In Kamchatka, an observer who discovers election violations is checked for an offense

In Kamchatka, the police are conducting an administrative investigation against election observer Dmitry Samoilenko under the article on interference in the work of the election commission (5.69 of the Code of Administrative Offenses). This was reported by the movement in defense of the rights of voters "Voice".

Samoilenko says that he was an observer at PEC No. 117 in the Paratunsky settlement of the Yelizovsky district of the Kamchatka Territory for two days - September 11 and 12. On September 11, together with members of the election committee, he went to the Paratunsky boarding school for the elderly to conduct early voting and discovered a number of significant violations of the voting procedure. According to him, voters in this institution "were not interested in voting and hardly understood what was going on at all." “In many cases, the ballots were ticked either by members of the commission or by employees of the institution, covering each other,” Samoylenko believes that many of the orphanage’s wards were put on the voting list without their consent in order to artificially increase the turnout in the elections.

The activist filed several complaints with the commission, but he was told that there were no violations. Samoilenko, however, is sure that in the absence of observation, the turnout would have been 100%, and the distribution of votes would have been different. Of the 154 voters of the boarding school, 110 people took part in the election of the head of the village, and 90 people took part in the election of the governor.

On the main voting day, September 13, Samoylenko was fully occupied with work at the headquarters of the Yabloko party. On this day, four policemen came to his home in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, but did not find him; several times an unknown person called on the phone with an offer to meet - then it turned out that this was also a police officer. Other observers and representatives of the election commission also tried to find him.

After the elections, Samoylenko was called several times by police officers with an invitation to come to the police department, they sent a letter of summons to draw up a protocol. According to the police, on September 13, Samoilenko interfered in the work of the commission, in connection with which an investigation is underway on the grounds of Article 5.69 of the Code of Administrative Offenses. The police decided to extend the administrative investigation into the case until mid-November.

• On September 13, 2020, a single voting day was held in Russia. In Kamchatka, elections were held for the governor of the region, as well as municipal elections.
• In the wake of a single voting day, a court in Kazan fined a member of the PEC with an advisory vote for 20 thousand rubles under the article on obstructing the work of the commission (Article 5.69 of the Code of Administrative Offenses). He was accused of creating a "nervous environment". The public controller wrote three statements to the police about violations at the PEC, but only the case against him reached the court.
• Article 5.69 of the Code of Administrative Offenses was introduced in 2016. One of the first protocols under this article was drawn up for observers on a single voting day in the elections in Korolev in 2016. In one case, vote-rigging after observers were removed by the police was caught on video .