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Incidents of overstated voter turnout checked in St. Petersburg

The city election commission confirmed three such cases, while head of Russia's Central Election Commission said at least invalid data were recorded at 10 polling stations

© ITAR-TASS/Mikhail Pochuev

ST. PETERSBURG, September 18. /ITAR-TASS/. The election commission of St. Petersburg has launched a probe into some incidents of reporting more than 100% voter turnout at the Sunday municipal elections, the city election commission spokesman, Grigory Margolin, told ITAR-TASS on Thursday.

Such figures appeared in the “Vybory” electronic vote count system. Those responsible for this will be punished. “If this is a technical error, those responsible will be punished, and if it is something more serious, the Investigation Committee will take up this case,” Margolin said.

He declined to specify the number of such cases. On Wednesday, the city election commission confirmed three such episodes, however, Russian Central Election Commission (CEC) head Vladimir Churov was quoted by media as saying that invalid data were recorded at 10 polling stations.

Churov also said on Wednesday the CEC would demand reforming several municipal election commissions in St. Petersburg where the largest number of violations was recorded on September 14.

The governor and municipal elections were held in St. Petersburg on Sunday. Acting governor Georgy Poltavchenko received 79.3% of the vote. The official results of the municipal elections have not been made public yet. The voter turnout reached 39.36%.

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