Voter turnout in Russia’s State Duma elections stood at 40.79% at the end of the second day of voting, Interfax reported, citing data from the Central Election Commission.
According to a tally by Vazhnye Istorii, ballots at thousands of polling stations across the country were processed at an unusually high rate.
Throughout the day, reports circulated of widespread pressure on election observers. Voting for the State Duma is taking place in Russia from 18 t0 20 September. By the end of the second day, turnout had surpassed 40%.
Vazhnye Istorii counted about 4,500 polling stations that, on the very first day, processed ballots at abnormally high speeds.
The outlet reported that while the national average was around 20 ballots processed per hour at each station, some sites recorded speeds as high as 230 ballots per hour—roughly four people per minute.
The highest concentration of these “high-speed” sites was found in Chechnya, North Ossetia, Leningrad, Voronezh, Smolensk and Ivanovo regions, as well as in Dagestan and the Khanty-Mansiysk autonomous district.
On the second day of voting, reports of mass pressure on observers continued nationwide. An election monitor from Yabloko in St. Petersburg reportedly lost consciousness after police used force against him.
Yabloko, which set up a hotline for election observers and voters, said it received reports throughout the day of attacks on candidates, the detention or exclusion of observers from polling sites, ballot safe boxes being opened, and citizens being pressured to use online voting instead of paper ballots.
For example, in Moscow, voters at more than ten polling stations were reportedly discouraged from using paper ballots and told that electronic voting was now the “main” and “priority” method.
There were also reports of voters being bused in, and hotline callers complained of finding their names on voter lists as already having cast ballots, despite not yet having participated.
The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) also reported violations. CPRF State Duma deputy Sergei Kazankov published video footage showing a polling station worker in Mari El allegedly stuffing two stacks of ballots into the ballot box while observers were out of the room.
Meanwhile, by the evening of September 19, the whereabouts of Yulia Kuznetsova, a State Duma candidate from the Green Party who went missing in Moscow on September 17, had still not been determined.
The day before, she released a video saying she was “fine,” but her supporters claimed the video was likely recorded under duress. There was still no information on her or her husband’s location or condition.
On the first day of voting, 92% of voters in Moscow cast their ballots electronically, according to previous reporting.
More than 1,300 observers were also reportedly barred from polling stations on 18 September.
(UAWire)
