Report final redaguota 2014-09-29

‘Golos­Ural’ in the framework of the movement Golos advocating for the protection of voters’ rights

The Final Golos’ Statement on the Outcomes of the Civic Observation of the Election held on 14 September 2014

Moscow, 15 September 2014

Table of Contents

1. Introduction 2. Conclusions and Recommendations 3. Composition of the Election Commission and the Accessibility of the Information on Their

Activities 4. Legal Characteristics of the Election Held on 14 September 2014 and the Overall Outcomes in

Respect to the Registration of Candidates 5. The Peculiarities of the Election Campaign 6. Early Voting 7. Election Day

1. Introduction

The Interregional Public Foundation for the development of the civil society ‘Golos­Ural’, within the framework of the Golos (hereinafter –‘Golos’) movement advocating for the protection of voters’ rights, implemented the project ‘It is Time for Fair Elections: Increasing public trust in the Elections by developing a system of a civic monitoring of voters’ rights and facilitation of platforms for a dialogue’. It carried out an independent long­term and short­term election observation (civilian monitoring). The elections were held on the Single Voting Day on 14 September 2014.

Trained long­term observers, as well as the correspondents of the newspaper ‘Civic Voice’ and activists conducted the observation.

Golos refers to the information provided by its representatives in the regions, media, the official websites of election commissions and governmental institutions, expert interviews with the representatives of political parties, members of the election commissions, political researches, NGO leaders, candidates, as well as the citizens’ reports on the electoral processes and incidents during the ongoing election campaign.

On 14 September, Golos carried out a civic monitoring of voting procedures, vote counting at the polling stations and the tabulation of the election results in the higher­level election commissions in 21 regions: Altai, Krasnodar, Stavropol, Astrakhan, Volgograd, Voronezh, Ivanov, Irkutsk, Kirov, Kurgan, Lipetsk, Moscow, Nidzhegorodskaya, Novosibirsk, Orlov, Samara, Tver, Chelyabinsk Oblasts, the Altai Republic, Bashkortostan and Moscow city. In Tyumen region, due to the pressure induced by the law

enforcement agencies, the Golos’ coordinator and volunteers had to give up the observation on election day for the security reasons. As an organization, which is guided by the international election observation standards, Golos strictly preserves its political neutrality as one of the basic pre­conditions of an independent and impartial observation.

On 14 September 2014, the elections and referendums were held in 5322 constituencies, including the elections of 30 Governors, the elections to 12 regional parliaments, the elections of the 3 heads of the administrative regional centers, and the elections to 19 representative bodies of the regional administrative centers. Moreover, the elections of heads were held in 1593 municipal entities, and the elections to the main representative bodies – in 3125. Thus, the most important elections (Regional Government Elections and the Elections to the Local authorities of regional centers) were held in 49 regions of Russia, including Moscow – the elections to the Moscow city Duma, St. Petersburg­ Gubernatorial Election, and the municipal elections in 106 constituencies.

2. Conclusions and Recommendations

In overall, the 2014 election campaign was less advanced in respect to the principles of free, fair and competitive election. The requirement to collect and submit the predetermined number of signatures was the main obstruction to hold the competitive election what reduced the number of independent candidates as well as the candidates nominated by the political parties. It could be related to the notorious ‘municipal filter’ in the gubernatorial election. Due to the lack of intrigue, a large number of voters lost an interest and trust in the election.

It seems that any amendments to the electoral legislation at the federal and regional levels should be adopted only after being widely discussed in public and should be enforced in a reasonable time frame in respect to the election participants (i.e., no later than six months before the election day).

The procedure of collecting signatures requires thorough review and modification. The requirement to collect 3% of signatures of constituency voters seems to be overly inflated and is actually a prohibitory threshold preventing candidates from running for the election if they do not obtain considerable financial, organizational, and administrative resources.

The deliberate efforts should be allocated in order to achieve the greater information transparency regarding the activities of election commissions. The information resources of the election commissions must fully comply with the principles and the legal provisions on the duties of federal and municipal authorities in respect to information dissemination, as well as their work with citizens.

One of the possible pre­conditions for a preservation of a competitive and fair election and an increase of trust in it, could be the different approach towards the composition of election commissions of the federal constituent territories, the territorial election commissions, and the municipal commissions by strengthening the role of political parties, not only the ‘parliamentary’ ones, and respectively, by reducing the control over the activities of regional administrative commissions.

One of the peculiarities of the 2014 elections was the re­introduction of early voting. In many regions, the fraudulent activities were reported when administratively­dependent voters were forced to

cast their vote on early voting days; it violated the principle of free election. This method empowered unfair candidates to safeguard a competitive advantage promising a victory already before the election day. Golos recommends to carefully analyze the irregularities and violations of the early voting procedures as well as to develop mechanisms in order to preclude from them during the next election.

