Voter Hunt

Local authorities fought for turnout as best they could

If we characterize the voting process in the presidential election, then, perhaps, the best description for it would be the word “calm.” Even in Chechnya there were no special incidents. True, on Sunday morning, explosions occurred near two polling stations in the village of Sernovodskaya in the Sunzhensky district of Chechnya. The bombs went off immediately after the opening of the sites, at intervals of five minutes. Fortunately, no one was injured as a result of the explosions, and the work of the polling stations was interrupted for only 30 minutes.

The elections began in Kamchatka, where 56% of voters went to the polls. However, on election day, police officers raided the homes of several members of one of the precinct election commissions in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky with searches. The fact is that two packages of 50 ballots each disappeared from the polling station without a trace. The prosecutor's office opened a criminal investigation into the disappearance of 100 ballots, and the city department of internal affairs immediately began an investigation into the theft. However, the police themselves are confident that this is not about the deliberate theft of the main election documents, but “about ordinary sloppiness.”

In the Primorsky Territory, through the efforts of local authorities, voter turnout reached 62.35%. The electorate was attracted to the polls by concerts of school groups and cheap beer (a bottle of Zhigulevsky cost 10 rubles on voting day).

In the Khabarovsk Territory, 65.92% of voters took part in the elections. The regional prosecutor's office did not record any serious violations on election day. The only troublemakers were eight National Bolsheviks and members of the extremist organization “Vanguard of Communist Youth,” who were detained by police in the Northern District of Khabarovsk for distributing propaganda materials calling for a boycott of the elections. Reports were drawn up on five of them, the rest turned out to be minors.

In Yakutia, the turnout of the population was significantly higher than the national average - 79.4%. Now in the republic a case is being investigated regarding the use of an administrative resource by the head of one of the enterprises. In an effort to increase turnout, he promised all employees of the enterprise to write off penalties for debt on electricity.

In the Sverdlovsk region, only 51.07% of voters came to the polls. This figure is much worse than the data from four years ago (63%). In the Kurgan region the turnout was 57%, in the Chelyabinsk region it exceeded 62%, and in the Tyumen region it generally reached 72.51%. However, such results were achieved largely thanks to the activity and entrepreneurship of local authorities. Thus, the mayor of Chelyabinsk Vyacheslav Tarasov, in order to increase turnout, urgently held meetings with residents on the streets, urging them to come to the polls. In Tyumen, voters were lured to the elections by drawing prizes: in the morning ten VAZ-2109 cars were driving around the city, which were later raffled off at polling stations. As soon as the news of a voter winning a vacuum cleaner, iron or car reached his neighbors, they immediately rushed to fulfill their civic duty in the hope of receiving the prize.

The authorities also did not forget about the administrative resource. Several observers contacted the commission with complaints about a violation of the principle of voluntary participation in elections: employees of Tyumen municipal services were ordered to take part in the voting, and also report on their duty by telephone to specially appointed responsible duty officers. The day before the vote, local National Bolsheviks were detained in the Central and Leninsky districts of Tyumen, distributing leaflets calling for a boycott of the elections. In the Sverdlovsk region, representatives of the Yabloko party filed complaints with the election commission in connection with the violation of the will of patients in a local psycho-institution. There, boarding school workers entered the voting booth together with the patients and showed the patients where to tick the ballots. In Nizhny Tagil, bus drivers who were distributing vodka at four polling stations were detained, so several candidates for deputies of the city Duma, supported by the management of the Nizhny Tagil Metallurgical Plant, bribed voters.

In the Krasnoyarsk Territory, according to the regional election commission, 50% of voters voted (15% less than in the 2000 presidential elections). In the Taimyr Autonomous Okrug the turnout was almost 60%. However, in some cities of the region the 50 percent barrier was never overcome. In Krasnoyarsk itself, voter turnout, according to the chairman of the city election commission Nikolai Osipov, was only 44.18%, and the presidential election did not take place. Mr. Osipov also noted that the election commission received a lot of complaints about violations. For example, in polling station No. 172 of Krasnoyarsk, the election results will most likely be declared invalid. Members of the election commission violated the law by including in the lists of voters, of whom there were less than 2,000 in the territory assigned to the precinct, 400 military personnel who did not live in the city of Krasnoyarsk before the elections.

In Sochi, the city administration ordered the closure of all markets and fairs on election day. To prevent particularly stubborn citizens from indulging in illegal hand-selling on the day of the presidential election, all markets and fairs were cordoned off by police with dogs. It is noteworthy that all the students of the Sochi State University of Resort Business and Tourism came to polling stations yesterday with previously prepared certificates in which it is written that such and such a student voted in such and such a polling station, and asked one of the members of the precinct commissions to sign this certificate and stamp. The students say that the rector of the university, Grigory Yakovenko, ordered that these certificates be issued to them, and today at the university these certificates will be checked. The measures taken by the city administration had an effect, and voter turnout in Sochi was 59.3%.

Yuri ALEXEEV, Khabarovsk, Dmitry CHERNOV, Vladivostok, Konstantin KOVALENKO, Krasnoyarsk, Mikhail VIUGIN, Yekaterinburg, Igor GLANIN, Sochi