Press Release, 27.03.2023

Photo: Elizaveta Metyolkina, a member of precinct electoral commission No. 177, according to the heads of electoral commission No. 177 and Territorial Electoral Commission No. 2, she was born in 1999 / Photo by Petersburg Yabloko

On 28 March, the St. Petersburg City Court will consider the appeal of Dmitry Anisimov, a member of the Bureau of the St. Petersburg branch of Yabloko, against the decision of the Vasileostrovskiy District Court, which in April 2022 did not annul the results of the past elections of deputies of the Legislative Assembly at precinct No. 177, where, according to numerous photo and video evidence and journalistic investigations, six out of 12 members of the electoral commission were fake members of the commission.

According to Dmitry Anisimov, during the hearings in the Vasileostrovskiy District Court, none of the alleged “actors” of the electoral “troupe” appeared in court and was not brought there despite numerous petitions. Lidia Rudinskaya, Chairwoman of Territorial Electoral Commission No. 2, brought to the court copies of the passports of the electoral commission members, where there were black squares instead of photos, and the court allegedly had no opportunity to compare them with people on video from surveillance cameras.

“Unfortunately, the judge refused to conduct a forensic portrait examination, which, in my opinion, could easily prove that the woman of retirement age who played the role of Elizaveta Metyolkina could not be born in 1999. But the court chose not to believe its eyes. I hope that the city court will cancel this absurd decision, sort it out on the merits and protect the electoral rights of St.Petersburg voters, and will not let the elections turn into a complete farce,” Dmitry Anisimov said.

In addition, after Dmitry Anisimov filed a lawsuit demanding that the elections at precinct No. 177 be declared invalid, the Chairwoman of Territorial Electoral Commission No. 2, Lidia Rudinskaya, tried three times to fine the Yabloko candidate for an allegedly unreliable financial report, but lost two magistrate courts and an appeal in the district court.

It should be noted that the “fake electoral commission” was found at polling station No. 177 of Vasilyevsky Island, where elections to the State Duma and the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly were held on 17-19 September, 2021. According to the media and observers, least half of the commission members – Elizaveta Metyolkina, Alyona Mikhailova, Vladislav Karpov, Ksenia Lonshchakova, Yulia Savko and Dmitry Pashkov, – were replaced in the precinct commission by other people, who had nothing to do with it.

According to observers, these fake commission members issued ballots, counted votes, and some of the “commission members” went to help with home voting. There were an abnormally large number of people voting at home here – about 250 (approximately 25%) voters; whereas observers say the fake commission members spent only three minutes per each family during home voting. Such “commision members” did not have any documents with them. However, the policemen, who were called by the observers, refused to check their identities.

And the correspondence about the “distribution of roles” in the working chat of the members of electoral commission No. 177 was just “a bad joke”. This is how the message, which began with the words “please remember your new names for these three days …”, was explained by the Commission Chairwoman Maria Mulyuk and Secretary Anastasia Selivanova at a meeting of the Vasileostrovsky District Court.

It should be noted that, according to the official results of voting at polling station No. 177, Konstantin Chebykin, an elected deputy of the Legislative Assembly and a representative of the United Russia party, received the most votes. His candidacy was supported by 383 people.