The particular attention should be paid to the provocative behavior of the Central Election Committee (CEC), which resulted in the actual observation failure in numerous Russian regions, which was carried out by the most professional civic observers – the correspondents of the newspaper ‘Civic Voice’. The press service of the CEC published a press release which was structured in such a way that it actually recommended the subordinate election commissions to prevent the correspondents of ‘Civic Voice" from entering the polling stations since 12 September. In general, the instructions were violating the law and did not contain any reference to any provisions legitimizing the decision. It just referred to the fact the presence of ‘foreign agents’ at polling stations ‘could cause the discretization of observers as such, as well destabilization of a democratic process regarding the formation of public authorities’. As a result, on the polling day, all the correspondents from the ‘Civic Voice’ were illegitimately expelled in Chelyabinsk, Samara Oblast and the Republic of Bashkortostan, and a considerable number of correspondents were prevented from entering polling stations in Nizhny Novgorod and Moscow Oblasts. In fact, the state body, obliged to respect the law during the election period, have chosen the way of deliberate fraud by inciting and provoking the lower level commissions to violate the law. As respects some of the regional election commissions in other regions, the overwhelming majority of lower level commissions did not succumb to this provocation.

In regions, the correspondents of the ‘Civic Voice’ and other observers reported a catastrophically low number of observers present at polling stations; in some of them there were no observes at all. First of all, it was related to the low level of competition and a lack of intrigue in most of the election. The candidates, who did not have a potential chance of winning did not invest resources in election observation, moreover the independent civic observers – volunteers were demotivated to observe election as there was no competition implied. Therefore, the election commissions were not under the civic observance. However, even those few civic observers who were present at the polling stations faced the violations of their rights: the restriction of the movement at the polling station, the ban on photography and video shooting.

In 2014, there were 776 cases of violations reported to Golos during the election campaign and the polling day on 14 September what exceeds the number of cases (747) reported in 2013 regarding the election held on 8 September that year. As the observers’ interest in monitoring the election held on 14

September was low, it was complicated to prepare an exhaustive list of violations from all the regions.

Despite the numerous violations of electoral laws on election day, Golos paid attention to the fact that the method applied in order to obstruct the expression of voters will was shifted to the earlier stages of the election campaign ­ the stage of nomination and registration of party­lists and candidates, when the process of registration of candidates was turned into the verification of candidates lists by the administrative bodies. The suppression of competition, the use of manipulative technologies, and the obstructions to observation suggest that there were significant violations of the legal provisions and

principles of the Russian and International law during the 2014 election. It discredits the concept of Democracy in the eyes of a general public and undermines the legitimacy of the elected bodies.

3. Composition of Election Commissions and Accessibility of the Information on Their Activities

The current election was organized by the election commissions which were established prior to the introduction of the restrictive ‘political reforms’; the precinct election commissions as permanently established bodies in early 2013 will keep their office for 5 years. As a result it prevents new political parties from delegating members to the regional commissions. Formally all the ‘parliamentary’ parties kept the privileges, though under the existing law, each party is entitled to nominate one commission member. The law entitles public associations to nominate their representatives to the ECs, but the procedures of nomination of such EC members are not explicitly provisioned in a law, suggesting that the candidates of public associations can arbitrarily be approved or not. However, the analysis of the personnel of the ECCTF reveals that actually the members of ‘United Russia’ dominate in most of them, though officially they were nominated by non­governmental organizations, local representative bodies and other stakeholders which are entitled to nominate candidates.

The observation suggests that the individuals in some respect related with the current government can mostly affect the activities of election commissions. Despite the fact that the members of a federal and local governments cannot occupy more than one­half of the total number of members on the election commissions, at different levels, the delegation of committee duties to persons holding the position in federal and municipal electoral bodies, as well as the heads of budgetary institutions could influence the election commissions which are directly dependent on the authorities. The majority of EC members are dependent on the ‘administration’. ‘United Russia’ dominates among the ‘party’ representatives, what leads to the conclusion that in most of the cases a commission does not dare to take decisions against the interests of the candidates supported by the current government, hence the violations are obvious.

The analysis of the composition of election commissions of the federal constituent territories leads to the conclusion that the legally provisioned principles and methods regarding their composition do not safeguard their independence from the government, especially from the administration and the heads of the regional institutions, and moreover their political neutrality. It could be related to the fact that the political parties do not play a major role in respect to the activities of the election commissions.

The registration of candidates for the gubernatorial election and respectively the lists of candidates ­for regional parliaments at the ECCTF, reaffirms that the number of registration denials on the basis of ‘low­quality’ documents or missing information about the candidates had minor effect and no significant impact on the competitiveness of the election. The main barrier during the registration of candidates for the regional election was the signatures threshold, the notorious so­called ‘municipal filter’.

