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Voting and Determination of Election Results
The new Federal Law contains detailed provisions regulating organization of voting, determination of voting returns and election results.
The Law establishes special rules for the printing of ballots and absentee certificates as documents of strict accountability (Articles 71 and 72), placing a special emphasis on openness and publicity of this process.
In accordance with Clause 10 Article 71 of the Federal Law the printing establishment which produced ballots, discards the rejects and delivers ballots to the duly authorized members of the election commission which placed an order for their production. The delivery must be formalized in a transfer record indicating the date and time when the record was drawn up and the number of delivered ballots. Immediately after delivery of the ordered quantity of ballots the staff of the printing establishment must destroy the rejected and surplus ballots and draw up a certificate to this effect to be signed by all persons present thereat. These actions may be witnessed by other members of the election commission, registered candidates, authorized representatives of electoral associations, electoral blocs, their agents, if they wish to do so. The election commission must notify them about the time and place for the delivery of ballots and the printing establishment must make it possible for these persons to be present.
Observers whom you send to concrete electoral precincts may be present when a precinct election commission counts votes and draws up a protocol of voting returns. In pursuance of Clause 27 Article 77 of the new Federal Law, immediately after the protocols of voting returns have been signed, a precinct election commission must issue certified copies of the protocols to your observers.
The new Federal Law introduces the institution of «public control» in which an important role is played by non-voting members of election commissions and by observers. It is these persons who exercise control over voting on voting day and when votes are being counted at polling stations. This is a major guarantee that the election results will be determined in accordance with the requirements of the Federal Law and voting returns will not be rigged by members of election commissions, other participants in the electoral process.
It would be extremely important if influential political public associations which contest parliamentary elections and have extensive regional and local structures established their own information systems that would furnish their headquarters with accurate information from each of 93 thousand electoral precincts. The presence of such a system in at least two electoral associations or blocs of different political orientations is a reliable additional guarantee that the results of the election of deputies to the State Duma of the third convocation will be determined in strict compliance with the expression of the will of Russian Federation citizens.
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