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League of Voters does not recognize results of Russia’s presidential polls

The elections were not equal because the discrimination of popular politicians has stripped the citizens off the possibility of choice and made the competition for the candidate...

MOSCOW, March 7 (Itar-Tass) — Russia’s League of Voters does not recognize the results of the presidential election of March 4, the League said in a memorandum circulated here on Wednesday.

“The elections were not equal because the discrimination of popular politicians has stripped the citizens off the possibility of choice and made the competition for the candidate from the authorities much easier,” the memorandum said. The elections “were not fair because candidates were canvassing in unequal conditions,” they were “not fair because vote counting was accompanied by systemic rigging, which has dramatically distorted the voters’ preferences.”

On Tuesday, deputy chairman of the Russian Central Election Commission Leonid Ivlev said that there was no evidence proving the League of Voters’ reports about falsifications. According to Ivlev, the Central Election commission checked as many as 22 reports alleging that the number of votes in paper-format protocols issued to members of election commissions and observers differed from that entered into the state automated system Vybory. “We compared data from paper protocols (from polling stations) with the data of the Vybory automated system – they are absolutely identical,” he stressed. “The League of Voters united acclaimed people. Why are you permitting to lie, why are you looking to distort public consciousness of voters?”

The League of Voters was established in the run-up to the presidential elections by a number of acclaimed people of culture and journalists. Among its founders are writers Boris Akunin (real name Grigory Chkhartishvili) and Lyudmila Ulitskaya, journalists Leonid Perfenov and Sergei Parkhomenko, television host Tatiana Lazareva, leader of the Blue Bucket protest movement Petr Shkumatov, and others.

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