The opposite situation arose at the level of TEC and ECME, which are the commissions playing the major role in the organization of the local elections. The information resources barely contribute to greater accessibility of information about the activities of the election commissions and the services provided to the citizens by the commissions acting as the federal and municipal authorities. Moreover, it scarcely affects the performance of the commissions in regard to protection of citizens' electoral rights. For instance, in the

majority of the information resources (web sites, profiles) of TEC and ECME (if any) there are no lists of documents and its templates required for the registration of candidates and no indications of deadlines for accomplishing certain actions during the election campaign. Moreover, the presence of any guidelines and instructions is extremely rare. For example, in St. Petersburg the information resources of the municipalities and EC suggest that they almost do not obtain any information about the ongoing election processes and the activities of the municipal election commissions.

Thus, in most of the constituent territories of Russian Federation there was obviously no adequate and consistent information on TEC and ECME activities and on the local election predetermined for the candidates and voters.

The information resources obtained by the election commissions also suggest that the implementation of duties of the regional election commissions in respect to the citizens, their associations, and, moreover, to the commissions at the lower levels, as well as the dissemination of information on their duties do not fully comply with the current legal provisions (No. 59­ FZ, No. 8­FZ).

In a contemporary information society, while information technologies are rapidly developing, the poor information resources of a sufficiently large number of ECs are a tangible obstruction in building a constructive interaction between the commissions and the voters.

4. Legal Characteristics of the Election Held on 14 September 2014 and the Overall Outcomes in Respect to the Registration of Candidates

The Year 2014 could be marked by a new turn in the state electoral politics. In total, 11 amendments to the Federal Law No. 67 ­ FZ ‘On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights and the Rights of Citizens of the Russian Federation to participate in the referendum’ were adopted since the previous election day. Moreover, the regional laws were amended as well. However, the amendments were often adopted at the last moment, just one or two months before the start of the election campaign. Due to such a practice, it was impossible to avoid a negative impact on the quality of preparatory electoral activities of the election commissions at the different levels, as well as of the participants ­ the candidates and the lists of candidates.

A number of legislative amendments had a fundamental political character, therefore the election campaign reflects the fact that they were purposively directed to induce the control imposed by the administrative bodies over the electoral processes and consequently to invoke the less competitive election. It was caused by the successful results of a number of new candidates and political parties in the 2013 election and the outflow of representatives of regional and local elites from the ‘old pro­systemic parties’.

This triggered the desire to reduce the impact of any parties through the reduction of the proportion of deputies elected under the proportional representation system in elections of all levels (this was quickly used in the Moscow and St. Petersburg elections). In fact, the privileged position of the old parties was reinforced (‘United Russia’, the Communist Party, ‘A Just Russia’ and the Liberal Democratic Party) by simultaneously creating difficulties in the registration of new political parties (the requirement to collect voters’ signatures in support of a party list was returned). The pro­systemic parties were not required to collect signatures for registering party lists and candidates, while all the rest were obliged to collect 3% of

signatures of constituency voters. As a result, in regard to the 2014 election formally the pro­systemic parties were in a better position than in 2013.

The threshold inflated to 3% of signatures of constituency voters for registering candidates is the most stringent requirement regarding the registration of candidates in the present history of the country. Election campaign in Moscow and other regions of Russian Federation demonstrated that the requirement implies prohibition, especially taking into account a very short period of time for the procedure of carrying out signatures at the time of the summer holidays.

Legislative and other traditional administrative and formally legal measures, applied for the registration of candidates, led to a decline in the number of parties that had nominated their lists, as well as the number of candidates in majority districts. Many novel political parties discontinued the nomination of their candidates, or minimized it.

The Law No. 95­FZ as of May 5, 2014 resumed the use of an absentee ballot on early voting.

As many low competition election campaigns have demonstrated, the absence of any intrigue, especially in the gubernatorial election, and the re­introduction of early voting led to an administrative pressure on voters, to the mass, as a rule, administratively organized voting, aiming to increase their turnout.

In 2014 election, all previously mentioned negative trends in respect to the application of a so­called ‘municipal filter’ have remained. In 2012 ­2014, none of the proposals for changing the system in order to democratize it have been implemented. In such circumstances, the current heads of administration actually do allocate their own competitors. Almost everywhere, where the candidates could actually achieve significant electoral support, they were withdrawn from the election under various reasons (St. Petersburg, Bashkortostan, Republic of Altai, Orenburg and Orlovskaya Oblast).

On the one hand, the 2014 election campaign could be characterized by the scandals implicated by the obstructions to collect signatures of municipal deputies in favor of more or less independent candidates. On the other hand, the technology was applied, which selected all the deputies of the region and distributed their signatures among the “right” candidates. The scandals concerning the signatures of deputies were reported in the Orlovskaya Oblast, Altai Krai, Stavropol Krai, Altai Republic, St. Petersburg, Bashkortostan and other regions. Thus, registration of candidates depends on the ‘good will’ of regional administration. In reality the ‘municipal filter’ does not actually perform its originally intended function, i.e. it is not the filter itself. Its application is only the legitimization of previously adopted political decision.

