Express review of public observation on the third day of voting on September 8, 2024
General statistics
The Golos Movement has been receiving data from the country’s regions submitted by voters and vote organizers, observers and mass media representatives through various channels, including the 8 800 500-54-62 hotline, the Map of Violations, mass media, the Internet, social media, and messengers.
The Golos Movement received 104 violation reports submitted to the Map of Violations and through other electronic communication channels on the third day of voting on September 8 as of 19:30.
In total, during the election campaign, the Map of Violations and other digital channels have received 549 violation reports.
On September 8, the top five regions reporting alleged violations through the Map of Violations were:
- Moscow — 35
- St. Petersburg — 17
- Krasnodar Krai — 14
- Moscow Oblast — 10
- Leningrad Oblast — 4
In total, during the election campaign, the regions reporting most to the Map of Violations were:
- Moscow — 143
- St. Petersburg — 84
- Samara Oblast — 50
- Moscow Oblast — 49
- Tatarstan — 40
Principal trends of the voting day
On the third day of voting, reports continued to be received about the coercion of voters to vote using digital technologies and about scandals at Moscow polling stations in connection with the refusal to issue paper ballots to voters. More traditional ways of influencing turnout, such as transporting voters, were also used in some cases.
Numerous signals about pressure on observers, threats against them, and obstruction of observation in one form or another look alarming.
Among the signs of possible falsifications, it is worth noting reports of manipulations during outdoor voting, discrepancies in the voter turnout controlled by observers, clear evidence of ballot stuffing, and even triple records of the same voters in the PECs’ voter lists.
Cases of voter bribery have also been recorded along with traditional quizzes with prize draws.
Illegal campaigning on the Day of Silence remains quite common.
Coercion to vote and transportation of voters
On the third day of voting, signals continue to be received about attempts by interested parties to influence voter turnout; although the main flow of such messages, of course, fell on Friday.
For example, in Tatarstan, state employees are still forced to report on voting through a special mobile app developed by the United Russia party using Geo-SMS technology. At PEC No. 2161 in Naberezhnye Chelny, a voter complained that she did not receive an SMS message to report her participation in voting. “An SMS should come, where you need to click, and you will see “THANK YOU” in it," the woman said. According to her, Tanzilya Abdulminova, Director of “Solnyshko” kindergarten No. 50, forced her staff to report the fact of voting.
Information came from the Nenets Autonomous Area about a more traditional way to influence the turnout: a candidate from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation accused a United Russia member of illegal campaigning and transportation of voters. According to the branch of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the Nenets Autonomous Area, a corresponding claim about the incident was lodged with the police.
Obstructions to election observation and Commission Members' operations
Unfortunately, the number of reports of conflicts at polling stations is extremely high this year, and most of them are related to two phenomena: refusals to issue paper ballots in Moscow, and obstructions of election observations.
The most alarming case of obstructing a member of the election commission occurred at PEC No. 250 in Kazan (Tatarstan), where 15 people who introduced themselves as “volunteers” of Wagner (Private Military Company) forced Election Commission member Taras Kharchenko to leave the PEC by threating him. The members of the commission and law enforcement officers fully neglected what happened there. According to Article 141 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, expulsion of an Election Commission member from a polling station may be regarded as obstructing the exercise of electoral rights or the operations of election commissions.
It is also worth emphasizing that in general, members of election commissions feel their impunity and increasingly begin to behave completely disgracefully towards observers, candidates and even their own commission colleagues.
A video was filmed at PEC No. 142 in St. Petersburg, where the chairman of the election commission invited observers to lodge complaints after he decided to leave for “home” voting alone, saying: “Lodge (your complaints), nothing will happen to us anyway.”
After observers from A Just Russia complained about alleged ballot staffing, they were not allowed to join election commission members of PEC No. 1354 in Lotoshino constituency (Moscow Oblast) at outdoor voting. Similar reports regarding the SR (Socialist-Revolutionaries) observers came from Trans-Baikal Krai.
Yakov Cherevatsky, Chairman of PEC No. 1120 in Korolev (Moscow suburbs), obstructed an observer to review a voter list, justifying that the observer was not entitled to do so before the vote count. It was also argued that voter lists could be made available for review only once.
