First express overview of civic observation on the single day of voting on September 11, 2022
General statistics
The Golos movement is conducting short-term observation in 19 regions. Voting is monitored for its compliance with international and Russian standards for free expression of the will and is based on data from the regions shared by participants and organizers of voting, observers and media representatives, through various channels, including the hotline 8 800 500 54 62, the Map of Violations, media, Internet, social media, and messengers.
On the third day of voting, by 10:00 a.m. Moscow time on September 11, Golos had received 37 calls to its hotline (the total hotline call time 2 hours and 13 minutes), and 62 messages to the Map of Violations and other electronic channels.
In total, 378 calls to the hotline have been received throughout the election campaign (total hotline call time 1 day 1 hour and 7 minutes), and 1306 messages to the Map of Violations and other electronic communication channels.
The top five leading regions by the number of reports of possible violations on the Map of Violations on September 11:
- Moscow City - 22
- Moscow Oblast - 13
- Krasnodar Krai - 11
- St. Petersburg - 6
- Altai Krai – 3
The distribution of the leaderboard of reports on the Map of Violations as a whole for the campaign period at this point is as follows:
- Moscow City - 626
- Krasnodar Krai - 168
- Udmurt Republic - 88
- Moscow Oblast - 80
- Kirov Oblast - 67
Main Election Day trends
Violation of the rights of candidates
On the first two days of voting, the two Moscow election commissions faced an unusual challenge, as the Russian Supreme Court reinstated two previously disqualified candidates in the districts of Izmaylovo and Levoberezhny right during the ongoing voting. This situation threatens to cancel the results of the voting, since a significant number of voters had already voted on Friday and Saturday, when the candidates were not on the ballots. Election commissions in the Izmaylovo and Levoberezhny districts actually sabotaged court decisions by refusing to accept documents from the courts or take measures to restore the rights of candidates. Members of these Moscow TECs were hiding from the candidates.
In particular, candidate Alexandra Ivanova, reinstated in the Levoberezhny District, came to the TEC, but the staff was in no rush to accept the documents and reinstate her in the candidate's status. A media representative claims that one of the specialists at the sight of Ivanova ran away "for a minute". At that time, the security officer called the police to expel the reinstated candidate from the polling station.
In Timashevsk (Krasnodar Krai) police detained two CPRF candidates (Yekaterina Sandetskaya and Vladimir Popov) and a TEC member (Galina Skakunova) late at night. According to the CPRF, they found signs of fraud in PEC 5021: signatures of voters were missing from the voter list. Rather than investigating the case, the police simply detained the two candidates and the TEC member, Galina Skakunova.
In Moscow, police were handed out "lists of provocative candidates". In the district of Lefortovo (polling stations #1390 and #1391), an observer on the security guard's desk found a stack of sheets with information about CPRF candidates and Pavel Tarasov, assistant of a CPRF’s deputy of the Moscow City Duma. The papers included printouts with personal information about the "provocateurs," including registration address, tax identification number and family status. The printouts contained the following text: "Uses extremely aggressive rhetoric against the Russian authorities; criticizes the work of the executive authorities; fills the Our City portal of the mayor of Moscow with complaints; files lawsuits in courts, and opposes remote electronic voting; supports all the actions of Alexandra Andreyeva, a municipal deputy of the Lefortovo district and a long-time critic of the executive authorities."
Candidate Filip Kuzin, whose data appeared in the printouts, wrote a statement to the police.
A similar list was found with police officers on duty at polling stations in the Sokolniki district. The list mainly consists of former candidates for Moscow municipal deputies who were disqualified before the Election Day. There are reportedly such lists in other districts of Moscow as well. This is the evidence of a politically conditioned police attitude toward candidates that is created deliberately and centrally, which contradicts the foundations of the Russian constitutional order.
CPRF candidates in Barnaul who visit polling stations are being harassed, i.e. photographed, videotaped, and in some cases subjected to real surveillance. Vitaly Markov, a Communist candidate in the Leninsky District, said that unknown young people followed him literally on his heels from one polling station to another all day long yesterday. According to the candidate, the stalkers reported that they were "working" for Ivan Ognev, the United Russia candidate and current head of the party's fraction in the Barnaul City Duma.
Restrictions on the rights of citizens to monitor the work of election commissions
In Moscow, conflicts continue between members of commissions and representatives of candidates of different statuses, which were generally unusual for previous years.