One more peculiarity of the 2014 election campaign was the withdrawal of a number of candidates nominated by their political parties. The sudden decisions and the lack of clear justification suggest that these decisions were made due to the political will and the informal pressure on the leadership of these parties.

This year the total dropout rate of nominated and registered candidates to regional heads was 33%. As a result, almost universally the most powerful competitors of the current heads of regions were dismissed and the election had largely lost the intrigue. This fact actually turned the election of governors,

into a kind of "referendums on trust" to acting heads, i.e. distorted the essence of an electoral procedure. Another negative consequence of the use of a ‘municipal filter’ was the lack of interest of the majority of voters. The requirement concerning the signatures is the major and the most significant barrier to candidates. New signature collection requirements for the majority of parties led to the decline in the number of parties participating in the election compared with 2013. The dropout of party lists at the stage of notarization and registration has also increased from 8.5% to 20%. Thus, 59 out of 60 nominated party lists which were exempted from some requirements in respect to registration were registered (the party­list RODP ‘Yabloko’ in Karachay­Cherkessia was refused to notarization), and 35 out of 58 nominated party­lists obtaining no privileges were registered (the dropout in this category party lists was 40%). As for the failure to register, they were all related to the verification of signatures. The less intense competition among independent candidate became more prominent. The difference in dropout was: among the privileged parties the dropout was only 4%, among the rest ­ 75%, among the independent candidates ­ 55%.

The dropout of candidates representing parties having no privileges was the highest in Volgograd Oblast (95%), in the Republic of Mari El (92%) and the Republic of Tatarstan (90%), the dropout of independent candidates ­ in Volgograd Oblast (91%) and the Tula Oblast (83%).

There was a likewise situation in respect to the election of representative bodies to the regional government administrative centres.

Gubernatorial and municipal elections in St. Petersburg, along with elections to the Moscow City Duma, almost lost the intrigue at the stage of the registration of candidates.

Municipal election in 106 constituencies is held simultaneously with gubernatorial election in St. Petersburg. In these elections ‘the doors were shut’ to many opposition candidates. In gubernatorial election they failed to overcome the ‘municipal filter’, and in the municipal election they were not able even to enter the premises of election commissions in order to submit registration documents. In fact, novel technologies of non­admission of opposition candidates to the elections were used in St. Petersburg: municipality staff was hiding the location of the district election commissions and their working hours, as well as information on the deadlines of electoral procedures. They were suddenly closing their offices, hiding forms and lists of documents, and exposing fake queues preventing people from entering the premises of election commissions. Moreover, after the submission of documents election commissions refused to register candidates on a number of far­fetched pretexts. Approximate statistics is as follows: ‘Just Russia’ nominated 918 candidates, 400 of whom either had failed to submit the documents or had been denied registration. ‘Yabloko’ nominated 208 candidates, 110 of whom had managed to register their candidacy.

Electoral system dramatically changed in the Moscow Election, where the constituencies were formed impermissibly late and practically prohibitive barrier to the collection of signatures was introduced. Just before the election race the campaign ‘My Moscow’ (so­called ‘primaries’) was carried out, which was strongly supported by the Moscow administration for campaigning purposes. Huge administrative resources were allocated for the ‘primaries’ such as state and municipal media, public service agencies,

and urban outdoor advertisements. All this cast doubts on the fairness and competitiveness of the election campaign to the 6th Moscow City Duma.

5. The Peculiarities of the Election Campaign

Due to the fact that campaigning was carried out practically at the period of the summer holidays, the real campaign of 2014 commenced long before the announcement of the elections in May­April. After the registration of the main candidates and non admission of the most prominent competitors to the election, the level of campaigning activity significantly dropped in July (and partly in August).

At the same time, it firstly discouraged the supporters of those candidates and parties, who were denied during the registration – the opposition – to vote in the election. In such circumstances, the authorities actually counted on the low turnout, where the majority of voters were those depending on the administrative authorities.

In general, the meetings of the regional heads with the President of Russian Federation became an important element of the election campaigns (in some cases – the President and/or the chairman of the Government of Russian Federation visited regions). In total, from April to August V. Putin met with 27 out of 30 governors, where the municipal head election was held on 14 September.

Again we can talk about the application of various ‘masking technologies’ ­ the use of various non­partisan campaigning brands and initiatives, distracting the attention from the image of specific parties and the negative issues related to it (first of all, the ‘pro­government party’). In this election it was significant that the candidates representing different parties (with the exception, perhaps, of the Communist Party) in many cases did not proclaim their party affiliation.

