As we noted in the review of the first day of voting, the authorities' main efforts were directed at administrative mobilization of voters through remote electronic voting (REV) and controlled voting at polling stations themselves. The main restrictive and coercive measures were directed against candidates and observers from the Communist Party (CPRF) and Yabloko, in order to preemptively reduce their ability to restrain administrative zeal in achieving the desired results.
Residual administrative mobilization
On the second day of voting, there was no longer the same administrative frenzy at polling stations and around REV. Residual administrative mobilization mainly affected only university students and college students.
Thus, according to a press release from the Yabloko party, at Saratov State Technical University on Saturday they continued to mass-send students who had not done so on Friday to vote, and to report with photos from the polling stations. Students reported threats of "consequences" for group leaders if they refused to appear at polling stations.
In Tatarstan, students of the Volga Region University of Physical Culture, Sports and Tourism were continued to be forced to vote electronically and required to provide corresponding screenshots. In addition, they were threatened with problems with law enforcement if they did not vote on Friday-Saturday instead of Sunday. Institute director Iskander Galeev demands that supervisors and group leaders "grab everyone by the short and curlies and drag them to the polling stations."
In Moscow, not all enterprises had yet managed to mobilize and control the voting of their employees. Thus, on the morning of 19 September, metro employees were brought by bus to polling station No. 56 in the Krasnoselsky district of Moscow. According to a report from a Yabloko observer, they were led in an organized manner to the TEG, where they then photographed the completed electronic ballot.
In Moscow, the practice that began yesterday of forcing voters to refuse paper ballots continued. Moreover, it acquired the character of a public official directive from the leadership of the Moscow electoral system, i.e., it effectively legitimized yesterday's illegal actions of precinct commissions. At polling station No. 2267, the commission chair publicly conveyed to PEC members a recommendation, allegedly received from the Moscow City Election Commission (MGIK), not to inform voters about the possibility of voting with a paper ballot. The chair of the Moscow TEC Moskvorechye-Saburovo, Galina Astakhova, sent to precinct commissions an "Instruction on the immediate suppression of illegal oral agitation," in which, without any legal or rational basis, she classified the actions of observers in informing voters about the possibility of paper voting as illegal agitation. The cynicism of the situation with restricting paper voting for ordinary voters in Moscow also lies in the fact that many representatives of the authorities who yesterday solemnly appeared at polling stations under the cameras voted with paper ballots (for example, Medvedev, Volodin).
In a number of regions, stories related to administrative pressure on voters that occurred on the first day of voting continued to develop. In Altai Krai, Maria Prusakova, a candidate for the State Duma from the CPRF, demanded that the facts of pressure on voters that had occurred be checked. She sent appeals to the CEC, the Prosecutor General's Office and the Investigative Committee. Prusakova points to several episodes: according to her data, the director of Barnaul Lyceum No. 122, Shevtsova, sent instructions to employees to vote and report the results to her with a screenshot; the head of kindergarten No. 8 in Kamen-na-Obi informed subordinates whom they needed to vote for; the head of a department of the Bystry Istok district administration, Dudnikova, sent instructions to subordinate institutions and organizations about which candidates should be voted for via REV.
At the same time, in the current elections, technologies for positive stimulation of voters are used much less frequently: giveaways, lotteries, concerts, and buffets, which were ubiquitous just a few years ago, have practically disappeared. Among the rare cases, one can note, for example, in Yugra they announced the winners of the first day of the "Yugra — Together" drawing. Residents are offered the chance to win apartments, cars, ATVs — a total of 4,900 prizes. To do this, they had to answer questions online about the history and culture of the okrug on the website yugravmeste.rf. A drawing of prizes among employees who voted was launched in Primorsky Krai by the Rosneft enterprise "RN-Nakhodka Nefteprodukt." For a vote, they offer caps, hoodies with the enterprise's logo, but the most valuable prize is a day off. Yesterday, candidates and observers also reported cases of voter bribery: in Sverdlovsk Oblast, according to voter reports, 800 rubles were offered for a vote in favor of United Russia; in Perm, near polling stations, tickets to sports matches of local teams were handed out.
But the main efforts of the leaders of the unfolding electoral special operation on the second day were still directed against active observers and candidates.
Restriction of observers' rights
From the very morning of the second day, reports of restrictions on observers' rights began to come in again. On the first day, observers were mainly not allowed to do their work for far-fetched but formal reasons (incorrectly issued or lost credentials, alleged lack of passive suffrage, etc.), — and those who were still admitted on the first day could no longer be removed on formal pretexts. Therefore, methods of direct emotional and quasi-legal pressure began to be used more often.
