Officials to train polling employees on how to undermine elections observers
The Moscow regional elections committee will hold special training seminars for local elections workers on how to undermine observers from the independent elections-monitoring NGO “Golos.”
According to Irek Vildanov, the head of the regional elections committee, officials have worked out an entire educational program dedicated to defying elections observers. The lessons will be given at the training center for polling employees working in Moscow.
Officials plan to train 51,000 polling employees. They will learn how to use photo and video cameras to film the activities of Golos observers and how to remove them from polling stations.
“We plan to photograph and film these people—we will recommend to our committees to film and photograph their behavior. If they behave inappropriately, we will report the violations and mercilessly remove them from the polling stations—mercilessly,” emphasized the head of the Moscow region elections committee.
Golos is an independent election-monitoring organization. Golos employees monitor elections all over Russia for compliance with electoral law and voting procedures. Golos also gathers complaints from polling stations about violations noted by other observers and citizens. The organization has been branded a “foreign agent” and its employees have been harassed by law enforcement repeatedly over the past several years. For more on how Golos works in Russia, see Russia’s most foreign agent: How one human rights group became the country’s most harassed organization
Russia's nationwide general elections for local parliaments and legislative assemblies took place on September 13. Golos received more than 700 complaints about violations of protocol at various polling stations. Golos employees also said that they were illegally banned from filming a polling station in the Moscow region. For more on Russia’s most recent election, see This is how Russia ‘votes’: Recapping the latest round of managed democracy