The number of vibrant and creative campaigns has decreased due to the denial of registration of popular candidates. The use of online resources implicates a traditional character of this campaign: the launch of candidates’ websites and/or use of previously obtained online resources (in particular, the party offices). Often special websites on particular projects or initiatives are launched (e.g., the website of ‘civil initiative ‘My Moscow’), banner advertising is almost never used on the Internet; there are almost no short videos of ‘viral advertising’.

The Ukraine crisis has had an undeniable impact on the course of the campaign: the topic is always depicted at the public statements of all the major political parties, as well widely presented on the official websites of ‘United Russia’, the Communist Party, ‘Just Russia’, the Liberal Democratic Party, ‘Rodina’ and other parties.

At the same time, apart from the official websites of political parties, indicating their official position, in the other campaigning material ­ printed materials, large advertising stands ­ this topic is reflected only fractionally and it is dominated by the local and general social issues.

6. Early Voting

As it was already mentioned before, the restoration of the early voting had extremely negative consequences. This procedure allows taking part in the election to a large number of those voters, who for

objective reasons will not be able to come to the polling station on a Single Voting Day. Unfortunately, concerns, expressed by experts, that early voting can be used aiming to compel voters to vote with the intention to increase the voter turnout in the election, were fully justified in almost all the regions, where elections were held. This was confirmed by the reports in the media as well as by the messages on the ‘Map of Violations’ (more than 90 messages received). However, in some cases, voters who had every reason to vote early were denied this opportunity.

Massive early voting has been noted in the Samara Oblast, St. Petersburg, Chelyabinsk Oblast, the Altai Krai, Tatarstan, etc. Data on the number of early voters were often hidden from the media and members of election commissions with an advisory vote. Some reports showed that a number of candidates used the early voting to bribe voters.

On the election day, some voters were complaining that someone had already illegally voted instead of them during the early voting. If no measures are taken in order to prevent this kind of abuse, the ‘successful’ practice of ‘mobilized’ early voting may adversely affect the following federal, regional and municipal elections.

7. Election Day

Election (14 September 2014) observation results indicate the continuation of the use of illegal technologies on the Election Day. First of all, it refers to the Moscow, Chelyabinsk and Samara Oblasts and St. Petersburg. Despite the large number of reports from the Moscow city (262), most of the violations carried a procedural character.

Predictability of the outcomes of the elections due to the lack of real competition lead to reduced voters’ interest in the election, which was reflected in the decrease of turnout. And this was despite the significant measures taken by the administration in order to attract voters to the polling stations: forced voting, more intense home­based voting of socially vulnerable groups of citizens, the sale of discounted food, busing of voters, SMS messages calling to vote, etc.

For example, low competition at the Moscow election, and as a consequence a little interest of voters in this election, was reflected in the use of diverse technologies to increase the turnout. The election was marked by numerous cases of telephone calls to voters on behalf of the candidates to the Moscow City Duma, either under the guise of sociological research with a call to come to vote or with a hidden campaigning. A number of voters contacted the hotline of Golos reporting the cases of telephone calls and asking the same question – where did the callers get their phone numbers from. Moreover, numerous cases of forced voting – when people were ordered to vote at work ­ have been reported. Cases of illegal marks in special tables of serial numbers of voters from the list of voters, who had already taken part in the voting, also have been reported. One case of dissemination of coupons to the pupils, whose parents had already voted, at school 937, where the PEC 1921 was located, has been reported. The class with the highest number of coupons received a bonus.

Despite almost predictable results of the elections, in some regions the scale of violations was very high. During the election campaign, on the election day and during vote counting on September 14­15 the hotline

8800­333­33­50 and a Map of Violations received about 850 reports on violations. This is more than the number of messages received on the previous Single Voting Day (750 messages received on 8 September 2013), and almost the same as was received on 14 October 2012. Unlike the previous Single Voting Days, more messages this year were coming from voters, and not from observers and candidates, as it was before. Reports on violations on the election day were received from 43 regions. The greatest number of reports on violations came from the Moscow city (262), the Moscow Oblast (123), the Samara Oblast (86) and St. Petersburg (54). It should be noted that the spectrum of violations on the election day September 14 has changed compared to the previous elections on the Single Voting Day, as a new set of violations related to early voting emerged – 101 reports received. Moreover, the following types of violations have been observed:

1. Ballot­Box Stuffing; 2. Busing, Bribing of Voters and 'Carousels'; 3. Violations during Voting Outside the Polling Station; 4. Illegal Campaigning; 5. Violation of Voting Organization Procedures; 6. Violation of Electoral Rights, Pressure at Work; 7. Violation of Public Controllers' Rights; 8. Violations during the Vote Count and Tabulation.

