MOSCOW, January 24 (Itar-Tass) — CEC Chairman Vladimir Churov said many videos alleging election fraud are obvious fakes. He said so at a meeting with voters who represent veterans' organizations of the armed forces, law-enforcement bodies and security services on Tuesday.
"An Interior Ministry check confirmed that many videos had signs of fabrication," Churov said.
He complained that after that statement he had been severely criticized by film producers. "However, montage and photomontage are different things, from the point of view of Interior Ministry’s experts," Churov said.
"Many materials alleging election fraud, which were brought to the CEC, showed signs of fabrication. A well-known politician brought a copy of a protocol showing a voting for the political party called "An Injust Russia,", while another politician demonstrated copies of protocols from ten different voting stations located in different places, which were apparently signed by the same person.
"/President/ Dmitry Anatolyevich /Medvedev/ called me a wizard. It's an exaggeration. I'm not a wizard. A wizard is the one who can be present at ten different places at the same time," the CEC chief said.
He reiterated that the voting stations' equipment and faultless organization of the election process deserved the highest prize. "Even western opponents acknowledge that we've done much better," Churov stated.
He made it clear he had known that the results of the parliamentary election would be attacked and challenged.
"I know what efforts would be made to undermine Russia's statehood. The events taking place around the election system show who and why wishes to undermine its groundwork and the legitimacy of the election.
The CEC chief reminded that taking part in the preparations for federal elections are some 1.5 million people.
Of those, one million are members of election commissions of various levels, 250,000 to 260,000 are obverses while the rest are candidates, members of their teams etc. "When they say the elections were illegitimate, they actually accuse 1.5 million of Russian citizens; they are honest people who work a lot, sometimes in difficult conditions," Churov said.
He said he had offered international obverses to visit a voting station in a remote area, but nobody volunteered to go, except one observer from the CIS mission.