MOSCOW, September 20. /TASS/. The seventh State Duma elections have been proven to be transparent and open thanks to the efforts by the new team from the Central Election Commission (CEC), the sixth Duma Speaker Sergey Naryshkin said during a live broadcast on the kp.ru website.
"Due to the new CEC team’s efforts we can say that the recent elections were more open, clear and transparent. I think the CEC will make an assessment and compare it to the one made five years ago. I do hope it will turn out that the number of irregularities, particularly severe ones, greatly decreased," Naryshkin said.
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According to him, Russia’s CEC took "comprehensive measures" to prevent any sort of irregularities.
"I am sure that each case containing inconsistencies will be scrutinized by the CEC, it will be pored over thoroughly, and if necessary, it will take the case to the court," Naryshkin noted adding that the people of Russia will be informed about the results of all investigations.
Naryshkin also said that it is hard to avoid inconsistencies during voting given the size of the Russian Federation. "In an ideal world we would like to avoid irregularities but just think how big our country is. Around 95,000 polling stations were opened during the elections - at this scale it is hard to imagine that everything would go smoothly, without any irregularities."
The State Duma elections were held on September 18 on a mixed basis: 225 members of parliament were elected by party tickets, while the other 225 were elected in one-seat constituencies.