the Citizens began to vote on the amendments to the Constitution.
Thursday was the first day of nationwide voting on constitutional amendments: eight in the morning for early voting opened areas, two hours later, began electronic voting in Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod region. The turnout for electronic voting by the end of the day reached 45%. The turnout in the traditional areas that CEC promised to fix every day, is still unknown, but the hype on the portions definitely were not observed.
Observers in the country revealed about 50 violations. The loudest of them were linked with electronic voting: in the capital, at least two participants were able to get paper ballots in their PECs, while being registered to vote online. Analysis of the situation has engaged the Metropolitan police and the Moscow city election Commission to avoid its recurrence decided to manually verify the electronic registry and the voter lists at polling stations.
the First day of voting on constitutional amendments, which will last from now until the end of the day July 1, showed first of all that the organizers, not to mention the parties, are not always fully versed in the details of this process. The part of the Russians, for example, not without surprise, discovered that online voting at ten in the morning Thursday to begin could only those who was in Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod region, provided that the CEC endorsed filed before June 21, bid after checking with the police database. On sites for voting, not all and not immediately realized that the citizens, refusing to vote online can do so only after closing of e-voting, that is, only on 1 July.
in the Morning on the website for the vote, there was a short-term failure, which explained the peak load.
As previously reported by “Kommersant”, for electronic voting was about 15% of voters Moscow and about 5% of voters in Nizhny Novgorod region. Online voting will last until 20:00 June 30 breaks in it will not.
it Began with two incidents in Moscow: registered for remote voting, voters were able to receive traditional paper ballots in the precinct commissions. It is, in particular, the member of the movement for the rights of voters “the Voice” Basil Weissenberg and the journalist “Rain” Paul Lobkova. First, voting in the traditional way, electronically did not vote and explained that it had no purpose to violate the law. Lobkov voted at polling station and remotely. Later, his ballot at a polling station annulled, said the Chairman of Mothersurname Dmitry Reut.
Reut reminded that the dual ballot entails an administrative penalty under article 5.22 of the code of administrative offences to a fine of up to 30 thousand.UB. The Metropolitan police have launched an administrative investigation, 12 bulletins at both sites declared void, and the Chairpersons of the committees under suspension.
the head of the mission monitoring the vote in Moscow Ilya massukh said that the episodes of double voting can be associated with a “MIS-worded statement from the Central election Commission” and “wrong understanding of the situation” the members of the Commission: PEC in all cases need to know who the voter was for online voting and can’t “reconsider” until July 1.
the Deputy head of the CEC Nikolai Bulaev said that “a list to exclude all of the territorial Commission sent in a timely manner”. “We will look at why this area has not been timely removed Lobkova, — he said.— As of this writing Lobkova (Pavel Lobkov reported about his dual vote in the story “Rain”.— “Kommersant”), it is very correct and relevant, it will now be taken in all other commissions will be dealt with, if it was not.”
However, for a journalist of “Rain” stood up the chief editor of “Echo of Moscow”, Deputy Chairman of the Public chamber of Moscow, and curator of electronic voting Alexei Venediktov: he promised to compensate Pubic the amount of the fine, if he will be discharged. Other complaints in the headquarters for the observation of electronic voting have been reported, but Moscow election Committee has decided to manually verify the registry data of voting online with the books of voters in the PEC.
According to traditional voting at polling stations in the Moscow headquarters of the serious complaints were received, told “Kommersant” Ilya massukh.
However, in the middle of the day, the coordinator of a staff of Alexey Navalny Leonid Volkov wrote in the Telegram channel, that “at least six election commissions of Moscow — PEC № 34, 312, 476, 854, 1751, 1580 — adopted at meetings of decision to refuse to work on the national ballot in connection with an epidemiological situation” and did not come to work. To the text, he attached the pictures of three minutes of meetings of the PEC with the signatures of the chairmen and secretaries. Later, Volkov said that the said areas brought “reservists” who are not members of the PEC and therefore do not have the right to work with voters. In Mothersurname Navalny published documents called “lime.” “Such documents in the nature did not exist, all the work of the Commission in the prescribed manner, all of the Commission of Moscow 8:00 open sites, including the six commissions”, — said “Kommersant” Dmitry Reut.
In the whole of Russia, the first day of voting was relatively calm. According to the head of the CEC of Ella Pamfilova, the lists of voters included more than 108.5 million voters.
“In the network spread, that the vote on Laveauccah and the trunks of cars illegally. Excuse me, do not vote, none of us on the benches, and the trunks of cars, no vote in the tents. Only sheds light on the air,” — said the head of the CEC. In social networks on Thursday published photos and videos of local vote held in conditions close to those of Ella Pamfilova described as invalid.
Statistics about the preferred ways of voting yet, as there is no data on turnout to the polling stations on the first day of early voting, about it the CEC plans to announce on Friday. The correspondent of “Kommersant”, working on sites in Moscow and several regions have not seen the hype, but it is recorded that the members of commissions, observers and voters do not always comply with mask mode, and sanitation recommendations, including the bike, is not true in all cases and not in full. The head of Rospotrebnadzor Anna Popova, however, said on Thursday the opposite. We will remind, the decision to vote within a week was made to avoid concentrations of people in areas in a pandemic coronavirus — the number of reported cases in Russia is still growing daily for 7-8 thousand
Volunteers of the situational center of the Public chamber of the Russian Federation in charge of monitoring the voting, was contacted on Thursday with more than 1,5 thousand observers and received more than 50 reports of violations, including citizens who applied to the hotline.
“In principle, everything went better than we expected, — Pamfilova said at the end of the first day of early voting.— We thought that once there will be more inconsistencies. There are, of course, certain failures, we correct them immediately, but it is a natural process”.
Elena Rozhkova, angelina Galanin, Kira Duryagina
