He said that most of the observers are experienced people who have been working on elections for several years. Therefore, they pay attention to every small detail. “Today we call it the day of balloons, it was the most frequent violation,” says Makarov. At many polling stations, voters were greeted with balloons that anyone could pick up. People took the balloons and accompanied them to the voting booths. The balls rose and blocked the view of the CCTV camera. After several cases of this type were detected at the electoral surveillance and observation headquarters, observers at the polling stations began to ask voters not to take the balls to the polls.
In some areas it was necessary to move the containers slightly to make them more visible. Observers did not notice any further significant excesses.
Makarov also noted that this time a special monitoring group was organized among observers, which collected complaints on social networks. And there were two cases where people spoke on social media about serious violations. A resident of Dolgoprudny, for example, wrote that the seal on one of the urns was damaged. And in Mytishchi, they allegedly saw people registered in Moscow who were given the opportunity to vote.
“We respond to any information about possible violations. The representatives of the Public Chamber immediately went to both polling stations. And already at the scene they discovered that no one knew about the violations, neither the observers at the polling stations nor the members of the electoral commissions of “That is, no one has filed official complaints anywhere, they just wrote on social networks,” Marina Yudenich, chairwoman of the human rights council of the governor of the Moscow region, told reporters. She recalled: the first What a person who discovers a violation at a polling station should do is write a statement to the electoral commission and law enforcement.