Members of PEC No. 1633 in the Petrogradsky district (St. Petersburg) appealed to the court to remove Elena Avdeeva, Election Commission member with a casting vote, from the polling station. Avdeeva was accused of falsification because of her suspicions of an incorrect number of ballots issued by the Election Commission Secretary and because she allegedly spoke “aggressively and in a raised voice” with Election Commission Chairperson Victoria Eisenstadt, “provoked conflicts” and “caused dissatisfaction with her behavior among observers.”
In Pskov Oblast, the Chairman of the Regional Election Commission called on PECs not to communicate and not to interact with their colleague Elena Mayatnikova, Regional Election Commission member delegated by the Yabloko party. Earlier, she began to visit polling stations in the Gdov district and to take an interest in the documentation. In his appeal to the election commissions, Chairman Igor Sopov pointed out that she was not a member of the higher election commission (the one organizing the elections) in these elections, and in addition, she had not asked his personal permission to visit the polling stations, and she had not notified the TEC about these visits.
At PEC No. 2610 in Moscow, observer Olga Klochko was harassed by four unknown men who probably did not have any mandate to stay in the voting premises. A day earlier, an ambulance was called to this PEC because its chairman got sick. This happened after observers complained about ballot stuffing at home voting. According to observers, in response to the complaints, she “cried and said she had four children and didn't want to go to jail.”
Election Commission members with casting votes used homemade stencils when working with voter lists at the polling stations in the Pervomaisky district in Rostov-on-Don. Voters, when receiving their ballots, could not verify their data in voter lists, and in some cases, they could not see whether they signed the voter list for themselves.
Viktor Nikityuk was not given a paper ballot at PEC No. 1331 in Moscow. Since the election commission refused to issue his paper ballot, he filed a report with the police. The PEC responded to the voter's complaint. They considered that they did not violate the voting rights of the man in any way. Nikityuk insists on initiating a criminal case on obstruction of the exercise of electoral rights (Part 2 of Article 141 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
Signs of possible falsifications and ballot stuffing
Members of the Communist Party filed a complaint about anomalous home voting records at PEC No. 3071 in the Khoroshyovo-Mnyovniki district in Moscow. Out of 220 home-voters, 200 voters who voted were born in 1975-1977. Moreover, there were no written home vote requests submitted by these home voters to the PEC. Alexander Ishchenko, a candidate from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, lodged a complaint demanding to cancel these ballots. Earlier, an observer from the said candidate had not been admitted to the same election commission.
Observers in Korolev and Mytishchi (Moscow suburbs) recorded discrepancies between the official and real turnout at five polling stations. An observer and an Election Commission member at PEC No. 1699 in Mytishchi (Moscow suburbs) counted 25 voters who voted at the end of the day on Friday; however, the act attached to the ballot safe bag had a record of 30 such voters, and GAS "Vybory” (Elections State Automated System) had a record of 71 such voters. An observer found a turnout discrepancy at PEC No. 1119 in Korolev (Moscow suburbs) on Friday; so, she installed a stationary video camera at the PEC on Saturday.
Observers also complained about a significant turnout discrepancy at PECs No. 1049, 1120 and 3601. According to observers, over-reporting turnout figures may indicate that ballot stuffing is being prepared, especially if a larger number of voters are indicated in the acts attached to ballot safe bags.
Observers from the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia in Khabarovsk found that some voters tripled: the same names were recorded in the voter list several times. According to the “Elections, all CEC!” channel, such voter lists were at PEC No. 103. A voter was registered twice at PEC No. 140. The violation was corrected on September 8, but the fact of triple recording was recorded retroactively, marking it as September 4. According to the channel, similar violations occurred at four more polling stations. Observers tried to check whether there were similar violations at other PECs, but the leadership of election commissions refused some observers to review voter lists. The Liberal Democratic Party lodged its complaint with the Regional Election Commission.
A possible ballot stuffing was recorded at a polling station in Krasnodar Krai. Several neatly folded ballots were visible in one of the stationary ballot boxes at PEC No. 5650 in the village of Nekrasovskaya in the Ust-Labinsk district. In addition, an observer recorded the fact that a member of the election commission issued six ballots to one voter at the same polling station. A complaint was lodged with the police.
