Yesterday on December 1, the Perovo district court conducted
the second hearing on YABLOKO’s suit for cancellation of the
results of the voting at two electoral districts in the Veshnyaki
area, Moscow. According to official data United Russia obtained
there by 1,002 votes more than indicated in the protocols
given to the observers. The court heard the evidence of the
chairs of these electoral commissions and rejected several
motions by YABLOKO’s lawyers.
At
the first hearings of the case Chair of the Territorial
Electoral Commission Vera Stepanova presented to the court
her version of the developments. She stated that the protocols
given to the observers can not serve written evidence, as
the said observers “created psychologically unbearable atmosphere”
at the polling station on the election day - October 11, 2009,
which “caused a great number of errors on behalf of the chairs
and secretaries of the commission”.
However, chairs of the local commissions told to the court
about these mistakes. Thus, it was confirmed that the observers
were given a “training version” of the protocols printed out
of special “training files”. “If it were training protocols,
this means that all the columns should have been filled in
random. How could it happen that all the figures in the columns
coincided with the official results, but for the turnout figures
and the United Russia result,” YABLOKO’s lawyers asked the
witness from the local electoral commission. He explained
this by “coincidence” or could not answer the questions.
Chair of the Territorial Electoral Commission Vera Stepanova
and secretary of the Territorial electoral commission were
very helpful when her witnesses could not answer the questions.
They gave such explanations as “they [local electoral commission
members]should train”.
Chair of electoral commission ¹887 Natalya Tzipunova complained
the YABLOKO’s observer “created a nervous atmosphere”, which
resulted in Tzipunova’s mistakes when inputting the data and
she could not make “the control balance meet”.
The witnesses from the electoral commission side also acknowledged
that the “training disks” were distributed by the system administrator
from the local authorities office (where the Territorial Commission
was stationed). But representative of the Moscow Electoral
Commission Dmitry Reut seemed to be unaware of such “training
programmes”.
However, the Moscow Electoral Code firmly determines that
the observes should be given a signed copy of the protocol
right after it is drawn at the polling station. Moreover,
the data on all the observers who are given such copies of
protocols should be registered in a special register. The
commissions of the aforementioned polling stations did not
file any registers and their chairs could not answer how many
copies of the protocols they had given and to whom.
They could not answer why the protocol with the official
data was made (according to the time indicated in the protocol)
much earlier than observers’ protocols. Tzipunova only state
that they “could mix up the time”.
However, the witnesses evidence contradicted the official
version of the Chair of the Territorial Commission, as she
stated during the first hearings that the observes had not
been given the copies of the “real” protocol, and left without
waiting for this.
YABLOKO’s lawyers think that documents they tried to motion
could have clear up the problem: enlarged copies of the protocols
from the local commissions and an enlarged table from the
Territorial Commission with the aggregate data (they normally
should be hanging on the walls in the commissions’ offices
and be filled in gradually with every new bulletin), observers
registers, and also proposed to invite as witnesses all the
members of the said commissions.
However, Dmitry Reut and Vera Stepanova told that they should
not preserve the copies and tables, they normally destroy
them, so they did not dispose of such at the time of the hearings.
Finally the court asked the Moscow Electoral Commission to
provide the originals of the official protocols on both the
polling stations and also despite Stepanova’s resistance invited
one more commission member per each commission.
The next round of hearings will take place on December
8 at 10-30 a.m.
And on December 3, the trial on YABLOKO’s suit
for cancellation of the results of the elections at two polling
stations at the Leveoberezhniy areas will take place. The
United Russia party obtained additional 100 votes at the expense
of YABLOKO and CPRF at polling station No 399 and additional
votes at the expense of YABLOKO, LDPR, Patriots of Russia
and the Just Russia party at polling station No 401.
See also:
Moscow City
Duma Elections, 2009
A
trial on the fraud at the electoral districts where over 1,000
votes were stuffed for the United Russia party began. Press
Release, November 26, 2009
On
non-recognition of the results of the elections of October
11, 2009, and the need to investigate cases of franchise violations.
Statement of the Bureau of the Russian United Democratic Party
YABLOKO.
October 19, 2009
Election
fraud at the Moscow City Duma elections. From the Live Journal
of Igor Yakovlev, Press Secretary of the YABLOKO party
Violations at the
Moscow City Duma elections. Press Release. October 12, 2009
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