In particular, in Moscow's Mozhaisky District’s PEC 2648, a candidate's proxy was refused to accept and register his complaint. On Saturday at 6:30 p.m. Moscow time, the chairperson of TEC explained his actions by the meeting of the commission which was taking place at the moment. Dmitry Myumlin, deputy chairperson of the TEC, agreed to accept the complaint. He put the documents on the table in the room of the commission. Around 7:50 p.m., the chairperson said that the documents were missing and he had no complaint. An appeal to the police was filed in order to look into the theft of documents. At PEC 1052 in Moscow on Saturday night, the observer was refused to be given a copy of the acts and subsequently received a complaint.
In Lyubertsy, at PEC 1545, an unknown citizen pushed an observer and a candidate out of the PEC. The citizen shouted that the school was closed and they were unauthorized persons in it. Police officers looked at what was going on and did nothing. Also in Lyubertsy, at PEC 1529, observers were denied the right to make video recordings on the grounds that "there is no video surveillance at the municipal elections".
In Gelendzhik, Krasnodar Krai, which has become the country's main supplier of signals about possible falsifications, commission #915 asked the police to bring a CPRF observer to administrative responsibility under Article 5.69 of the Administrative Code (Interference in the activities of an election commission). He was accused of "illegal filming", "creation of conflicts", an attempt to see the commission's documents, and free movement around the voting premises.
Signs of possible falsification
The problems continue in Krasnodar Krai, where yesterday in Gelendzhik a video appeared of a PEC member hiding filled out ballots. In another PEC in the town, the actual turnout, as counted by the observers, and that reported in the protocols do not match. The observer points out that on September 9, the first day of voting, 39 people voted at PEC 901, while the number declared in the report was 421 (a difference of 10.7 times). The situation repeated itself on the second day of voting, although on a smaller scale: the observer counted 58 voters as opposed to 88 reported by the commission. Earlier, a similar situation was found at PEC 916 in Gelendzhik, where the difference in turnout was 11.6 times on September 9. According to an observer, the commission at PEC 922 falsified the voting report on September 9. He had seen less than 400 voters, whereas the report said 1285. The observer was not allowed to check the report data against the voter list. Finally, in the town of Anapa, at polling station #0277, according to the counts of the observers and a voting member of the commission, 100 people voted during the day, while 729 voters were announced as having voted in the evening. A police report was filed.
In Vladivostok, voters complain that someone has already received ballots for them. For example, a voter at polling station 650 found that he had already been listed as having voted. Members of the commission told the voter that this was a mistake. The man did not believe the explanations, suspected falsification at the polling station and decided to submit a complaint to the police. The complaint was also recorded by the voters. Members of the higher commission went to the place to check; a request was also sent to the police to inform whether they had been contacted on this issue.
Media report that observers saw similar incidents at polling stations 639 and 644. Alexander Samsonov, a non-voting member of the Primorsky Krai election commission, claims on social media that there was "extreme falsification during early voting" in the Vladivostok City Duma elections.
An attempted ballot box stuffing was detected in Novokuznetsk, Kemerovo Oblast, at polling station 1257. An attempt to stuff 20 ballots was made by a United Russia observer. The violator was caught and police officers were called. Photos with marks for the candidate on the ballots that were seized from the observer were published.
In PEC 2358, a CPRF observer reported that he had seen ballot stuffing, but had not had enough time to record it. The observer saw the PEC secretary throwing ballots into the stationary ballot box. The secretary ran away with a stack of ballots in his hands. It was not possible to shoot a video. At the same moment, there was allegedly a failure with the equipment making video recording of the ballot box. The CPRF candidate called the police, and they wrote a statement.
In Chekhov, Moscow Oblast, at PEC 1531, traces of tampering were found on early voting envelopes. The observer counted 19 "bad" envelopes out of 31. In the town as a whole, 72 early voting ballots have been currently recognized invalid; however, observers counted 505 envelopes with signs of opening. The fact of opening of the early voting envelope was recorded at PEC 2774 in Sergiev Posad, Moscow Oblast. Observers objected, but the commission cast the ballot into the ballot box. In Lyubertsy, Moscow Oblast, early voting envelopes with traces of opening were also found before the beginning of voting on September 11, but the chair of the commission did not put them aside and ignored observers saying such actions were inadmissible, and started to open the early voting envelopes. Thus, the ballots were mixed, and it is impossible to understand which ballots were swapped in the opened envelopes and which were not.
According to media reports, proxy voting is taking place at PEC 184 in Moscow. Sota published videos of observer Daria describing how her passport was labeled with the name and passport details of the person she was supposed to vote for. The audio and screenshots from a WhatsApp observer chat were sent by a source with access to Daria's phone. The observer was hired by Svetlana Osiptsova, a former deputy of the Yakimanka district and current candidate of the United Russia party. According to the source, Osiptsova also promised observers 5,000 rubles per day.
