Russian NGO Receives Record Number Of Complaints In Latest Regional Elections
Moscow, 14 March: The Golos (Voice) association of noncommercial organizations in defence of voters' rights registered a record number of calls to its hotline about violations during the single day of voting on 13 March.
"There were more than 700 calls to the hotline in these elections, which was more than in all the previous (single) days of voting since 2008," Andrey Buzin, head of the election monitoring section of the Golos association, told Interfax on Monday (14 March), adding that it has not yet been possible to check the reported instances of violations.
According to his information, most calls were about the violation of the rights of observers who were of commission members without the right to vote, and of correspondents.
"Early in the day there were isolated instances when they were denied access under various pretexts, and at the end of the day, before the vote count, a mass-scale removal of observers and correspondents from the premises of polling stations' commissions was observed," Buzin said.
He said that calls about the removal of observers during the vote count had come from Komi Republic, Kirov, Kaliningrad, Vladimir and Adygeya.
Buzin also said there had been "unconfirmed reports from Saratov about ballot-stuffing".
"We have also recorded violations in voting outside the polling stations, when lists were used instead of (official) registers - this was observed in one in three electoral commissions, while in one in five commissions (21 per cent) there were violations in voting on absentee ballots.
Violations in the vote count procedure were recorded in 35 per cent of commissions, and untimely filling of the large-print returns form was recorded in 32 per cent," Buzin said.
He added that most calls about violations of this kind had come from Komi Republic, Kaliningrad, Saratov, and Adygeya.
He said that the number of recorded violations of voting procedures had increased with time: "There are not too many at the opening, and more during the voting."
Another violation mentioned by Buzin was untimely issuing of copies of the returns (8 per cent).
"Our correspondents noted a large number of violations at territorial electoral commissions, where the returns are sent," he said.
According to Buzin's information, the requirement for a single voting room was violated in 22 per cent of the commissions.
He said that the Golos association carried out observation in 11 regions of the Russian Federation. "
In Nizhniy Novgorod, observation could not go ahead, as law-enforcement measures were taken against Golos association correspondents: they were intimidated, and two of them were detained and taken to a police station," Buzin said.
Keyword Tags:
