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Early elections held in Khabarovsk Territory

Over 200 evacuated residents of the flooded settlements in the Khabarovsk Territory have received absentee ballots to vote in the gubernatorial elections

Photo ITAR-TASS/Olga Yegoraeva

Photo ITAR-TASS/Olga Yegoraeva

KHABAROVSK, August 30 (Itar-Tass) - An early vote has started in remote areas of the Khabarovsk Territory to elect a governor and local self-government bodies, the regional election commission said on Friday.

Seven constituencies are in the flooded zone of the region - three in Khabarovsk, three in the Nanai district and one in the Amur Region. All the polling stations are transferred to reserve premises, the Khabarovsk regional election commission's secretary Oyars Mashkov told Itar-Tass.

The early vote will be held in the Nikolayevsk district. The election commission on Friday will also consider early voting in the Komsomolsk district.

Over 200 evacuated residents of the flooded settlements in the Khabarovsk Territory have received absentee ballots to vote in the gubernatorial elections.

The early elections are already held in remote areas of the region, in which 537 people have already cast their votes for one or another candidate.

Irrespective of an emergency, the law allows holding early elections in remote areas.

Communication with four settlements is impeded in the Ayan-Maisky district. A helicopter with Election Committee members aboard has already flown out for the settlement of Ayan. The vote has started in the Nikolayevsk and Sovetskaya Gavan districts. Residents of the settlement of Polina Osipenko have voted earlier. The districts traditionally vote early, Mashkov noted.

The period of early elections lasts from August 18 to September 7. The general voting day in the country is September 8. In the Khabarovsk Territory, 1,695,000 people are expected to vote in the gubernatorial elections and 600,000 in the Khabarovsk mayoral elections.

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