The State Duma obliged election participants to warn commissions about observers in advance

The State Duma adopted in the third reading a bill that obliges election participants to draw up lists of their observers in advance. According to the document, the list must be submitted within three days. From each candidate or party, two observers can be declared for the polling station.

Now you do not need to report your observers. In addition, the law does not in any way limit the number of election participants in the number of observers (but only one person from a party or candidate can work at a polling station).

At the same time, the new law tightens the rules for removing an observer from a polling station. With the entry into force of the document, this can only be done through the courts.

The bill was submitted to the State Duma in September 2015. According to Kommersant, he is supported by Russian President Vladimir Putin .

• Observers often become participants in conflicts during elections. In April 2015, at the elections to the Balashikha city council, unidentified persons beat up observers who claimed ballot box stuffing. After the same elections, the head of the Moscow Regional Election Commission called the observers who worked in the elections fascists trained in Polish camps. In September, during the elections in Kostroma, the police searched the headquarters of the Open Russia observers and confiscated 260,000 rubles from them.