Among formal nitpicking, it can be noted that in St. Petersburg at PEC No. 143, an observer from candidate Dmitry Anisimov was removed by a unanimous decision of the commission, because in the observer credential the letter "ч" in his surname resembles the letter "и" — just like during the verification of voter signatures during candidate registration.
In Novosibirsk, the local branch of the CPRF recalled observer Roman Malozyomov. Initially, CPRF representative Kamil Dzhafarov said the reason was that in previous elections Roman allegedly opposed the party and thereby "discredited" it, but then informally admitted that the decision was made under external pressure from law enforcement. A similar incident occurred in the Metallurgichesky district of Chelyabinsk Oblast, when a representative of A Just Russia asked his observer to leave the polling station, warning that "the police are digging up dirt on him." Before this, the observer had recorded an abnormally high number of people in home voting, as well as the refusal of election commission members to perform their duties (for example, refusal to issue copies of home voting records). As a result, the observer was forced to leave the station.
In Tobolsk, Tyumen Oblast, at PEC No. 1815, police officers arrived at the station, one of whom told the observer that he was allegedly "creating a lot of problems." The observer himself links the attention of law enforcement to filing a complaint due to the refusal to provide him with the home voting register for visual inspection.
Sometimes, those involved in exerting pressure on observers are not law enforcement officers at all. In Saratov Oblast, at polling station No. 342 (school No. 97), an observer from a Yabloko candidate was threatened by the husband of one of the commission members. He told the observer that "with the next complaint he would throw him out of the station", and also "smash his phone" if the observer "recorded the conversation".
In St. Petersburg, the chair of commission No. 1919, Raisa Polyakova, accused a Yabloko observer of provocation and an attempt to "disrupt" the voting. Police officers called by the chair knocked the observer to the ground and pinned him down with their foot, causing him to lose consciousness. After that, he was handcuffed and taken to police station No. 86. He is accused of disobeying the police (Article 19.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses).
According to a report from the channel "Perm 36.6", the chair of PEC No. 3101 filed a police report against an observer from New People for moving around the station and "filming from an unauthorized location." Earlier, at the same station, 73 extra voters appeared from an unknown source.
In Blagoveshchensk, Amur Oblast, to remove a CPRF observer from PEC No. 343, a night court hearing was organized on a lawsuit filed by the election commission, reports the Telegram channel "Left Bank | Amur." The PEC chair explained the filing of the lawsuit by saying that the precinct commission "did not like the complaints about violations."
There are also completely absurd restrictions for observers. At PEC No. 371 in Dolgoprudny, Moscow Oblast, the observer had the space from which filming is permitted marked out almost flush against the chair he was sitting on. In Moscow, at polling station No. 1783, the chair forbade a Yabloko observer from communicating with international observers visiting the station, threatening to remove him from the voting premises.
Everywhere, observers are forbidden from taking photos and videos at polling stations and from familiarizing themselves with voter lists. Such cases occurred, for example, in Moscow, Kursk and Vladimir Oblasts.
Even members of TECs face restrictions on their activities. In Lipetsk Oblast, a member of the TEC from the CPRF was attempted to be banned from visiting polling stations. The commission chair stated that he should only be in the election commission premises.
Election commissions are trying to strictly limit the activities of observers under the pretext of their violating the legally established rules of observation and interfering with the work of the commissions, while they themselves do not comply with the basic rules required of them by legislation and instructions from higher commissions.
For example, in Voronezh Oblast, at a polling station, observers discovered an unsealed ballot box: in a video from PEC No. 2301 in the village of Novaya Usman, it is visible that there are no seals on the ballot box.
According to data from the monitoring project "We Observe Together," on 18 September at PEC No. 2075 in Chelyabinsk Oblast, voters from an additional list were issued ballots, although according to their place of registration they should have been voting in other districts in the State Duma elections. In total, according to observers, there were about 100 names in this list. They note that until 15:00, when entering voters into this list, their registration address was not checked for compliance with district No. 190. A complaint was sent to the commission demanding that the addresses be checked, the ballot box with the ballots of those who voted using the additional list be sealed, and that these ballots subsequently be declared invalid. In response, commission chair Ekaterina Voronina did not react to the statement, but sent observers a letter — in it she briefly stated that there was no data to declare the ballots invalid. She did not provide the commission's decision on the substance of the complaint.
It seems that if PEC members have nothing to hide from the outside world in their activities, if they are confident in their actions and their preparation, then observers are their main allies and witnesses to the commission's honesty. But if the commission is not confident in its actions, if it regularly violates the rules and procedures prescribed to it by laws and instructions, and even more so, if it is preparing a direct violation of them, then observers are their main opponents and enemies, whom it is urgently necessary to get rid of.
