CONDITIONALLY EARLY VOTING

AFTER THE ELECTION

For the first time in the history of the St. Petersburg elections (and one cannot remember this on a Russian scale), a criminal case was initiated under Article 142 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Falsification of voting results”. The case was opened by the prosecutor's office of St. Petersburg, and we are talking about ...

For the first time in the history of the St. Petersburg elections (and one cannot remember this on a Russian scale), a criminal case was initiated under Article 142 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Falsification of voting results”. The case was opened by the prosecutor's office of St. Petersburg, and we are talking about the December 19 elections of deputies of the Svetlanovsky municipal council, which Novaya Gazeta recently talked about.

“There has never been such lawlessness,” say veterans of the St. Petersburg election campaigns. It is difficult to say how the investigation will end, but the result will be significant in any case.

If the election results are annulled, a crucial precedent will set: fraudulently obtained mandates can be taken away. If the St. Petersburg methods get away with it, the question will arise: does it make sense to hold any elections in the country at all?

In Svetlanovsky, it was clear from the very beginning that the main struggle would unfold between the Democratic Petersburg bloc (YABLOKO + SPS) and United Russia. In the ranks of the Democrats, there were several active deputies of the municipal council, who “plowed” in their constituency for four years, and other DP candidates, as a rule, were people known to citizens. Finally, they all lived on the territory of the municipality - in other words, within a few blocks (municipalities in St. Petersburg are small: there are more than a hundred of them in the city).

As for United Russia, the picture was the opposite. None of them had anything to do with the municipality, they did not work in the district, they were not known to citizens, and they all lived far from the territory where they were elected. But they, unlike the Democrats, had plenty of administrative (and financial) resources...

Early voting is the scourge of Russian elections. Once it was introduced so that citizens leaving, for example, for a dacha, could, as an exception, vote ahead of schedule. Then, for many years, there were pictures of mass "drive" or "importation" of "early" veterans voting in the right way in exchange for money or a bag of food.

In 2001, early voting was banned, but an exception was made for municipal elections. Than in "Svetlanovsky" they took advantage of it to the fullest.

All budgetary organizations - schools, teen clubs, clinics - received telephone messages from the district administration demanding to organize early voting for their employees and, of course, lists of the "correct" candidates from United Russia. Under the pretext of "checking the correctness of the accrual of money instead of benefits" in the premises where the will was expressed, the employees of the social security service invited pensioners, demanding to come with passports. After the “check”, they were unobtrusively offered to vote early, immediately dictating the application to be written, and carefully handed over the list of “necessary” candidates. After that, they handed out a food coupon at the Pancake Donalds restaurant. Bribery, however, was not limited ...

There are four electoral districts on the territory of Svetlanovsky. Each elects five deputies under a multi-member system. And in each of them, in the last days before the elections, strange things began to happen.

“We assumed the possibility of falsification,” says the representative of the Democratic Petersburg bloc, a member of the Svetlanovsky election commission with an advisory vote, Diana Huseynzade. - And for this, they themselves continuously counted the number of “early pickers”. Every day we approached the members of the election commission with the decisive vote, who issued the ballots, and asked them to certify this information - and we were denied this every day. The law gives us the right to get acquainted with the register of voters who voted, but we were not allowed to do this.

Nevertheless, representatives of the “DP” drew up acts every day, how many people voted. In one of the districts of "Svetlanovsky" by 20.00 on December 15, according to their data, there were 749 "early pupils". The commission, of course, refused to certify this information. And the next morning they provided information that 2,732 people had voted early.

“Where, by whom and on the basis of what decision were 1983 ballots issued between 20:00 on December 15 and 13:00 on December 16, and why was the commission’s decision to hold early voting at night not published in the media?” - with such a statement Huseynzade appealed to the St. Petersburg Electoral Commission. The commission did not respond. The question of how almost two thousand people could vote at night remained open.

In three other constituencies of "Svetlanovsky" observers "DP" recorded the same picture. As a result, according to the Democrats, in general, 3,890 people voted early in Svetlanovsky, and the election commission announced

13,498 “early”. The difference is more than 9.5 thousand people! In total, about 70,000 voters live in Svetlanovsky: it is clear that no one knows where the ballots that came from could easily decide the outcome of the elections.

They decided it.

On the evening of December 19, the results of the elections began to be summed up in Svetlanovsky. And then it began...

