The police forcibly ousted a member of the electoral commission from Yabloko from the voting station. The electoral commission refused to allow her to control the sealing of ballots
Press Release, 26.06.2020
In Skhodnya, near Moscow, the police forcibly ousted Kristina Klimayeva a member of the precinct electoral commission from Yabloko, from the voting station. Klimayeva last night tried to control the sealing of ballots after the first day of voting. She had to call an ambulance, as due to stress her blood pressure got up high.
Kristina Klimayeva is a member of Precinct Electoral Commission No. 3216 with a casting vote, which allows her to legally take part in all the electoral procedures. In the elections last year, she recorded a stuffing of ballots, after which the commission was disbanded. Klimayeva became a member of the new Precinct Electoral Commission, however, the Chairman of the Commission did not involve her in organising a “vote” on amendments to the Constitution.
On the evening of June 25, on the first day of the “vote” for amendments, Kristina Klimayeva came to the voting station before it closed to monitor the process of sealing the remaining ballots. She also wanted to check voters’ books to make sure no one voted for her neighbours who abstained.
However, the Chairman of the Commission said that Klimayeva was not entitled to be in the voting station. She was presented with a photocopy of the decision of the Territorial Electoral Commission of Khimki. The document ran about some measures that Precinct Electoral Commission chairmen should take to prevent coronavirus, and about the “list of persons present during the voting”. According to the Chairman of the Commission, Klimayeva was not included into this list.
Klimayaeba refused to leave the premises of the Commission, since the document from the Territorial electoral Commission did not have a seal or signatures of those responsible. Klimayeva filmed what was happening in the Commission on the phone. Then a police officer grabbed the phone from the girl’s hands and wrung her hands.
From stress, Kristina Klimayeva suffered acute rise of blood pressure, she called an ambulance, but the police did not let the doctors go in for a long time, despite the fact that doctors insisted on examining the victim. Only an outfit of police arriving at the scene allowed the ambulance doctors to enter the Commission’s premises.
At this time, the Chairman and members of the Commission took the ballots and books of voters to the school gym, where the voting station was located, and barricaded themselves there.
The police were going to take Kristina Klimayeva to the police department, although there was no reason for this. The girl was released only after the intervention of the Chief of the Khimki Police.
Posted: June 26th, 2020 under Constitutional Amendments, Governance, Human Rights.