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Observers say Russia fully meets principles of open fair election

The independent observers did not see any infractions on the voting procedures at the polling stations they visited and the remarks they made had a limited character
Photo ITAR-TASS
Photo ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, March 5 (Itar-Tass) — Russia has shown full compliance with the principles of fair and open elections, says a statement that a group of independent foreign monitoring experts made public Monday at the information center of the Chamber of Commerce and Industries in Moscow.

The head of the group, U.S. Attorney Kline Preston said the independent observers did not see any infractions on the voting procedures at the polling stations they visited and the remarks they made had a limited character.

The checklists filled that were filled by the observers and that have been processed prove that the remarks on the procedures were singular and the removal of Russian observers was registered at only 1% of the polling stations, the statement said.

Faulty operations of the web cameras, with the aid of which the voting process was controlled nationwide, were also registered at only 1% stations and only 3% stations did not have special equipment for disabled voters.

At one of the stations, the processing of the list of voters was still in progress when the electoral commission members unsealed the ballot boxes.

A total of 90% members of the monitoring group gave a goodmark to Sunday's presidential election and only ten percent said the election was satisfactory, Kline Preston said adding that there were no badmarks.

The international observers' checklists can be viewed in the Internet.