Suspicions arose of night ballot stuffing at a polling station in the Admiralteysky district of St. Petersburg. At PEC No. 36, the ballots left in the stationary ballot box for the night changed their position, and there were more of them in the morning. The photos published in the “Headquarters of Candidates” Telegram channel show that the ballots were turned over, and their volume really increased. The observer who reported this lodged a complaint with the PEC, but the PEC said that no action would be taken. The complaint was lodged with the higher TEC then.
According to the channel, a similar thing occurred at PEC No. 60. On September 7, observers counted 160 voters, and the election commission reported 312 voters.
Quizzes with prizes and bribing voters
Six citizens were detained in Kurgan while trying to bribe voters in the election to the Kurgan City Duma. According to Mikhail Belousov, Chairman of the Public Chamber of Kurgan Oblast, criminal cases were initiated against the detainees, but the charges and the specific Criminal Code article were not specified. Later, “vote buyers” were detained in two more constituencies in the city: No. 5 and No 7.
The URA.RU online media outlet also reported that in order to bribe voters, their contact details were also collected during a TV set draw at a courtyard holiday in one of the microdistricts of the city. Phone-callers allegedly urged to vote for Ksenia Kovalchuk, a candidate from the New People party, and promised to charge 100 rubles on the phone for doing this.
Voters were enticed to polling stations in Murmansk and Irkutsk Oblasts by promising them quizzes with prizes there.
The prank and hidden campaigning in Murmansk Oblast was reported by the “7×7”* media outlet. Activist Violetta Grudina drew attention to the fact that the lottery slogan echoed the slogan of the election program of Andrei Chibis, the current head of the region: “Live in the North!”. He plans to be re-elected for a new term this year. To participate, you need to fill out a questionnaire about the region. Prizes are T-shirts and sweatshirts with the same governor's slogan or the OZON gift certificates worth 1,000—5,000 rubles.
Anatoly Obukhov, member of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and member of the Legislative Assembly), reported a drawing organized at the City Duma election in the 24th constituency in Irkutsk Oblast. He considered the lottery was a bribery of voters.
Illegal campaigning
In Orenburg Oblast, the police drew up a protocol against Vladimir Gudomarov, gubernatorial candidate from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, who was denied registration for spoiling his ballot, considering this action to be campaigning.
Before the voting day, representatives of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in Orenburg Oblast said that they would spoil their ballots in protest against non-registration of their gubernatorial candidate. Vladimir Gudomarov posted a picture of his spoiled ballot online on September 8.
In response, the Regional Election Commission accused him of trying to mislead voters. After that, the police in Orsk opened an administrative case against Vladimir Gudomarov under the article on election campaigning outside the campaign period.
Illegal campaigning for Alexei Shaposhnikov, a candidate from the United Russia party, was discovered in front of PEC No. 809 in the Yuzhnoye Medvedkovo district in Moscow. His posters were also found inside the PEC building. According to the law, campaigning may not be closer than 50 meters to the polling station’s entrance.
A candidate from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation was also accused of illegal campaigning in Ufa. According to Bashinform, a campaign sticker was placed on the official car of Yunir Kutluguzhin, Member of the Kurultay (People’s Assembly) of Bashkiria.
Campaign items of a candidate from the United Russia party were found in the vicinity of PEC No. 25 in Khabarovsk. The banner was installed closer than 50 meters from the PEC.
Other incidents
Territorial Election Commission No. 64 in St. Petersburg forgot to cross out Tatyana Sulyagina, the candidate who had been withdrawn from the elections, from the ballots. The election commission refused to register her due to the incorrect height of the lines in her documents.
Observer Marina Popova was detained in St. Petersburg: she threw her ballot with the inscription “No war” into the ballot box. The woman was taken to Police Department No. 28; a lawyer went there to help her.
Gennady Shcherbakov posted in his Vkontakte account that outdoor voting was organized in the field where the harvest was underway during the governor election in Orenburg Oblast.
Roman Rekhtin and Ayan Temeeva, candidates from the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia in El Kurultai (Altai Republic), made public statements about their phones subjected to massive spamming.
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