Russia complains of 'foreign interference in the electoral process'
The Head of the Central Election Commission or CEC of the Russian Federation, Ella Pamfilova claimed foreign interference in the elections of the President of the Russian Federation, which the CEC had already faced.
Pamfilova stated during her interview in Itogi Nedeli (Results of the Week) on Russia’s NTV Channel that the meddling is "very diverse," RIA Novosti reports.
"They take a situation; interpret it completely differently from reality. Then it starts disseminating... And powerful information trash is created aimed at showing that the election is unfair, that everything [in the Russian Federation] is bad. And the observers, including those from the OSCE mission, also had quite interesting situations there. They were interested in things that were very far away from the election. Such occasions I had to anticipate and warn about," Pamfilova stated.
According to her, the CEC is ready for any possible talks of "non-transparency of counts." "We have more than ninety thousand cameras, live webcast on the internet; anyone can watch," she noted. According to the CEC head, the QR-code would exclude virtually any errors. “It will be impossible to forge."
"We will increase by a factor of 2.5 the complexity of processing ballots and counting votes rapidly," the CEC chairwoman pointed out and added that the process of verifying candidates’ signatures is as transparent as possible and is videotaped.
The next Russian Presidential Election is scheduled for March 18, 2018, which is the anniversary of Russia’s annexation of the Crimea.
There have been vote-counting incidents in past elections in the Russian Federation. In 2011, the number of votes exceeded 100% during the publication of the CEC results at several polling stations. For example, Vesti TV channel, transmitting the CEC data in the Sverdlovsk region, counted 115.35% of the voters.