Ella Pamfilova: “The elections on a single voting day were held in accordance with the law and the procedure established by the CEC of Russia”
On 13 September 2020, during a meeting of the CEC of Russia, the Chairperson of the CEC of Russia, Ella Pamfilova, gave information about the results of the single voting day and violations detected during the voting.
"The election on a single voting day has ended, all votes have been counted. Currently, the election commissions that organize elections determine their results," noted the Chairperson of the CEC of Russia. "If we talk about the results, the elections on the single voting day and the days preceding it were held in accordance with the law and the procedure established by the CEC of Russia. The elections were held openly, publicly and in a highly competitive environment. The election results fully reflect the will of the voters. Candidates who really had the support of citizens, including those who call themselves opposition, were elected."
Ella Pamfilova announced the cancellation of voting results at four polling stations – in the Krasnodar territory (PS 2059), Lipetsk (PSs 2331 and 2332) and Rostov (PS 298) regions. The reason for the cancellation is to exclude doubts about the authenticity of the will of the voters.
The Chairperson of the CEC of Russia also reported that part of the ballots at 40 polling stations in 21 regions of the Russian Federation was declared invalid: in the Belgorod region – at seven polling stations; in the Novosibirsk region – at six; in the Komi Republic – at four; in the Republic of Tatarstan, Krasnoyarsk territory, Oryol, Ryazan and Tambov regions – at two polling stations in each of the regions; in the Republic of Mari El, Krasnodar territory, Astrakhan, Ivanovo, Kaliningrad, Kostroma, Kurgan, Magadan, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Orenburg, Rostov and Saratov regions – at one polling station in each of the regions.
"We have already stated that number of such cases demonstrates the impartial attitude of members of election commissions to the issues of maintaining confidence in the electoral system of all its participants and the concious attitude of members of election commissions to ensuring the legitimacy of the electoral process," stressed Ella Pamfilova. "Therefore, we were very surprised by a number of publications, mostly in the foreign press, about the results of the elections on a single voting day in Russia."
The Chairperson of the CEC of Russia noted the publication of the BBC, which, after listing the election results, lives a statement that on Sunday, a large number of complaints about violations at polling stations appeared in the media and social networks with a link to the website of the "Golos" movement and the "Map of violations".
"The CEC of Russia has repeatedly pointed out that unverified information is published on the resource called "Map of violations". Information from anonymous sources is placed there without any verification. In most cases, these messages are unreliable," said Ella Pamfilova. "If you carefully study this resource, you can see that there are only a few messages posted by sources described by the authors as "reliable". And when this fact was noticed by other experts, the authors of the site shamefacedly removed the mark of reliability of the source of the message. This resource needs the agencies "Molniya" and "Vremya", which are, as we now understand, the main suppliers of "signals about possible violations". Following that logic it turns out that more than 177,500 observers, 75,500 members of commissions with the right of advisory vote, 3,800 representatives from 1,271 mass media, as well as more than 500,000 members of precinct election commissions with the right to vote from political parties conspired together and did not record violations."
During the meeting of the CEC of Russia, Ella Pamfilova discussed reports of alleged violations during the voting with the leadership of several election commissions of the subjects of the Russian Federation. Individual reports were reviewed on the ground and found unreliable by regional commissions.