Simulated observation
It is precisely thanks to responsible observers that facts of gross violations become known, which are forced to be acknowledged at the highest level and trigger corresponding investigations. At the same time, there is a problem with simulated observation on the part of representatives of the "party of power" and public chambers, who at best behave extremely passively, and at worst file complaints against the most active and principled observers, playing along with the election commissions. In the Moscow region, at some polling stations, "observers" learned that they represented United Russia only after they arrived at the station.
"Technical assignments" for observers from United Russia accidentally appeared online. Observer Alexandra Gromachenko from Nerchinsk, Zabaykalsky Krai, published (the post has now been deleted) one of these: "MANDATORY! Post a photo before 12:00 on 18 September stating that many voters have come to the polling stations, tell in it that making a choice on the first day of voting frees up the weekend for personal affairs", — the technical assignment stated.
In Glazov, Udmurt Republic, curators from the public chamber asked their observers to leave the stations at 17:00 under the pretext that tomorrow would be a hard day. They also relieved them of the duty to report turnout "because there are inaccuracies in the information being sent," i.e., one must understand that the turnout data transmitted by observers from the public chamber based on their visual count, and the turnout information transmitted by the PEC, diverge.
In Moscow Oblast, observers from the public chamber and United Russia together signed the record of PEC No. 415 in Shchyolkovo, on the basis of which the court removed a Yabloko observer from the station. In Chelyabinsk Oblast, at PEC No. 2224, an observer from the public chamber participated in a provocation against another observer, as a result of which the latter was removed from the voting premises.
Another important mission of observers from the public chamber and United Russia is to occupy observer spots for conducting home voting, after which PEC members refuse to take other observers with them. For example, on Sakhalin, an observer from the CPRF, whom the commission refused to take on mobile voting to the villages of Alexandrovsky district due to such actions, had his road blocked by an SUV when he tried to follow the members of commission No. 9.
Overall, it can be noted that there are practically no observers from the LDPR and New People at polling stations. Observers from United Russia and public chambers are far from present at every station. They are often supervised by the same individuals. The presence of observers from A Just Russia is fragmentary and varies from region to region. The only parties that have taken a systematic approach to the observation process are Yabloko and the CPRF. These parties have established observation headquarters and special tools. They systematically report on problems at polling stations and publish regular summaries. This is precisely why the main pressure is directed at observers from these two parties.
Violation of ballot security between voting days
One of the already traditional and main problems at polling stations and causes of conflicts between commissions and observers is the security of ballots that have already been used for voting in PEC premises between voting days. Safes and security bags are used for this purpose, into which the ballots are placed. Commissions that apparently have something to hide (including their own incompetence), violating the procedures and rules for packing security bags, prevent observers from recording these violations in photos and videos, and refuse to issue the relevant records. But the most egregious thing is when commission members, in the absence of observers, try to open the security bags and alter the voters' will.
According to CPRF data, in Samara Oblast, at polling station No. 1217, candidate for the Samara city duma Dmitry Aseev discovered signs of tampering on the safe, and the security bags were stolen. On the evening of 18 September, two men ran out of the voting premises of precinct commission No. 1217 with security bags and disappeared. The candidate called the police and the Investigative Committee. In the same Samara Oblast, CPRF observers discovered problems with seals on ballot boxes and safes at PECs No. 2519, 2525, 1349, 2106, 2108. Commission members refused to seal the doors to the ballot storage room at PECs No. 1321, 1335, 1331, 1301. At PECs No. 1330 and 1321, observers were not allowed to sign the security bag. At PECs No. 2680, 2671, 2663, 2659, the commission refused to issue copies of the record drawn up after sealing the security bag with ballots and the number of voters who had voted.
Observers from the CPRF, A Just Russia and New People in Yakutsk organized overnight surveillance of polling stations. At PEC No. 756, they saw commission chair Sakhayan Makarov open a security bag with ballots at 3:00. According to data from the channel "Honest Yakutia," the police were called by a police officer present at the station. Law enforcement officers seized all the security bags; the voting results from them will be annulled.
"Observers of St. Petersburg" reported conflicts between commission members with a decisive vote and the chairs of PECs No. 1206 and No. 1209 after the end of the first day of voting. They were not allowed to sign the security bags with ballots, photograph them, or receive copies of the records of their packing.
Violations of the integrity of security bags were reported from Yakutia, Perm Krai, Moscow, Krasnoyarsk, Krasnodar Krai and other regions.
At PEC No. 1804 in the town of Skovorodino, Amur Oblast, commission members, after the end of voting, tore off the indicator tapes from the bags in which the ballots for the second day of voting were supposed to be stored.
Violations during home voting
Some of the best opportunities for falsifying voting results arise for their organizers during home voting. And they are using these opportunities very actively this year, as evidenced by unrealistically large lists of "home voters" in several regions.
