Elections according to Chesnakov

According to preliminary data from the city election commission, United Russia won 49.6% of the votes in the early elections of deputies to the Kasimov City Duma in the Ryazan region, held on July 22. In second place are the Communists with almost thirty percent. The LDPR received 11.42% of the vote, and Yabloko - 5.59%. "A Just Russia" was not allowed to participate in the elections due to procedural violations during registration. Voter turnout was 35.76%.

The increased attention to the results of the elections to the Duma of the city with a population of 33 thousand people is primarily due to the participation in them of the Deputy Secretary of the General Council of United Russia and political strategist Alexei Chesnakov. The victory of United Russia provided Chesnakov with a deputy mandate and the opportunity to become a member of the Federation Council. Previously, ex-governor of St. Petersburg Valentina Matvienko, who won the municipal elections in the St. Petersburg district of Krasnenkaya Rechka, where elections were also held early, became a senator in a similar way.

“United Russia has once again proven its leadership through work on the ground, ” ER.ru quotes Deputy Secretary of the General Council of the party Viktor Kidyaev. “The party is represented by worthy people, they are trusted. Residents voted for specific systemic work." According to Kidyaev, voter turnout was quite high for the holiday period.

However, observers consider the turnout to be low and talk about numerous violations during the voting. Thus, according to the “Map of Election Violations,” observers recorded fifty violations, including stuffing, illegal restrictions on photo and video filming, transportation of voters, “carousels” and others. In addition, the website of the Golos association notes that the bus with observers from Ryazan was stopped on the way to Kasimov “to check documents” 5 times.

“In Kasimov, it was possible to hold fair elections. There were few polling stations. There were such a number of party and independent observers that guaranteed control, nevertheless, there were violations at the polling stations,” Sofia Ivanova, coordinator of the “Voice” association in the Ryazan region, told PublicPost. the nature of the violations, they prepared in advance. It’s just that the local polling stations did not expect such an influx of observers and did not expect them to be active: many attempts at falsification were stopped on the spot. For example, at some polling stations observers asked to open safes and found stacks of ballots of 15 in each. 20 pieces with ticks."

Excerpts from the chronicle of violations :

07.30. At PEC No. 12, observers were first refused to show the voter lists, then they were forbidden to take photographs. PEC No. 13 was not allowed into the polling station immediately after the commission members arrived there, citing the fact that the commission would be holding an organizational meeting.
08:15. PEC No. 12 began to prepare portable ballot boxes for outdoor voting, they refused to take observers with them to field voting, the register for voting at home, in which observers saw many different marks, was not allowed to take photographs.
08:30. PEC No. 2 - the chairman of the commission several times reprimanded the observer from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation for standing 2 meters from the ballot box and counting the number of voters, and forbade him to stand nearby.
10:05. PEC No. 13 - all observers recorded a stuffing. The police detained the person who was throwing in a stack of ballots with a check mark in the “United Russia” column.
10.30. PECs No. 3, 4 - there is no information about the candidates’ income on the information boards - the precinct chairmen said that “in accordance with the law, in precincts with a small number of voters, such information should not be posted for public viewing”...
10:55. PEC No. 17 - at the polling station there were 123 people on the list for voting at home. During the departure, it turned out that many were not at home, and some said that they had not called anyone.
11:30. PEC No. 2 - an attempted throw-in was made and recorded on video. The offender was detained and the police were called.
12.00. PEC No. 14 - the police drive away from the station a Communist Party car, which had a sticker on both sides "United Russia - the party of swindlers and thieves", arguing that this is illegal propaganda.
13:26. PEC No. 8 - a car drove up to the polling station, people from it entered the voting booths and took photographs of their ballots.
15:00. PEC No. 6 - the group sent to vote at home was given six ballots marked for United Russia.
15:30. PEC No. 6 - at the request of observers, members of PEC No. 6 checked the ballots that were in the safe of the election commission. 20 ballots were marked for candidate Fyodor Provotorov. All observers wrote complaints about this fact, and an investigative team was called.
17:20. PEC No. 8 - observers asked to show them the ballot papers remaining in the safe; upon inspection, they found 15 ballots for parties and for candidates with ticks marked - three in each - and it was clear that two ticks were slightly different from the third (probably staged in the wake of total control by observers of the remaining ballots). Police officers were called and found that these were ballots of the established form, certified in accordance with the current legislation, corresponding to this election commission.
17.30. PEC No. 10 - after repeated reports from different polling stations about the discovery of completed ballots, observers demanded an inspection of the safes at this polling station; the commission refused to present the safe with ballots for inspection; Soon the TEC chairman arrived at the polling station and left with the PEC chairman for a meeting...
18:30. PEC No. 20 - observers at the polling station found on the desk of the PEC chairman a paper entitled “List of voters ready to vote for United Russia and candidates from this party” on 9 sheets of A4 size. We managed to take photographs of the first sheet.