Part of the reports received by Golos are available on the ‘Map of Violations’: www.kartanarusheniy.org. Below some of the exposed violations are provided. Ballot­Box Stuffing In most of the cases, reports about ballot­box stuffing were coming from the Moscow Oblast. Both single and multiple cases of ballot­box stuffing have been reported. Balashikha city in the Moscow Oblast became the leader regarding the number of reports: PECs 24, 28, 29, 72 and 76. Moreover, observer Andrey Skorokhodin, who reported one of the ballot­box stuffing cases in Balashikha, was attacked in the TEC by the member of election commission with an advisory capacity, and then was hospitalized with injuries. In Zhukovsky city ballot­box stuffing has been reported in PECs 621 and 652, in Koroliov city in PEC 1110. Ballot­box stuffing attempts were prevented in Zhukovsky city in PEC 623 and Odincovo city in PEC 1966. In the Astrakhan Oblast in the Kamyzyakskiy district, Volgo­Kaspisky village ballot­box stuffing has been reported in PEC 1030. Moreover, ballot­box stuffing has been observed in Ufa city in PEC 308. Busing, Bribing of Voters and 'Carousels'

During the election day bribing of voters has been reported. On the eve of the election day, as well as on the polling day in the Noginskiy district of the Moscow Oblast (PEC 1915), a car was carrying people to vote for candidate R. Maliukov for 500 rubles. On September 13 in the Pervomaiskiy district, Irkutsk, police officers detained two men for bribing voters. Observers of one of the candidates reported that Honda car with the license plate n672nn region 38 was carrying voters to the PECs 703 and 704 (high school 6). Observers notified the police officer, who was on duty at the polling station, and he in turn called patrol service and traffic police. Upon arrival officers detained the offenders: both those who paid money for votes, and voters, who received a monetary reward for their votes. All those, who participated in the violation, were delivered to the police station. Two weeks before the election in the 6th district of Irkutsk, PEC 569, voters in their mailboxes found leaflets with a phone number of the person who pays money for voting for Gregory Reznikov. The more people one can bring, the more one will earn. On Saturday, the day before the elections, a bus was driving around the district, bringing people to the early voting. On the election day the same bus also gathered people and brought them to the high school 30, where the PEC was located. People were coming in, voting, making photo shoots of ballot papers inside the voting booth, getting back to the bus, showing the photo and finally receiving 500 rubles. In the Republic of Mari El, Krasnogorosky village, the Zvenigovsky district, PEC 242, the Chairman of the election commission confused observers, approached the wrong observer from the Communist Party instead of the ‘United Russia’ and asked when they will start bringing voters with buses. Violations during Voting Outside the Polling Station Technology of increasing the number of voters outside the polling station (so­called home­based voting) is widely used not only to increase voter turnout, but also to gain extra votes for the necessary candidate or party. A large number of violations were related, as a rule, to the voluntary participation of voters in this kind of voting, and non­compliance with the rules of registries of home­based voting, as well as procedures for the preparation and carrying out the departure of commissions’ members to the voting. For instance, in Moscow, PEC 2856 members of the election commission did not sign in the journal for the number of ballot papers received before home­based voting. In PEC 443 the forms, which were brought by the members of the election commissions to mobile voting, had extraneous marks. According to the Chairman, the marks were made by social workers. In the Nizhny Novgorod city, PEC 2561 the election commission picked 1000 ballot papers for the mobile voting in the hospital and conducted voting process without voters’ list. The most common violation was the absence of the registry for home­based voting, which is usually filled in by social workers. In Moscow, PEC 2120 18 applications for home­based voting have not been signed by the election commission. All of them were brought (and written) by social workers. On the eve of the election day, in the 18th electoral district in Moscow, anonymous persons were calling to the elderly, urging them to stay at home on September 14, some of them were even told the exact time, when the mobile voting will take place. In Ivanovo, PEC 7273 the register of voters for the mobile voting had not been

concluded before the election, information had been recorded in different notebooks, the Chairman of the commission announced that the general register will be concluded by the fact of voting. Illegal Campaigning Reports of illegal campaigning on the election day have been received. First of all, the violation of the prohibition of campaigning at a distance closer than 50 meters from the building where the polling station is located, has been observed. For instance, in the Vladimirskaya Oblast, PEC 171 a car with agitation materials of the candidate Gorbachev was closer than 50 meters from the entrance to the polling station. In the Kaliningrad Oblast, PEC 535 the candidate from the Communist Party, Ekaterina Mikhalyuk and her representative, member of the election commission with an advisory capacity, Ryabcev, noted that there was a poster with the leader of the local organization of the ‘United Russia’ and decided that it was campaigning for one of the parties. The election commission covered the poster with paper. Half an hour later (at 09:30) the head of the local organization of the ‘United Russia’, Lyutarevich arrived with the head of the municipality and opened the poster. The police have been called to conclude the protocol. In St. Petersburg, PEC 171 when leaving the polling station a voter noticed a bunch of newspapers from the candidate of the ‘United Russia’, which were located right in the building. A separate group of violations concerning the annoying phone calls to voters with illegal invitations to vote for particular candidates can be distinguished. For example, in Moscow, PEC 823 on September 13 anonymous person called after 7 p.m. and said, ‘remember that elections will be held tomorrow, and you can vote for the candidates, for example, the candidate Simonyan’. In PEC 2211 a voter complained of unprofessional and aggressive phone interviews, which had characteristics of an undercover campaigning for the candidate Laisheva.

