MOSCOW, July 28. /TASS/. State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin has sent invitations to observe Russia’s September election to representatives of national parliaments and interparliamentary organizations, including the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and the Parliamentary Assembly (PA) of the OSCE, the State Duma website reported on Wednesday.
"State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, on behalf of the State Duma, invited the representatives of countries’ national parliaments to participate in the observation of the September 17-19 election," the statement said.
Invitations were also sent to PACE, the OSCE PA, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation, the Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy as well as along the lines of the Parliamentary Assembly of the CSTO, Interparliamentary Assembly of the CIS Member Nations and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union of Belarus and Russia.
Earlier, Russia’s Central Election Commission at a meeting approved a decree on the procedures for international observers at the upcoming State Duma elections. The document outlines the procedure of inviting and accrediting the international observers, their rights and obligations, as well as the responsibility for violating the legislation on elections. As a member of the Commission Pavel Andreev noted, the international observers will be able to track "virtually the whole process - from sealing the boxes on September 17 until the vote count." They also have the right to observe remote electronic voting.
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on scheduling the 8th State Duma elections for September 19. The voting will stretch over three days: September 17, 18, and 19. Simultaneously, there will be direct elections for the heads of nine Russian regions (in three others, top executive officials will be elected by local legislatures) and 39 regional parliaments.