Baranavichy election commission member files complaint over vote count violations

In Baranavichy Viktar Syrytsa, an election commission member and activist of movement ‘For Freedom’, who voted against the approval of the final protocol, has filed a complaint to the CEC and the Prosecutor’s Office.

“In my opinion, the tabulation of votes was carried out with violations of the law, which I recorded in the final protocol. The remaining 12 members of the city election commission signed the protocol without having information on the results of the ballot, which is a gross violation of the Electoral Code,” Mr Syrytsa told news agency BelaPAN.

According to him, all members of the city election commission were divided into four groups which were taken were placed in different offices of the executive committee. Then they received part of final protocols and ballots, naviny.by report.

Later the chairwoman went from office to office, collected final protocols of precinct election commissions and took them to the ideological department of the city executive committee, where its employee and a member of the city election commission were counting the number of citizens who had voted and were preparing the final report.

Other members of the committee were only passive observers complying with ordinary requests (repayment of unused ballots, delivery of ballots, etc), he said.

“During the early voting Baranavichy city executive committee practically excluded the city election commission from fulfill its obligations. In particular, all the data from polling station were received by the ideological department of the executive committee, not on by the electoral commission,” Syrytsa said.

On October 12, Viktar Syrytsa sent a complaint to the Central Election Commission and to Baranavichy district prosecutor’s office.