Election results cancelled at some polling stations

The results of Russia’s December 4 parliamentary election have been cancelled at 21 polling stations, according to the deputy head of the Central Election Commission, Leonid Ivlev.

Overall, 39,000 people cast their votes at the named ballot stations, which were scattered across the country, he said during a meeting of the Public Chamber on Tuesday.“Those responsible for the election process there will be held accountable. I think they will be banned from working in the election system,” Ivlev stated. The official added that so far, the Central Election Commission has received 1,686 reports and complaints of violations. All of them have been studied, and 124 cases have been forwarded to either the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Interior Ministry or the Investigative Committee. “Most complaints have not been confirmed,” Ivlev reported.He also commented on amateur videos of alleged violations circulating on the Internet.“We have viewed 26 YouTube videos. Only one of them features an attempt to add ballot papers to the voting box. But this attempt was prevented. More than half of those videos had been cut and edited,” Ivlev said. In addition, he informed the Public Chamber that the Central Election Commission supports their idea to allow non-government organizations to monitor the elections.“Amendments should be made to the current legislation but in principal, we support the proposal to send representatives of all-Russia NGOs to monitor the elections,” the official said. Under the current law, only political parties and journalists have this right.