An observer from Leningrad Oblast reported 460 applications for voting outside the polling station at PEC No. 967 in Kudrovo. Ballots were ultimately issued to 440 of them. According to the observer, two groups for organizing mobile voting left the station around 8:00 and returned around 20:00 with filled portable ballot boxes. The photographs show large volumes of ballots, some of which lie inside in even, dense stacks — it is impossible to form such stacks by simply dropping ballots through the box opening.
Maria Prusakova, a candidate from the CPRF in Altai Krai, reported that at PEC No. 1092 in the village of Kytmanovo, out of approximately 1,000 voters, 420 turned out to be home voters; at PEC No. 1093, out of approximately 1,200 voters, about 500 allegedly submitted applications for home voting; in the village of Dmitro-Titovo, at PEC No. 1089, almost half of the voters were home voters: 252 out of 570. The required applications for this number from people were not available.
Candidate for the State Duma from the CPRF in district No. 168, Pavel Ashikhmin, sent a complaint to the election commission of Sakhalin Oblast: at PEC No. 304, ballots for home voting were handed over to an unknown person: according to the PEC chair, the man who received the ballots represented military units.
Direct falsifications
Of course, the most egregious cases are when election commission members turn into direct falsifiers.
In Komi Republic, at PEC No. 62, 48 ballots with marks for United Russia were discovered, which were being handed out to voters. The chair of the territorial election commission, Vsevolod Khorunzhy, arrived at the station. He took the PEC chair and deputy chair to his car for a conversation. About an hour later, an investigative team from the UMVD in Syktyvkar arrived at the commission premises. After the incident, PEC deputy chair Svetlana Zakharova filed a sick leave request. On 19 September, CEC Chair Ella Pamfilova confirmed this information. Investigative actions are underway.
A report of possible repeated voting by young men of athletic appearance came from Krasnodar Krai.
An observer at PEC No. 721 in the Moscow suburb of Pushkino believed she had recorded a ballot stuffing — the number and position of ballots differed significantly from what had been in the ballot boxes the day before.
The CPRF headquarters in Moscow claims to have discovered "carousels" — repeated voting by the same citizens at various polling stations. The police reacted promptly and detained a carousel participant. We note that such violations are impossible without the complicity of commission members, which was also recorded by observers. At the same time, "The chair is yelling at the observers and telling them to stand silently at attention and not ask questions," RusNews was told.
State Duma deputy from the CPRF Sergei Kazankov reported a possible ballot stuffing at PEC No. 343 in the village of Azanovo, Medvedevsky district, Mari El. According to Kazankov, CPRF observers noticed the episode during a video broadcast from the station. In the video he published, a woman, whom Kazankov calls an election commission member, approaches the stationary ballot box and drops several sheets into it at once. The candidate filed a statement with the Investigative Committee.
In opposition Chechen public pages, screenshots of tables appeared showing where and at what time students of Chechen State University should vote. At the same time, each group of students is listed twice on each voting day — meaning the same student will have to vote six times in total. Those responsible are listed as Vice-Rectors Gataev, Dadashev, Yarychev, Tashtamirov and Yusupov.
Falsification of turnout
As we noted yesterday, preparation for falsifying results begins in advance and requires increasing turnout figures in the first days of voting. On the first day of voting, electoral experts noted abnormal and inflated turnout figures in a number of regions. Today, evidence continued to come in that observer turnout data seriously diverges from commission data.
Precinct commission No. 2014 in Krasnodar announced that about 500 people had voted early, although in the voter lists there are corresponding marks next to approximately 50 people. The observer filed a complaint and called the police.
In St. Petersburg, according to the count of observers at polling station No. 115, 268 people voted, but according to PEC data — 555. At other polling stations in St. Petersburg, discrepancies were also found between the data on the number of voters in the records and the figures in the GAS "Vybory" system.
Pressure on opposition candidates
In Kaliningrad Oblast, candidate for the Legislative Assembly from Yabloko, Dmitry Mamaev, is receiving threats of violence. The security service of the company where Dmitry works informed him of anonymous threats conveyed through the company office.
In Perm Krai, at PEC No. 3312, candidate for deputy Alexei Batalov was not allowed into the station. He asked for copies of the records of the first day of voting, but was refused them.
Candidates in Altai and Khakassia complain of spam attacks on their personal phone numbers.
In Kazan, a candidate from Yabloko, Ruslan Zinatullin, was attacked near a polling station by a candidate from the Party of Pensioners, SVO participant Alfred Valiev, who, according to Zinatullin, had previously been known for provocations. The police had to intervene in the conflict.
In the village of Nikolskoye, Kostroma Oblast, two flat tires were found on the car of candidate for the Kostroma Municipal District duma, Tatyana Makhova. This was reported by CPRF representative Sergei Shpotin, who published a video from the scene.