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Russian Central Elections Commission sums up presidential election campaign complaints

The biggest number of complaints alleged unlawful decisions of elections commissions, Danilenko said

MOSCOW, May 13(Itar-Tass) —— The Russian Central Elections Commission presented a bulletin on Friday to sum up information about alleged violations of law in the latest presidential election campaign. The two-volume edition comprises reports made to the Central Elections Commission and regional elections commission.

“In all, the Central Elections Commission received 806 complaints and appeals, and 17% of them (135) appeared to be correct. Regional elections commissions received 1,564 complaints and appeals, 17% of them correct,” Central Elections Commission member Sergei Danilenko said.

“The number of appeals nearly doubled since the previous presidential election held in 2008, but the number of confirmed complaints reduced,” he said.

The biggest number of complaints alleged unlawful decisions of elections commissions, Danilenko said. There were 187 statements of the sort, and only 64 of them proved authentic. Voters also complained about the untimely issue of absentee ballots. There were 86 such statements, 56 of them confirmed. “The problems were settled on time in some cases,” he said. Danilenko said they would pay much attention to such problems in the October elections in regions.

Traditionally, there was a large number of complaints concerning canvassing. There were 74 complaints of the kind, and 24 of them were confirmed.

The police are assisting the verification of eleven complaints. Besides, the Russian Supreme Court considered ten civil cases in the course of the election campaign. Most of them concerned the Central Elections Commission’s refusal to register presidential candidates.

In Danilenko’s words, a colossal number of pseudo-complaints were filed in the Russian presidential election campaign.

“That is a new black PR technique,” he said. “The Russian Central Elections Commission received 977 complaints of the kind from December 27, 2011, through May 3, 2012. They were signed by more than 3,500 people, and most of the signatures were copied. The pseudo-complaints did not report particular violations but made demands, which were impossible to meet under the current laws.”

For instance, it was demanded to make a public examination of signatures collected in the support of aspirants seeking registration in the presidential election campaign and insisted on cancelling the signature collection procedure or cutting the number of required signatures from 2 million to 300,000, Danilenko said.

Others demanded to invalidate the presidential election outcome on the grounds “it allegedly did not reflect the real will of the people,” Danilenko said.

The Central Elections Commission started summing up complaints and statements filed in election campaigns in the State Duma elections in 2007.