Press release, July 19, 2013

Candidate for Moscow Mayor Sergei Mitrokhin expressed his satisfaction with the decision of the acting Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin to revoke (after Mitrokhin’s criticism) his previous decision on abolishing touch-screen voting machines at the coming Moscow mayoral elections.

On Tuesday July 16, Alexei Shlenov, Deputy Chair of the Moscow Electoral Commission, officially confirmed the information that touch-screen voting machines would not be used at the Moscow mayoral election in September. YABLOKO leader then made a statement that this may indicate preparations for mass-scale election fraud.

“Touch-screen voting machines clearly showed that their use virtually eliminates the possibility of fraud. This is an objective tool for registering the will of the voters. In particular, the YABLOKO party obtained a better result where touch-screen voting machines were used at the elections in 2009 and 2011,” Sergei Mitrokhin said.

Speaking to journalists today Sergey Sobyanin also spoke in favour of using touch-screen voting machines at the elections on September 8.

“It seems to me that nothing should be changed. If there are technical problems, then we will solve them and help to the Moscow Electoral Commission to put everything in order. We should have more touch-screen voting machines, because they have really proved their efficiency,” RIA Novosti quoted Sobyanin.