Activists observing Russia’s presidential vote and opponents of the government say there is evidence of widespread violations, including alleged ballot stuffing, so-called “carousel voting” and illegal campaigning.
The Interior Ministry insists that so far, no serious incidents have been registered since the polls opened.The ministry said it had received over 20 complaints of alleged violations on its hotline. However, many of the incidents reported were not confirmed by police sent to investigate, they say.
The Central Election Commission (CEC) reported that by 5.30pm Moscow time (17 and-a-half hours after the polls opened in Russia’s Far Eastern regions) they had received only 86 complaints of election violations. All in all, 460 complaints were submitted to the CEC during the presidential campaign, the body’s deputy chairman, Stanislav Vavilov, told journalists. The official noted that a wave of protests that swept thought the country following the December 4 poll had not been a prelude to an avalanche of complaints.
“We have information that hundreds of complaints have been written and will be submitted to the CEC in the near future. These complaints have been written in advance (prior to the March 4 poll),” Vavilov said. He insisted that the organizers of such actions were not interested in such things as impartiality and legality.
Meanwhile, official data paints a very different picture from that being presented by the opposition and independent observers.
The March 4 presidential poll is being watched by thousands of monitors from independent organizations, such as the League of Voters and Golos, as well as representatives of each of the five presidential candidates.
In addition, all the polling stations in the country have been fitted with webcams to provide live coverage of the voting process which is available on a specially created website webvybory2012.ru. The novelty was welcomed by the society: over 2 million people registered with the source to personally keep an eye on the situation. According to Communications Ministry, up to 420,000 people were visiting the website at the same time.
One of webcams installed in a polling station in Dagestan, North Caucasus, recorded a moment when several people are casting a whole bunch of ballots at a time. Alleged violation did not go unnoticed and the footage soon appeared on popular video-sharing website, youtube. While one of the participants of the scene inputs ballots into electronic voting machine, someone comments “Stand here, so that you can’t be seen.”
The CEC is set to urgently address the situation and take all necessary measures, one of the commission’s members, Anton Lopatin told RIA Novosti. Dagestani CEC has reportedly submitted the materials on the incident to the investigative committee and prosecutor’s office in the republic. A source in the commission told the agency that the results of the voting at the polling station may later be annulled.
Election watchdog Golos received over 2000 reports of alleged irregularities. The organization made an interactive map which shows the number of applications it received and where they came from. Moscow is topping the list with over 900 of complaints.
The Russian Communist party (KPRF) stated that they had registered over 40 violations in Moscow just four hours after voting began.
Candidate Mikhail Prokhorov is planning to appeal to court over the violations revealed by his observers during the Sunday poll, he told journalists. In particular, he said, irregularities were registered in St Petersburg and Moscow region.
The League of Voters – the movement created after the December 4 parliamentary poll to ensure fair elections – say they recorded multiple irregularities across the country, ranging from nonfunctioning web cameras and ballot stuffing to alleged “carousel” practices in which buses ferry organized groups of voters with absentee ballots from one polling station to another to vote multiple times. The movement has posted reports of alleged violations on its website and on its Twitter micro-blog.
According to monitors, up to 1,000 workers were delivered to one of the stations in Moscow’s north-western district of Strogino, where they created long queues and “chaos.” The inconvenience caused many voters to leave without casting their ballots, reported The Village website. In addition, observers stated, the workers presented papers which had clearly been signed by the same hand. One of the buses that brought people to the polling station was seen earlier at another station, they claimed.
The police and the Public Chamber denied the report. A member of the chamber, Maxim Grigoriev, told RIA Novosti that observers visited the Strogino polling station to see what was going on. He said they learned that workers from several construction sites had been delivered in buses. He said the queues had built up due to the use of electronic vote-counting machines which helped prevent fraud but at the same time slowed down the voting process.
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