Russian League Of Voters Asks For Probe Into Presidential Election Results
Interfax - 4.23.12 - JRL 2012-74
Moscow, 23 April: The opposition movement League of Voters is asking the Russian prosecutor-general and the head of the Investigations Committee to check the discrepancies between the official and independent data about the results of the presidential election, which favour the winning candidate, Vladimir Putin. "We ask you to check the facts set out in this application and take prosecution response measures, including, if necessary, administrative or criminal proceedings against the offending parties in accordance with the laws of the Russian Federation," says a statement by the founders of the League of Voters received by Interfax on Monday (23 April).
file photoThe letter addressed to Russian Prosecutor-General Yuriy Chayka and Chairman of the Russian Investigations Committee Aleksandr Bastrykin points out that the comparison of the results of the voting in the Russian presidential election on 4 March "in observers' reports and in GAS Vybory (official automated vote counting system) has revealed many substantial discrepancies".
"What stands out is that these discrepancies emerged systematically only in certain regions, which cannot be explained by accidental errors. These regions include St Petersburg, Bashkortostan, Stavropol Territory, Volgograd Region, Kemerovo Region, Moscow Region, Ryazan Region and Saratov Region," the letter says. Altogether, according to the authors of the letter, in these regions "observers recorded more than 260 instances of discrepancies between the results of the voting at polling stations and the officially published data". "Moreover, practically all the discrepancies are in favour of one candidate, namely Putin. This fact also forces one to regard the discrepancies found by observers as not accidental," members of the League of Voters say.
They maintain that "the data gathered in the Collated Results system shows clear signs of systematic falsification of the voting results in the said regions". The Collated Results system was organized by the League of Voters in the election on 4 March and received data from observers representing three presidential candidates (Mikhail Prokhorov, Sergey Mironov and Gennadiy Zyuganov), as well as the Yabloko party and the mass media. "The Collated Results system has now gathered about 12,000 reports (from observers) which normally include copies of voting results reports received by observers at polling station commissions," the founders of the League of Voters say.
"Observers' reports are stored both in hard and soft copy. The electronic copies of observers' reports are collated in a single database, Collated Results (svodnyprotokol.ru), where anyone who has access to the internet can freely examine them," the statement says.
According to the data in the system, altogether the comparison of data from 260 polling station commissions with observers' data reveals a negative difference for all the presidential candidates except Putin, ranging from 1.1 per cent (candidate Mironov) to 5.7 cent (candidate Prokhorov). The same documents show a positive difference for Putin amounting to 12.1 per cent of the vote.
The authors of the letter enclose with the statement a list of observers "who can testify as witnesses, as well as the numbers of polling stations and information about the discrepancies between observers' reports and the data in GAS Vybory for these polling stations". "The list is still being revised and added to as new data comes into the Collated Results system," the founders of the League of Voters say.
The movement's press secretary, Veronika Marfina, has told Interfax that the statement has not yet been sent to Chayka and Bastrykin. "It will be sent as soon as other supporters of the League, prominent public figures, have signed it," she said. (Passage omitted: Deputy chairman of the Russian Central Electoral Commission official denied discrepancies back on 6 March; the League of Voters issued a memorandum shortly after the presidential election, saying that it could not recognize the results because of numerous violations; Putin then dismissed its criticism.)
The League of Voters was set up by a campaign group of public figures, journalists and bloggers on 18 January 2012. Its founders said it would monitor the electoral process in Russia. The League was founded by 16 people, including blogger Rustem Adagamov, TV presenters Tatyana Lazareva and Leonid Parfenov, author Grigoriy Chkhartishvili (Boris Akunin), doctor Yelizaveta Glinka (Doctor Liza), blogger Ilya Varlamov, musician Yuriy Shevchuk, producer and composer Georgiy Vasilyev, political scientist Dmitriy Oreshkin, journalist Olga Romanova, journalist and publisher Sergey Parkhomenko, author Dmitriy Bykov and others. The League of Voters sent 4,000 observers to the Russian presidential election on 4 March.
