Press Release, 29.12.2022

Photo: Yaroslav Shcherbakov / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

Employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Sosnovsky district of the Chelyabinsk region were ordered to re-examine the statement of violation of the law on elections at polling station No. 2164 in the village of Chipyshevo, sent by the Chairman of the regional department of the Yabloko party, Yaroslav Shcherbakov. In September 2021, a voter who came to the polling station found signatures in the voter book that ballots had been already issued allegedly to her and her six relatives who did not go to the polls. The bulletin had been issued even to a recently deceased family member. Arriving at the polling station, Yaroslav Shcherbakov, who ran for the State Duma in the region on behalf of Yabloko, called the police and filed an statement about the crime committed at the polling station.

The police forwarded Shcherbakov’s statement to the territorial electoral commission of the Sosnovsky district, which, in turn, returned the case to the police.

Despite the obvious criminal offense, the police refused to initiate even an administrative case. Yaroslav Shcherbakov had to apply to the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Chelyabinsk region.

It should be noted that there was a precedent on a similar case in the village of Berdyaush of the Satkinsky district, when Chair of the polling station was found guilty of a criminal offense and fined 160,000 roubles. Yaroslav Shcherbakov applied to the Investigative Committee with a demand to open a criminal case after he was approached by a voter who, having arrived at the polling station on the last day of voting, discovered that he and five members of her family, including those who had not lived in the village for a long time, had already voted. During the investigation, 24 facts of fake casting of votes with the use of names of real voters were confirmed, and the Chair of the electoral commission confessed and repented, taking all the blame on herself.

The ballots contained in stationary ballot boxes at both polling stations were recognised void.