Violation of Voting Organization Procedures A significant number of violations of the election day procedures were related with an insufficient competence and negligence of the members of the election commissions. A number of procedures were not followed deliberately in order to prevent observers from obtaining reliable information. For example, in the Lipetsk Oblast, PEC 508 as of 09:25 stationary and mobile ballot boxes were not sealed. In Samara, PEC 2911, 2912 and 2904 materials for voters with information on candidates‘ income were missing. In Ufa, PEC 32 signatures of the members of the election commission in the journal of the receipt of ballots were missing. Register for voting outside the polling station was not filled in, but the members of the PEC argued that there were 73 applications for home­based voting. In the Ryazan Oblast, PEC 126 the secrecy of voting has been violated ­ voting took place at the hall on the table, which was located next to the guard. In Samara, PEC 3017 mobile ballot boxes were held in the back room out of the sight of observers. In the Ivanovo Oblast, PEC 674 voters' registers were not stitched. Reports have been received about inaccuracies in voters' lists. For instance, in St. Petersburg, PEC 1594 ­ despite the fact that the voter has been living at the given address for 10 years, he was not included in the voters' list. They had to fill in the application form in order to be included in the supplementary voters' list.

Violation of Electoral Rights, Pressure at Work, Coercion to Vote Some reports on the violation of the principle of voluntary participation in elections and freedom of expression of voters' will have been received. Different technologies were employed to coerce voters to vote. Social workers were actively using their wards for the organization of home­based voting. Thus, experts and observers raised many questions about voluntary participation in the elections and the freedom to vote of socially unprotected groups of citizens that are under guardianship of social workers. In some schools attempts to influence parents during parents' meetings, aiming both to increase voter turnout and campaign for particular candidates, have been reported. For example, in Moscow, PEC 1921 parents of pupils of the 937th high school, where the PEC 1921 was located, were issued special vouchers after voting. The class with the highest number of vouchers received a bonus. In Moscow, PEC 272 a voter came to vote and asked to take his picture with the ballot paper. He explained that he was required to introduce the photo at work and was threatened with dismissal. In St. Petersburg, PEC 1890 upon arrival to the polling station a voter was informed that the ballot paper had already been issued on her behalf, her personal data had been filled in the register, but her signature had been forged. After addressing the Chairman, members of the election commission crossed out the record with a pencil. The voter was not satisfied with that (the pencil can be erased), thus she addressed the election commission on their proposed form. She was included in the supplementary voters' list and was finally able to vote. Violation of Public Controllers' Rights Particular attention should be paid to the violations of the rights of observers, media representatives and the members of the election commissions. Despite the fact that the Central Election Commission of Russian Federation was not organizing elections, it still played a leading role. On the website of the CEC of RF the following message of the press­service has been posted: 'The participation in the electoral process of non­profit organization acting as a foreign agent, as well as representatives of the media outlets established by it, is a violation of the Federal Law on 'Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights and the Right of Citizens of the Russian Federation to Participate in a Referendum'. First of all, the message of the CEC includes the reference to only one of the Moscow City Court's decisions. While the Moscow City Court under cassation canceled earlier decisions of the lower courts, which led to the inclusion of the Golos Association in the register of organizations acting as a foreign agent. In particular, the Court found that, given the legal position of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, stated in the ordinance as of April 8, 2014 10­P, it is impossible to draw a conclusion about the presence of foreign funding of the Association, required for the recognition of it as acting as a foreign agent. Thus, the Ministry of Justice was obliged to cancel its earlier decision on the inclusion of organization in the register, as it was determined that there was no reason for the inclusion. Second of all, the CEC of RF did not have the right to instruct the lower level commissions to restrict the rights of the media representatives. No media outlets can be restricted in their rights upon admission to the polling stations. This is confirmed by the fact that the CEC in its message did not provide a link to a