“Since a large number of voters voted early, by law we could require a separate count of votes for those who came early and those who came on time,” says Olga Pokrovskaya, a well-known lawyer in St. Petersburg, who was a member of one of the precinct commissions from the “DP” with an advisory vote. But we have not been able to achieve this everywhere. In "my" commission I was categorically refused. And if only this! In violation of the law, the chairman of the commission did not allow to get acquainted with any documents: neither with the lists of voters, nor with the register of those who voted early, nor with the additional list of voters. Everything was the same at a number of other polling stations - the commissions "impudently" denied our representatives their legitimate demands. At one station, my colleague Olga Shtannikova was not only denied access to the documents, but they also tried to push her out of the premises with the help of physical force.

Where it was possible to carry out a separate count of votes, it showed really amazing results.

“Already 10-15 minutes after the start of the count, the members of the precinct commission were laughing out loud,” says another representative of the “DP” Andrei Fayer. - Each ballot was read out by the chairman of the commission, and it immediately became clear that almost all of them were filled out with one hand, in the same manner and for the same candidates from United Russia. When other marks appeared on the ballot, members of the commission joked that this was a "technical failure." As a result, United Russia gained 90% of the votes of "early voters", our candidates - 3-5% each. When they began to count the votes cast by voters who came on December 19, the picture changed dramatically ...

So, at one of the polling stations during early voting, the candidate from "ER" Dmitry Sereda received 353 votes out of 404 (87% of the votes). And the leader of the "DP" and the deputy of the municipal council "Svetlanovsky" Nikolai Rybakov - only 27 votes (6%). On voting day, everything was the opposite: Sereda received 48 votes out of 416 (11%), Rybakov - 248 votes (60%). The same picture is in all Svetlanovsky: the candidates from the United Russia had about 90% of the votes of the “early” and about 10% of the votes of those who came on December 19. The Democrats, on the other hand, gained 5-6% of the votes of the "early" votes and, on average, 35-40% of the votes of those who came on time.

“There were nine polling stations in my constituency,” says Nikolai Rybakov. - On the polling station where I live and where almost all the neighbors know me, on the voting day I got 68%. And when they counted the “early” students, I received only 4%. But that's not all: opposite my surname and against the surname of my mother there were marks that we also ... voted early!

Note that this situation was also widespread: many citizens who came on December 19 found similar marks next to their names. But they invariably ran into categorical refusals when they demanded that their signatures be checked against the signatures in the register of early voters. Equally categorically, the election commissions refused to attach to their documents any complaints or acts drawn up by observers. Are these failures random? Of course not. Everything that is happening can be explained in only one way: by the massive stuffing of ballot papers carried out on the night of December 15-16.

- As soon as we recorded the "night" increase in the number of early voters, - says Rybakov, - I immediately said: when counting, it turns out that all these virtual voters cast their votes for United Russia. And so it happened.

According to Olga Pokrovskaya, the falsification was prepared in advance. “Electoral commissions and the administration from year to year keep a record of residents who never go to the polls,” she says. “It was their passport data that was used to vote instead of them. But, apparently, they messed up something - and at the same time voted for active citizens who came on December 19. At a number of polling stations, we still managed to see citizens' statements asking them to give them the opportunity to vote early - and it is immediately clear that almost all of them are written in the same handwriting.

“I was an observer both in the presidential elections in Ukraine and in the municipal elections in Svetlanovsky,” says Natalya Petrova. “So, the violations that were committed in Ukraine and which provoked the anger of many citizens of the country cannot be compared with how the authorities achieve the “necessary” results in our city! About 10% of ballots were falsified in Ukraine, and more than 60% in Svetlanovsky. If we allow the authorities to continue to manipulate our opinion so shamelessly, it will completely cease to reckon with us, and we will lose any opportunity to defend our rights anywhere ...

All materials were transferred to the city prosecutor's office: acts, protocols, statements from citizens who allegedly voted early or did not find themselves on the lists at all; video cassettes showing members of election commissions hiding voter lists under the table, hiding them from observers... They turned out to be so impressive that it was simply impossible to ignore them. I had to initiate a criminal case, and now everything depends on how detailed the investigation will be. It is necessary to check the lists of "prescheduled", to interview citizens; conduct a handwriting examination of statements and registers of voters. Most likely, falsifications will immediately show up.

Of course, this is not an easy task. But if you do not try to solve it, the St. Petersburg "experience" can spread to the whole country. And then the elections will generally become a meaningless exercise. Indeed, why campaign, print and distribute leaflets and meet with citizens, when you can simply "draw" the right number of ballots in favor of the "right" candidates?