Keywords: Russia, Government, Politics - Russian News - Russia
Moscow, 23 April: The opposition movement League of Voters is asking the Russian prosecutor-general and the head of the Investigations Committee to check the discrepancies between the official and independent data about the results of the presidential election, which favour the winning candidate, Vladimir Putin. "We ask you to check the facts set out in this application and take prosecution response measures, including, if necessary, administrative or criminal proceedings against the offending parties in accordance with the laws of the Russian Federation," says a statement by the founders of the League of Voters received by Interfax on Monday (23 April).
file photoThe letter addressed to Russian Prosecutor-General Yuriy Chayka and Chairman of the Russian Investigations Committee Aleksandr Bastrykin points out that the comparison of the results of the voting in the Russian presidential election on 4 March "in observers' reports and in GAS Vybory (official automated vote counting system) has revealed many substantial discrepancies".
"What stands out is that these discrepancies emerged systematically only in certain regions, which cannot be explained by accidental errors. These regions include St Petersburg, Bashkortostan, Stavropol Territory, Volgograd Region, Kemerovo Region, Moscow Region, Ryazan Region and Saratov Region," the letter says. Altogether, according to the authors of the letter, in these regions "observers recorded more than 260 instances of discrepancies between the results of the voting at polling stations and the officially published data". "Moreover, practically all the discrepancies are in favour of one candidate, namely Putin. This fact also forces one to regard the discrepancies found by observers as not accidental," members of the League of Voters say.
They maintain that "the data gathered in the Collated Results system shows clear signs of systematic falsification of the voting results in the said regions". The Collated Results system was organized by the League of Voters in the election on 4 March and received data from observers representing three presidential candidates (Mikhail Prokhorov, Sergey Mironov and Gennadiy Zyuganov), as well as the Yabloko party and the mass media. "The Collated Results system has now gathered about 12,000 reports (from observers) which normally include copies of voting results reports received by observers at polling station commissions," the founders of the League of Voters say.
"Observers' reports are stored both in hard and soft copy. The electronic copies of observers' reports are collated in a single database, Collated Results (svodnyprotokol.ru), where anyone who has access to the internet can freely examine them," the statement says.
According to the data in the system, altogether the comparison of data from 260 polling station commissions with observers' data reveals a negative difference for all the presidential candidates except Putin, ranging from 1.1 per cent (candidate Mironov) to 5.7 cent (candidate Prokhorov). The same documents show a positive difference for Putin amounting to 12.1 per cent of the vote.
The authors of the letter enclose with the statement a list of observers "who can testify as witnesses, as well as the numbers of polling stations and information about the discrepancies between observers' reports and the data in GAS Vybory for these polling stations". "The list is still being revised and added to as new data comes into the Collated Results system," the founders of the League of Voters say.
The movement's press secretary, Veronika Marfina, has told Interfax that the statement has not yet been sent to Chayka and Bastrykin. "It will be sent as soon as other supporters of the League, prominent public figures, have signed it," she said. (Passage omitted: Deputy chairman of the Russian Central Electoral Commission official denied discrepancies back on 6 March; the League of Voters issued a memorandum shortly after the presidential election, saying that it could not recognize the results because of numerous violations; Putin then dismissed its criticism.)
The League of Voters was set up by a campaign group of public figures, journalists and bloggers on 18 January 2012. Its founders said it would monitor the electoral process in Russia. The League was founded by 16 people, including blogger Rustem Adagamov, TV presenters Tatyana Lazareva and Leonid Parfenov, author Grigoriy Chkhartishvili (Boris Akunin), doctor Yelizaveta Glinka (Doctor Liza), blogger Ilya Varlamov, musician Yuriy Shevchuk, producer and composer Georgiy Vasilyev, political scientist Dmitriy Oreshkin, journalist Olga Romanova, journalist and publisher Sergey Parkhomenko, author Dmitriy Bykov and others. The League of Voters sent 4,000 observers to the Russian presidential election on 4 March.