High voter turnout in Chechnya achieved by added ballots

The high turnout at the polling stations in the Chechen Republic, despite the almost complete absence of voters, was due to election commission employees casting ballots that they had filled in beforehand. This was privately confirmed by workers at the voting sites.

According to the Central Election Commission of the Chechen Republic, almost 83% of the voters registered in the republic took part in the election of the President of the Russian Federation by 6:00 p.m. on March 14.

In fact, no more than 200-300 people on average came to the voting sites, which translates into 10-15% of all registered voters, stated the employees of local election commissions.

According to Ziyavdi Chagayev, vice-chairman of the election commission at precinct No. 403, located in the Staropromyslovsky district of Grozny, the percentage of voters and votes for candidates had been set beforehand. "Two days prior to the election, each local election commission chairman received a notice from the territorial election commission about how big the voter turnout should be and how many votes each candidate should receive," he said.

"We didn't worry that there would be more ballots in the box than the actual number of voters. We've gained experience: in previous elections no more than 200 people voted at our polling site. So we had just accepted the difference," stated Chagayev.

And similar situations, indeed, occurred in every voting district of the republic. "On Saturday, employees of all local election commissions in Chechnya filled in ballots according to the instructions; and on Sunday, Election Day, they only had to drop them into the ballot boxes," added Chagayev.

Many election observers who are supposed to stop such goings on were absent at voting sites. Those who did show up declared they witnessed no infringements. "The work at the polling sites is organized well. People are voting actively," stated Inal Vedzizhev, an observer for the United Russia political party.

Vedzizhev explained the absence of voters at the moment by the bad weather. "Now it's raining so people don't want to go out. In the morning, when the sun shone, there were many voters," he said.

However, when Chechens were asked on Election Day whether they had voted, they said no and explained that in the situation when the future President was already known, their participation made no difference. "Why should we go? Everything has already been decided for us," was the standard reply.

"It doesn't matter whether I went to vote or not, my ballot will appear in a ballot box anyway. The outcome of this election was obvious beforehand," said Tamara Yunusova, editor of the Molodyozhnaya Smena newspaper.