Russian national elections tarred by violation claims — CBS
Complaints of election violations were increasing Sunday as Russians voted for a new national parliament.
The voting for the 450 seats in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, was not expected to substantially change the distribution of power, in which the pro-Kremlin United Russia party holds an absolute majority. But the perceived honesty of the election could be a critical factor in whether protests arise following the voting.
Massive demonstrations broke out in Moscow after the last Duma election in 2011, unsettling authorities with their size and persistence.
“Information about violations is coming constantly from various regions,” the Interfax news agency quoted Ilya Shablinsky, a coordinator of observers for the presidential Council on Human Rights, as saying.
Among the potential violations he cited were long lines of soldiers voting at stations where they were not registered and voters casting their ballots on tables instead of curtained-off voting booths.
The election monitoring group Golos also said it had received more than 1,300 complaints by late afternoon. A video posted on YouTube appeared to show a poll worker in the southern Rostov region dropping multiple sheets of paper into a ballot box.
On Sunday morning, Russia’s election commission head said results from voting in a Siberian region could be annulled if allegations of vote fraud there are confirmed.
