Russian independent observers denied access to polling station videos

Independent observers were denied access to video footage filmed at the polling stations during State Duma elections in September, reported newspaper Vedomosti on Monday.

Alexei Alpatov tried to access the videos from the town of Ivanteevka in the Moscow region. Alpatov been following the election live and suspected that Ivanteevka's section number 720 had lowered the vote count results for several parties, including those of Yabloko and A Fair Russia, and, instead, inflated those of United Russia.

Alpatov appealed to Moscow's election committee with a request that the issue be investigated, but his request was rejected on the grounds that such an appeal could be made only the order of a court and only within ten days of elections.

Then Alpatov appealed to the Ministry of Communications to grant him access to official footage from several suburban areas. The Ministry reported that the videos were now in the hand of local authorities. The government of the Moscow Region redirected Alpatov's request to the regional electoral commission. Igor Oborin from the town of Serpukhov in the Moscow Region received a similar response from the Ministry of Communications. Members of the Communist and Yabloko parties also encountered problems when trying to access videos from polling station in Tatarstan.

Russia's Central Election Commission member Anton Lopatin confirmed in an interview with Vedomosti that the procedure for granting access to video from polling stations has changed. In August 2016, he said, the Commission passed a decree authorizing the regions to determine surveillance parameters, including those of storage time and conditions for recordings.

In addition, reported Vedomosti, regional electoral commissions have limited circle of people who may apply to access videos. For example, in St. Petersburg and Tatarstan, voters may request recording only from site where they voted in person.

• Russia's Duma elections took place on September 18, 2016. Only four political parties managed to win seats in the lower house of parliament, among them pro-Kremlin political party United Russia, The Communist Party, far-right Liberal Democratic Party, and A Fair Russia party. A few places were also secured by single-seat constituency from other political parties, though their parties failed to secure any 'party-list proportional representation' seats. Some regions saw a record low turnout.
• Numerous violations were recorded as having taken place during the elections. Live footage at polling station suggested evidence of ballot-box stuffing. Results at several polling stations were not taken into consideration because of irregularities.