Zhukovsky bribery or vile elections

On March 31, elections for the head of the Zhukovsky urban district (city) were held in the Moscow region.

Voting took place at 50 permanent polling stations and two temporary ones: at the city hospital (No. 659) and at the water utility company (No. 3573).

About 250 people from the Citizen Observer, Sonar, and Voice projects were sent to the polling stations as observers. To coordinate actions, a joint headquarters and call center for observers were organized. A huge contribution to the preparation of observation and organization of the work of the headquarters was made by the editorial staff of the newspaper “Zhukovskie Vesti” and activists of the People’s Council of Zhukovsky.

We consider it necessary to emphasize that the volunteers and organizers of “Citizen Observer” worked, as always, for free.

The GBV hotline alone received 224 calls from 06:00 on March 31 to 06:00 on April 1 with reports of violations of election legislation, questions about the opening of a polling station, the procedure for voting indoors and outdoors, counting votes and tabulating voting results.

The number of calls was dominated by calls with information about actions that were almost unanimously perceived by townspeople not as a provocation against the “self-nominated” candidate Voytyuk, publicly supported by the acting. Governor Vorobyov, but as a thinly veiled bribery of voters in his favor. This idea was prompted by the obviously excessive scale of the action and the costs incurred for provocation.

According to various estimates, the number of citizens involved in the action ranges from one to two thousand people (information was obtained as a result of reports from observers and a survey of citizens who took direct part in this enterprise). The price of a vote was 1,500 rubles (500 before voting and 1,000 after). After leaving the station, money was issued using coupons with the name of Alexander Petrovich Voytyuk (the candidate’s name is Andrey Petrovich Voytyuk). It is known that the activity, perceived by the citizens of the city as buying up votes, went on for at least a week before voting day, everyone in Zhukovsky knew and spoke about it.

In order to suppress suspicious activities, several reports were written to the police, and at the insistence of observers, a significant number of participants and coordinators of these activities were interviewed.

We express our extreme concern that this activity was not stopped in a timely manner.

We note that condoning such dubious actions not only looks bad, but also undermines citizens’ trust in the very concept of fair and transparent elections, and creates legal nihilism among them.

On the eve of voting day, the TEC of the city of Zhukovsky issued an order on the formation of 5 additional sites for continuous cycle enterprises. As a result of close attention from observers, members of commissions, media representatives, and an appeal directly to the Chairman of the Election Commission of the Moscow Region, I.R. Vildanov, the number of new (and in our opinion completely groundlessly formed) areas has decreased to one (PEC No. 3573). At the same time, observers who were on duty there on March 31 note that some employees of this enterprise who voted at 3573 had a day off.

The voting results at PEC No. 3573 in percentage terms are very different from the city average:

77.48% for Voytyuk, 3.97% for Novikov, 11.26% for Anikanov (with average indicators: from 30 to 40% for Voytyuk, 25-30% for Novikov, 25-30% for Anikanov).

At several polling stations, the voter list books were incomplete or incorrectly formatted (lack of numbering of books, pages in them, continuous numbering of voters throughout all books).

Several blatant cases of fictitious and/or “rubber” apartments were uncovered, sometimes with a large number of people allegedly registered there. For example, at PEC 615, 38 people were registered at the address of an office building, and at PEC 626, residents were found registered in a non-residential building.

During voting day, at some polling stations, registers of applications (appeals) of voters for voting outside the premises (“at home”) were discovered, which included from 98 to 200 people. These registers were often not formalized in accordance with the requirements of the law, and a significant part of voters were entered there without their knowledge using unofficial “lists” from the administration and social institutions.

It should be noted that as a result of the professional work of non-voting commission members, media representatives and observers, it was possible to stop possible falsifications with lists during mobile voting.

The largest number of calls with complaints about violations of the procedure came from PEC No. 649.

In the first half of the day on March 31, problems arose with the movement of observers around the site, permission to take photos and videos, and even with access to the bathroom. Within a day the problems were mostly fixed.

There were no calls with complaints directly about the work of the KOIBs. Also this time there were not many significant “procedural” violations during the counting of votes.

Official results published in the GAS-Elections system:

A. Voytyuk: 11,365 votes (36.77%) of the number of voters (or 14.15% of the total number of voters)

I. Novikov: 8551 votes (27.66%) of the number of voters (or 10.64% of the total number of voters)

A. Anikanov: 7739 votes (25.04%) of the number of voters (or 9.63% of the total number of voters).

Total number of voters included in the lists: 80,326 people.

Voted: 30929 people, i.e. the turnout was 38.50% of the total number of voters.

Such a high turnout for municipal elections indicates the high civic activity of citizens.

“Citizen Observer” notes that the level of technological and procedural violations in the assessed elections as a whole did not go beyond the average, the tabulation of voting results and counting of ballots were carried out procedurally in a mostly correct manner, and the data from the control manual recount practically coincided with the data from the KOIB. The very fact of conducting a control manual recount at 9 PECs is also perceived by us as positive, and evidence of the constructive position of the Election Commission of the Moscow Region and its chairman I.R. Vildanova.

At the same time, since the activity, perceived by outside citizens and participants in the action as bribery of voters, took place throughout the city, a significant number of participants were involved in it, and it obviously influenced the results in more than a quarter of the polling stations, regardless of whose benefit it was carried out specified promotion.

For this reason, the Citizen Observer Project cannot recognize the past elections as fair and open, and its results beyond doubt.

We propose, in order to establish the true expression of the will of voters and restore the confidence of citizens in the institution of elections, to cancel the results of the past elections and call new elections.

We consider it necessary to call on all interested organizations and competent authorities to conduct a comprehensive and transparent investigation of the action that caused a stir, to establish its real customers and their real goals, and to take measures to prevent this from happening in the future.