Press release, 19.09.2018

Anton Gordyuk, Yabloko’s candidate in the elections to the Koltushsky city council, the Leningrad Region, demanded that the Central Electoral Commission annul the voting results. The grounds for this measure is vote-buying and fraud at a large scale.

“It is a dangerous precedent when voting is under control and voters are forced to put special symbols of the ballot paper in exchange for money.

Vsevolzhsky electoral commission hurried to certify the election results and Leningrad Region electoral commission made no intention to challenge the results in court to protect the rights of voters. Now only court can examine the ballot papers and sort the situation out. If the Central Electoral Commission does not restore justice, this fraud precedent will become practice,” the candidate said.

According to Gordyuk, a large number of ballot papers contain code signs (for example, ‘ЛЕ’, ‘Д2’, ‘Г4’, ‘9К’, etc.). They were written in tick boxes instead of the check sign and symbolise four candidates from the ruling United Russia party. This way those who organised the fraud scheme could control the way voters expressed their will. They paid each voter who engaged in the scheme a thousand roubles.

As a result, United Russia’s candidates won all the mandates in the district.

On September 12, the Leningrad region electoral commission did not satisfy Gordyukov’s complaint. The candidate has asked the commission to challenge the election results in court. As a result, the commission decided to transfer the complaint to police. However, they admitted that police never reacts to complaints like this.

According to the law, after the results are certified, only court can annul them. The candidate appealed to the Central Electoral Commission demeaning that election results should be annulled.