Russia’s Presidential Council denies reports of voting violations

Nearly all of the reports of electoral violations collected by the voter protection movement “Golos” during the plebiscite on constitutional amendments are false, says Alexander Brod, a member of Russia’s Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights and co-chair of the association “Civil Control.”

“Our observers, experts, and human rights defenders state that 92 percent of the reported complaints constitute fake information,” Brod said.

The Golos movement’s preliminary report on the early voting period (June 25–June 30) states that as of 1:00 p.m., Moscow time, on June 30, they had received 1,587 reports, of which 682 contained evidence of voting violations.

Brod insisted that “going by Golos’s logic and their style of work,” one can assume that the number of complaints about violations could reach 5,000.

We can safely say that this organization is not interested in the purity of electoral procedures, on the contrary, it undermines citizens’ trust in the electoral system, constantly [and] unreasonably criticizes the institute of public observers, and posts any negative information on its site without any verification.

On June 30, the head of Russia’s Central Elections Commission, Ella Pamfilova, stated that the central commission had received 467,000 reports regarding voting. A little more than 2 percent of these messages are complaints about shortcomings or reports of violations, Pamfilova said. According to Pamfilova, these reports include 134 complaints about voter coercion.

Russia’s nationwide vote on constitutional amendments (including reforms that could keep President Vladimir Putin in power until 2036) is running from June 25 to July 1. Online voting ends at 8 p.m., Moscow time, on June 30. Most in-person voting is expected to take place on July 1.