MOSCOW, October 26 (Itar-Tass) —— The Russian Central Election Commission will organise lot drawing on October 28 to determine the order in which parties will appear in the ballots.
The numbers will be determined by lottery. “The lottery drum and each drawing ball will be examined in the presence of authorised representatives of political parties,” the Central Election Commission said on Wednesday, October 26.
The drawing balls will be taken out of the drum according to the order in which the parties were registered. The first to draw lots will the Liberal Democratic Party.
“The number to be assigned to a political party by way of lot drawing will remain until the end of the Duma election campaign,” the Central Election Commission said.
The Central Election Commission has registered the lists of all four parties represented in the current Duma: United Russia, the Community Party, the Liberal Democratic Party, and Just Russia. The law exempts these parties from the need to collect signatures.
The commission was supposed to consider the registration of the Yabloko and Right Cause political parties on October 26.
The parties have collected enough signatures to have their lists of candidates to the State Duma registered.
The number of invalid signatures did not exceed the required 5 percent.
Right Cause’s list consists of 301 candidates divided into 77 regional groups. The federal group is headed by acting party leader Andrei Dunayev, former Democratic Party of Russia leader Andrei Bogdanov and tennis player Anna Chakvetadze.
Since the party is not represented in the current Duma, it had to collect 150,000 signatures in its support.
The Russian Central Election Commission approved a schedule of work for the upcoming Duma elections slated for December 4.
The 160-point document describes in detail all stages of the election campaign required by law.
The first point in the schedule, which was to be implemented by September 2 and which required official publication of the list of political parties qualifying for election, has already been done.
The Ministry of Justice published the lists in Rossiiskaya Gazeta on August 31.
The schedule also states the deadlines for forming territorial and local election commissions, and drawing up lists of candidates.
It says that Russian citizens are entitled to ask regional offices of political parties to include them in the federal list of candidates no later than September 2.
The parties should approve their lists of candidates by September 29. The Central Election Commission accepted documents for the registration of the lists from September 19 till 18:00 Moscow time October 19.
Not later than 10 days after the acceptance of the documents, the Central Election Commission will have to register or refuse to register a party.
The Central Election Commission will draw lots by November 3 to determine the order in which the parties and their emblems will appear in the ballots.
Campaigning will begin from the day when a party approves a list of candidates and will end before midnight local time December 3.
Upon registration of the lists of candidates but not later than November 3, lot drawing will be organised to distribute airtime and spaces in printed media among the parties for debates and advertising.
The Central Election Commission earlier decided to hold such lot drawing on November 1.
A ban on the publication of the results of public opinion polls will be in place from November 29 to December 4.
According to the schedule, territorial election commissions have to be formed not later than October 4, and local commissions, on November 3-10. Election districts have to be set up by October 14, or, at the latest, by October 30 (in the case of ships or polar stations).
Absentee ballots will be issued from October 19 to December 3.
Territorial election commissions have to determine the results of voting in their precincts not later than December 6, and regional commissions, by December 8.
The Central Election Commission has to officially determine the results of the election by December 19 and officially publish them by December 24. After that registration of the elected deputies will begin.
According to the schedule, the originals of protocols from the election commissions will be kept for at least five years; video and audio recordings of television and radio canvassing events have to be held for at least 12 months after the publication of the results of the elections.
President Dmitry Medvedev has signed a decree setting the date of the elections to the State Duma for December 4. The next Duma will be elected for five years, not four as now.