democratic election.

Each precinct we visited had exemplary procedures and organization. But precincts need training in how to demonstrate that to the district election commission.

The administrative procedures were difficult in some locations. It was after 3:00 a.m. before our precinct had properly counted 643 ballots and returned all items to its district. It was after 4 a.m. when we gave up waiting for that precinct to get approved by the District Election Commission.

We know Ukraine had a great democratic election. We can help Ukraine do better, if it wants our help.

More tomorrow!

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