Carousel business

In St. Petersburg, the trial of the Fontanka correspondent Denis Korotkov, who exposed the “Carousel” in the September 18 elections, began.

Denis Korotkov, who exposed one of the most famous elections in the elections, namely, the so -called "carousel", went to court. But not as a witness of a committed violation, but as a violator. At the trial, a citizen of Ukraine Natalya Machine was interrogated, who on September 18 gave out Korotkov 4 ballots for voting and offered to sign in obtaining these ballots in the column, where the data of another person was listed. She admitted that she gave Denis Korotkov other people's ballots, explaining that she was mistaken.

The editorial task of Denis Korotkov was simple: to trace whether there were any violations during the vote on September 18. It was not specifically about the "carousels" in this task, but the information that they are preparing were acted long before the voting day. The “carousels” were nicknamed the mobile groups of citizens who organized from one polling station to another and voting for certain candidates. It is clear that the registration of the voters does not matter at the same time - there are agreements, conditional signs and special people.

She opened my passport, did not look at the registration, gave me all 4 ballots and let me sign - for another person

Denis Korotkov received information from his colleagues from Fontanka about where and when one of these “carousels” will act, and arrived at the specified address, to the precinct election commission No. 616. There he was met by activists, a few days before the elections, which were being implemented in a group of "carousella" through student social networks. They showed special stickers on their passports, which were supposed to present a certain Employee of the PEC, an outstanding ballot. They described the scheme as follows: you show a passport with a sticker, take the ballot and vote, then you go to another site, at the end of the day you get money, a assembly point-there. Activists have already photographed on the video and documented the entire carousel mechanism in which more than a hundred young people participated, but Denis Korotkov decided to make sure of the veracity of their words. He “lent” one of them with a plastic sticker, placed it in his own passport and went to the woman at the table that was indicated to him.

- They had a list of the election commission, each had a certain person who served certain addresses. And it turned out that everything was working. She opened my passport, did not look at the registration, gave me all four ballots and let me sign in her list - for another person. I signed, entered the booth, took a picture of the ballots, and then turned on the video camera on his smartphone and with the same ballots, not lowering them anywhere and without making any droppings in them, went back to the table, to the woman who gave me the ballots. I thought it was a member of the commission. I returned the ballots and asked how all this was possible. The secretary of the commission came up, and then it became very noisy and all these people disappeared somewhere.

Denis Korotkov emphasizes that the police, standing nearby and all saw, did not intervene in the situation, did not stop the woman who illegally issued the protocols. By the way, then, when another police outfit arrived, the head of the PEC, who gave the police an explanation, said that she did not know who this woman was. But Denis doubts that someone could sit at the table and issue protocols without the knowledge of the rest of the commission. According to him, miracles also happened with the list of voters: when he returned the protocols, the woman who issued them, before his eyes, deleted the name of the person he signed from the list. But when then the list was presented to the police, he turned out to be completely clean.

They are not judged by criminals, but by fighters with crimes

Further, Denis Korotkov was detained by the police, a protocol on an administrative violation was drawn up for him, which said that he received ballots in order to vote for another person.

The justice of the 71st site where the meeting took place, made it possible to ask Denis Korotkov himself questions to the witness of Natalia, who works as a hairdresser in the beauty salon "Shik". She said that she was not a member of the election commission that she was invited to work there for the reward Secretary of the PEC Natalya Lebedeva, with whom they have known each other for a long time - both were born in Ukraine, in Gorlovka. Natalia Machine also said that she would recognize Denis and remember that she gave him the ballots. According to her, as soon as it became clear that these were the ballots intended for another voter, she was very scared and hid in the toilet, where she sat for several hours until the police came behind her. She insisted that she was simply mistaken that the sticker in the passport had nothing to do with it and that she did not give out “wrong” ballots except Korotkov. Meanwhile, the correspondent had other information - activists told him that the car gave out other people's ballots at least another ten people.

I think no one is conducting any checks

After interrogation by the car, the judge said that he was postponing the meeting on October 20, because he wants to interrogate another witness - lieutenant of the police Smirnov, who made up the protocol. Denis Korotkov agreed with the judge - he is also interested in knowing what the police lieutenant made a conclusion about his intentions.

Korotkov does not believe in the words of Natalia by the car that she was just mistaken. But he has other questions: will it not be so that in this case there will be no guilty at all - after all, the head and members of the PEC are responsible for the issuance of protocols, but not strangers - and Natalia the machine is just an outsider.

Says Denis Korotkov :

- The circle of guilty by the lady’s car is defined, this is primarily the secretary of Lebedev’s commission. I don’t know if law enforcement officers asked her questions. I do not know how her colleagues, the chairman of the commission, and observers looked at all this. But according to the law, any police officer is obliged to take measures to suppress the crime if he became aware of him, or at least report about this situation. I don’t know whether this was done, criminal procedure is being carried out in this case, but since no one asked me any questions, I think no one is conducting any checks.

In this case, there are many oddities - why, for example, the judge does not consider it necessary to call as a witness the secretary of Wick Lebedev, who invited the car to earn extra money in the elections. And also - and, perhaps, this is the most important question - why the prosecutor’s office does not react to what is happening, because the video recording, where the issuance of other people's ballots is recorded, has long been freely available on the Internet.

The history of Denis Korotkov did not surprise the deputy of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg Boris Vishnevsky :

- Everything is embedded in one context: we are not judged by the Nazis for attacking the anti -fascists, but by the anti -fascists who are protected from the Nazis, they are not judged by corrupt officials, but by those who fight corruption, not those who organize falsification, but those who expose them. In this case, they are not judged by those who arranged a “carousel”, but by those who have been introduced into it in order to betray it to publicity. This is a general trend, unfortunately, they are not judged by criminals, but by fighters with crimes.