In Sochi, before the vote count on July 1, an observer from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation was suspended from work

In Sochi, before the count of votes on July 1, Andrey Bychkov, an observer from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and a voting member of the precinct election commission No. 46-07, was suspended from work. This is reported by the "Caucasian Knot".

Aleksey Bychkov told the publication that during the counting of votes at about 10 p.m. on July 1, he was detained allegedly for obstructing the work of the commission. The observer was taken to a certain “point of the power structure”, where an administrative protocol was drawn up, but they were not told under which article, and they were not given a copy of the document. Bychkov was not released until the end of the vote count.

On July 1, Aleksey Bychkov found about a thousand ballots in the ballot box, but the number of those who voted at this polling station, according to Bychkov's estimates, was less. “On the strength of field campaigns and going from house to house, this PEC could gain 400 votes in five days. About 200 people voted on July 1, and even then, I’m not sure about this, because at noon Vladimir Morgunov, the chairman of the commission, approached me and said that I needed to go with his driver in his car and take a test for COVID-19, because it is someone's requirement. I realized that I interfere in the area. Before that, I had been repeatedly offered to leave my observation post for lunch, drink coffee or tea, and get some air. I answered negatively to all the proposals and continued to sit and observe, ”Kavkazsky Knot quoted Bychkov as saying.

According to the protocol of PEC No. 46-07, 1650 out of 1995 Sochi residents assigned to the polling station took part in the voting. “I tried to figure out: where did all these people and such a turnout come from, if on the main voting day, in my absence for no more than an hour, when I went to take tests for COVID-19, I counted no more than 200 people? But after I started asking these questions, the security forces were called,” Aleksey Bychkov added. By the time of his detention, the main protocol of the commission had not yet been completed.

“The situation here looks like a member of the commission was neutralized in order to be removed from the count. This is not a reason to cancel the results, since the fact of falsification is not confirmed by anything. And we can’t hope for a second recount, ”said David Kankiya, coordinator of the independent movement of observers Golos in the Krasnodar Territory, commented on the incident.

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