Today, on December 15, the Kuntsevsky District Court, Moscow,
conducted the first hearing on the case on abrogation of the
results of the elections and recount of the votes at electoral
district No 2488, where United Russia obtained 303 votes by
means of fraud. The only witness – deputy head of the electoral
commission – told that he found valid ballots in the pack
of invalidated ballots.
This is already the third trial out of ten cases filed in
Moscow, where YABLOKO tries to cancel the results of the elections
of October 11 due to considerable discrepancies between the
observers’ protocols and the official data.
The Moscow Electoral Commission which takes part in the trials
as one of the sides has been insisting that discrepancies
between protocols can not serve as lawful grounds for revision
of the results of the voting. Representative of the Moscow
Electoral Commission Dmitry Reut insisted that the observers’
protocols were not a “reliable evidence”. He proposed that
observers’ protocols should not be considered “identical copies”
of the original – the official protocol – which is the only
copy having legal force.
A representative from the territorial electoral commission
supported this stance of the Moscow Electoral Commission adding
that YABLOKO could not file the case as “the votes in favour
of the United Russia were not taken from YABLOKO”. They insisted
that the rise of the turnover affected all the parties.
However, none of the commissions could explain how such large
discrepancies in the protocols could arise. The only witness
– deputy of the chair of the local electoral commission No
2488 student Alexander Idalgo – tried to explain this. According
to Idalgo, when after the end of the voting the chairwoman
and the secretary of the commission left so that to deliver
protocols of the Territorial Commission, he found valid bulletins
in a package of invalidated bulletins. Idalgo called the chair
and she returned so that to recount the votes. However he
could not recollect why the results changed after recounting.
He also could not explain why the official protocol was signed
at 10 p.m. of October 11 and the observers’ protocol at 1
a.m. of October 12.
The court has to investigate all this. The next hearing will
take place on December 24.
YABLOKO has filed claims on 14 polling stations in 10 Moscow
districts (see
the schedule of trials).
See also:
Moscow City
Duma Elections, 2009
Chairs
of local electoral commissions speak in favour of cancellation
of the results of the elections in the Veshnyaki area, Moscow.
Press Release, December 2, 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
| 