Possible violations had no effect on results of rerun gubernatorial election in Primorye - CEC
MOSCOW. Dec 25 (Interfax) - The Central Elections Commission (CEC) will verify the information of the Golos election-monitoring movement although the reported possible violations could have no effect on results of the rerun gubernatorial election in the Primorye Territory, CEC Deputy Chairman Nikola Bulayev told Interfax on Tuesday.
More than 1,500 polling stations were involved in the Primorye gubernatorial election, Bulayev said. "If I am not mistaken, 140 polling stations were equipped with electronic voting machines, and there are questions regarding 47 polling stations where such machines were installed," he said.
"Even if we assume that violations actually happened and try to adjust the ballot results, there will be no significant change in the count of votes. It is unclear what goal the alleged violations [pursued] as they could influence neither final nor intermediate results," Bulayev said.
"Nevertheless, the Central Elections Commission will look into it and analyze whether the anomalies were technical or manmade. We need to clarify the issue, the Central Elections Commission has always been doing so, and no exceptions will be made in this case," he said.
Golos published a report on Tuesday alleging that "convincing facts of mass falsification of final protocols by election commissions at polling stations equipped with electronic voting machines (KOIB-2010)" were recorded at 47 polling stations in Vladivostok on December 16.
CEC Chairperson Ella Pamfilova and Bulayev had a working meeting with Golos representatives on December 20. The representatives told CEC officials about monitoring the gubernatorial election in the Primorye Territory and the rerun election in Khakassia, the CEC press service said.
Golos Co-Chairman Grigory Melkonyants said after the meeting that it "was constructive" and the CEC officials "expressed their readiness to analyze incidents involving voter lists in the election of the Khakassia head and copies of KOIB-2010 protocols in the gubernatorial election in the Primorye Territory in order to rule out similar incidents in future elections."
Oleg Kozhemyako won the rerun election in the Primorye Territory on December 16 with 61.88% of the vote.
The voter turnout stood at 46.35% or more than 680,000.
The rerun election took place after results of the two rounds held on September 9 and 16 were cancelled due to voting violations.