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This article examines voter eligibility/electoral qualifications as a fundamental part of universal suffrage. The authors use as a basis the typology of electoral qualifications, which provides for their division into 3 major groups: technical, protective and discriminative. In this study we made a detailed analysis of the electoral limitations belonging to each of these three groups. In particular, among technical qualifications special attention is paid to the analysis of age, citizenship, capacity, and residency requirements. Among protective limitations morality, service, military and bankruptcy qualifications have been reviewed. A considerable part of the paper is dedicated to investigating of discriminative restrictions of electoral rights, specifically, gender, property, race, religion and other electoral requirements.The restriction of the electoral rights is viewed through the prism of their transformation within the context of global democratization process in socio-political systems.Scientists convincingly demonstrate that the approach to assessment and necessity of applying of electoral limitations has been modified: discriminative qualifications are mostly removed, a large part of protective and technical electoral limitations is also eliminated, another part is strictly constrained by precise conditions for using, which significantly expand electorate and contribute to more comprehensive implementation of citizens electoral rights in comparison with past periods. Researchers of the electoral process emphasize the reasonableness of such electoral qualifications as age, citizenship, residency and capacity requirements concerning active electoral rights. At the same time, more ridged application of electoral limitations is acceptable with regard to passive electoral rights. In this context service, morality, literacy etc. qualifications must be mentioned.

The article studies the place and the role of international governmental and non-governmental organizations in the democratization of the election in Ukraine. Using a set of general scientific, logical and empirical scientific methods, the authors have identified the main forms of influence of international organizations on the democratization of the electoral process: regulatory influence (development of legal documents governing compliance with international democratic standards by international organizations; assessment of compliance with democratic principles of national election legislation and creation of recommendations for its improvement); controlling influence (implementation by international organizations of short-term and long-term observation of the election campaign, voting and counting of votes); institutional and functional influence (implementation by international organizations of projects to improve the election in specific countries by providing logistical, advisory, educational assistance, etc.). The peculiarities of international organizations’ implementation of the above-mentioned forms of influence during the elections in Ukraine are analyzed. It is concluded that the most important electoral role is played by international organizations in transit societies, where the promotion of electoral procedures by the international community often becomes a catalyst for democratic change in these countries. The authors argue that international organizations have pursued an active policy to support the elections in Ukraine since independence till now. They have had a significant impact on the democratization of electoral law and electoral practice of our country and contributed to the formation of democratic electoral awareness and culture of Ukrainian citizens.