specific provision of the law, using only high­sounding words "spirit" and "letter" of the law. Thus, the CEC violated the rights of the media and we consider it as an offense and a crime under Article 5.6 of the Administrative Code of RF and Article 144 of the Criminal Code of RF. Such behavior of the CEC of RF, as one would expect, was in fact a direct recommendation to prevent correspondents of the 'Civic Voice' from conducting election observation and formed the basis for mass cases of non­admission of our correspondents in the Samara and Chelyabinsk Oblasts, the Republic of Bashkiriya and in a number of the districts of Podmoskovye. The CEC was illegally trying to restrict public control that actually lead to discreditation of not only the institute of observers, but also the institute of Russian elections in general. Because of the message of the CEC, all the correspondents of the 'Civic Voice' in the Chelyabinsk Oblast were denied access to the polling stations (for example, PECs 2258, 548, 682, 571, 820, 796, 557, 542, 532). The Chairman of the Chelyabinsk Oblast election commission, A. Starostina, sent a corresponding letter to lower level commissions with the sample of the decision regarding the expulsion of the representatives of the 'Civic Voice'. The letter says that 'in case of the presence of representatives from NGOs­foreign agents or representatives of the media outlets, established by foreign agents, including Golos, PEC must urgently take the decision regarding expulsion of the above mentioned representatives from the polling stations'. Similar situation has arisen in the Republic of Bashkortostan, Ivanovo, Lipetsk, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod and Samara Oblasts. Multiple observer‘s rights violations have been reported during the elections in St. Petersburg. On the election day, media representatives, members of the election commissions with the right of advisory and decisive votes were illegally expelled from the polling stations. Observers and media representatives were forbidden to move around in voting premises, to make photo and video shooting. Similar cases of the restriction on correspondents‘ movement in voting premises, bans on the photo and video shooting were observed in some of the regions (see the ‘Map of Violations‘) and to a large extent in the Moscow Oblast. The greatest number of observer‘s rights violations in the Moscow Oblast has been recorded in the Balashikha, Zhukovsky, Koroliov and Odintsovskiy districts. Reports on illegal and unmotivated expulsion of observers and members of the election commissions with the right of decisive vote also raise particular concerns. Individual cases of unmotivated observers‘ expulsion have been observed in Nizhny Novgorod, Golitsinino, the Moscow Oblast and some other regions, but they were not so widespread. Violations during the Vote Counting and Tabulation Around 50 reports on violations during the vote counting have been received on the ‘Map of Violations‘. The entire array of violations, related to the vote count, can be divided into the following categories: rewriting of protocols, rearranging ballot papers from a pack for one candidate to a pack for another candidate ('perestroica'), procedural violations, reports on a higher number of ballot papers in stationary ballot­boxes exceeded those issued to voters, the restriction of the rights (expulsions) of observers, media representatives, members of the election commissions, attempts to hide the consequences of ballot­box stuffing, i.e. to scatter packs of ballot papers.

A large number of violations, related to the vote count, was reported in the Moscow Oblast. In Zhukovsky city rewriting of protocols and 'perestroitsa' have been observed. In Balashikha attempts to hide the consequences of ballot­box stuffing have been reported. Most likely this was the main reason for the discrepancies between the main control indicators ­ number of ballot papers in the stationary ballot­box exceeded those issued to voters. St. Petersburg took the second place regarding the number of reports, related to the violations of vote counting, received on the hotline of Golos. For example, the main control indicators did not match in already published final protocols on the website of the city election commission, although control indicators should be checked automatically upon entering into an automated system 'GAS Vybory'. If it does not happen, it is likely that someone allowed introducing such data without checking the control indicators. Such discrepancies occurred, according to the data of the protocols, in 111 PECs in governor's elections and 241 PECs in municipal elections. Morevoer, over 100 polling stations have been observed, where these discrepancies were positive, that is, in the stationary ballot boxes there were less ballot papers than issued to voters. Usually it means that voters took away their ballot paper and this figure always ranges between 10 and 15 units per polling station. However, according to the data of 'GAS Vybory', from the PECs of St. Petersburg one can see that the difference of over one hundred of allegedly taken ballot papers was in 114 municipal protocols and 192 protocols in the governor‘s elections. According to the witnesses and analysis of reports received on the ‘Map of Violations’ and the hotline during the election campaign and on the election day, one can see that direct falsifications on the voting day have been employed once again: ballot­box stuffing and rewriting of final protocols. Expulsion of observers in these elections had a mass character in a number of regions. First of all, the results entered into 'GAS Vybory', included a number of obvious errors, demonstrating that control indicators had not been checked upon data entry. The election day on September 14 showed that despite the changes in the legislation, which prevented many candidates from overcoming the ‘municipal filter’ or gathering the necessary amount of voters’ signatures, the level of direct falsifications on the election day remains high in many regions. Since all the correspondents of Golos noted abnormally small number of observers in the elections of September 14 (in most of the PECs no more than one observer, and, as a rule, representative of the pro­government candidate), we are not able to expose all the violations that took place on these elections. The current statement highlights only those violations that were directly observed by the correspondents of Golos, observers of the ‘Observers’ Alliance’ or received on the hotline. All these facts require serious analysis.