THE PECULIARITIES OF THE MECHANISM OF COMMITTING ELECTION CRIMES - Scientific conference
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Рік заснування видання - 2014

THE PECULIARITIES OF THE MECHANISM OF COMMITTING ELECTION CRIMES

25.07.2019 17:34

[Section 4. Criminal law. Criminal judicial law. Criminalistics. Criminology. Criminal executive law. Court organisation. Law enforcement agencies, public prosecutor’s and public defender’s offices]

Author: Matiushkova Tetiana Petrivna, PhD, associate professor, Assistant Professor of the Department of Criminalistics and Forensic Expertology, Kharkiv National University of Internal Affairs


Election Crimes are related to the usage of information technologies in Ukraine. Thus, the National Police of Ukraine during the period of regular local elections in 2015 has initiated 478 pre-trial investigations under the Articles 157-160 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. These Articles establish liability for election crimes. Almost 16% of them (78 criminal proceedings) were related to the submission of false information to the agency of the State Register of Voters or falsification of election documents, referendum documents, voting results or information of the State Register of Voters (the Art. 158 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) [1].

The mentioned crimes were committed by the following methods, which were defined in the Art. 158 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine: 1) intended submission of false information about the voters to the agency of the State Register of Voters; 2) intended entering of false information into the database of the State Register of Voters; 3) unauthorized actions with information contained in the database of the State Register of Voters; 4) other unauthorized interference into the database of the State Register of Voters. The last three methods are related to the usage of information technologies.

According to the materials of the investigative and judicial practice and the results of interviewing IT-specialists, unauthorized interference into the database of the State Register of Voters is carried out, for example, due to DdoS-attacks to the website of the Central Election Committee. Such an influence is carried out aiming at:

1) interfering the usual operation of the website due to its overload to block the access of users to the website and the data on it (DdoS-attack as the ultimate goal to cause panic, distrust of the population to the results of the elections in general or at certain polling stations);

2) detecting vulnerabilities of information security and downloading malicious software, the use of which will make it possible attackers to enter further false information, to violate the established routing of information, to commit other unauthorized actions (DdoS-attack as a cover for further criminal activities against elective franchise);

3) getting access to associated servers, which carry out a certain type of operations, the results of which are displayed on the official website of the Central Election Committee (hereinafter – the CEC). Illegal access allows offenders to send false information directly to the State Register of Voters, to forge information about the course and results of expression of will at polling stations and to distort the processing of information, and finally to falsify the results of voting (DDoS-attack as a mean to obtain unauthorized access and falsify the results of voting).

The commission of this and other election crimes may also be related to the use of such information technologies as:

- creating spam-mailings with threats to specific individuals;

- making cashless funds transfer;

- placing special political advertisements, propaganda texts and political news in favor of a particular candidate, or (and) false messages aimed at discrediting certain candidates on the websites of well-known providers, public organizations, political parties or mass media, in particular through the network of created or purchased accounts, botnets, Internet-trolling tools, links to the secondary resources, etc.

Election crimes are related to the usage of information technologies in Ukraine similar to the situation in other countries. It is very probable that high-tech cyber technologies are having an impact on the organization of crime in Europe. Despite diversity of election legislation, different legal grounds of criminal prosecution and multiple formats of criminal procedure for investigating crimes, there are certain similarities of the mechanisms for illegal interference into election process in all countries. And the usage of computer and telecommunication technologies is one of them. 

According to the Clingendael Expert Survey, the proliferation of high-tech cyber technologies is one of three shocks that may not be very probable but would have an impact on the threat of transnational organized crime. The Survey also notice that the proliferation of high-tech cyber technologies do not only play a role in traditional criminal activities but opens up a huge new criminal field [2]. Although nowadays the crimes against the electoral rights of citizens aren't a part of organized cross-border crime in a traditional, generally accepted concept of it (as the drugs, human trafficking, money laundering, illegal weapons, etc.), we believe it should be considered as an integral part of current transnational organized crime.

The specified situation attracts considerable attention of the international community, wherefore the condition of electoral legislation and election process in Ukraine are investigated by them before, during and after elections. That’s why it’s so important to continue scientific researches in this field to unify the concepts of the crimes against the electoral rights of citizens, to develop an efficient methodic of detection, investigation and prevention them.

Reference:

1. Digest No. 1. Elective crimes investigation at the regular local elections in Ukraine for the year 2015: statistics and preliminary findings // URL: https://www.oporaua.org/vybory/43146-opora-pidhotuvala-daidzhest-shchodo-rozsliduvannia-vyborchykh-zlochyniv-na-cherhovykh-mistsevykh-vyborakh-2015-roku (reference date: 24.07.2019).

2. Transnational organized crime. Thematic Study Clingendael Strategic Monitor 2017. Netherlands Institute of International Relations. 25 p. URL : https://www.clingendael.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/clingendael_strategic_monitor_2017_transnational_organised_crime.pdf



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