Eleven parties out of 17 denied registration for Magadan region legislature elections
MAGADAN. Aug 11 (Interfax) - The Magadan region's election commission has verified the submitted voter signatures and has refused to register the lists of candidates provided by 11 of the 17 parties planning to run in an election to the regional legislature, the election commission's chairman Vladimir Yepifanov has said.
"Parties that previously did not have their regional branches in the Magadan region simply lacked the organizational resources and staff on most occasions in order to successfully pass the stage of collecting [voter] signatures in support of their lists," Yepifanov was quoted as saying by the regional government's information policy department.
Yepifanov said that 17 parties had announced their plans to take part in the elections to the Magadan region legislature. Of them, four - United Russia, A Just Russia, the Communist Party of Russia and the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia - are already represented in the State Duma and, consequently, do not need to collect voter signatures in their support.
Yepifanov explained the decision to deny registration to candidates from these 11 parties by the presence of multiple invalid signatures.
"Given the permitted 10% limit for invalid signatures, the lists submitted by some parties were incorrect by a 70% degree," he said.
"Furthermore, many candidates themselves chose to quit the [election] lists," he said.
Eleven candidates failed to report their previous convictions and another two did not inform the authorities of their dual citizenship.