Ukraine: Zelensky signs new legislation to fight piano voting

[TomSea]

MPs - Members of Parliament

Zelensky signs new legislation to fight piano voting
18:00, 13 January 2020 Politics 457 0 MPs violating the voting procedure will face fines up to UAH 85,000 (nearly $3,500).

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has signed the Law on Amending Certain Legislative Acts Concerning the Provision of Personal Voting by People's Deputies of Ukraine at Plenary Sessions of the Verkhovna Rada, which the Parliament adopted on December 19, 2019.

The new legislation aims to ensure that the MPs properly fulfill their powers regarding the obligation of personal voting, that's according to the Presidential Office press service.

...

In particular, the law criminalizes the so-called "piano voting", that's when a deputy votes for their colleague absent from the session hall.

Read more on UNIAN: https://www.unian.info/politics/10828199-zelensky-signs-new-legislation-to-fight-piano-voting.html

I have never understood why piano voting was legal.

[The_Reader_David]

MPs - Members of Parliament

I have never understood why piano voting was legal.

It's arguably a form of proxy voting, which is standard procedure in some deliberative bodies (e.g. shareholder meetings, my own academic department's faculty meetings).  Of course it's up to the deliberative body to decide the parameters under which proxy or piano voting is acceptable or not.