Home voting could have distorted outcome of Moscow mayoral elections – Golos movement

(Interfax – MOSCOW, September 9, 2013) Human rights activists call the organization of the Sunday mayoral elections in Moscow exemplary but quoting their own sources say that a runoff could be held to determine the mayor.

“There were no crude breaches of law, but there were subtle irregularities which we still have to study,” cochairman of Golos movement council Grigory Melkonyants said at a Monday press conference in Moscow.

He said that compared to previous elections the Sunday voting was exemplary.

In his opinion, home voting could have impacted the outcome of the Moscow election. “In conditions of low turnout this could have distorted the election returns,” he said.

“Social workers compiled lists of the people they take care of and submitted the lists as requests for voting,” Melkonyants said.

He said that during the last week before the elections senior citizens and disabled received personal letters and various presents. He regarded this as an attempt to compel them to vote.

An expert of the movement, Andrei Buzin, said that the number of breaches of procedure was small.

“The number of breaches of procedure was significantly smaller than the figure which we used to see before,” he said.

Golos said that according to its knowledge there should have been a runoff in the elections. Its members said that the Honest District Elections Commission project collected voting acts from monitors at 1,998 polling stations in Moscow.

“According to them, Sobyanin collected 49.46% of the vote and a runoff would be in question,” cochairman of Golos, Roman Udot, said.

He said that Golos continues to receive data.