“I propose that the Central Election Commission, in accordance with the law, sign documents and determine the results of elections of deputies of the State Duma of the eighth convocation,” said the head of the CEC Ella Pamfilova at a meeting of the commission.
Exactly at 13.02 Moscow time, the members of the Central Election Commission, in the presence of representatives of the parties participating in the election race, signed the final protocol, and then a summary table with the voting results. “These documents objectively reflect all the results of the elections that took place on September 17, 18 and 19,” said the head of the commission, Ella Pamfilova.
According to the protocol and the summary table, five parties entered the State Duma of the eighth convocation according to the lists, the mandates between them were distributed as follows:
- United Russia – 324
- Communist Party – 57
- “Fair Russia – For the Truth” – 27
- LDPR – 21
- “New People” – 13.
Rodina, Civic Platform and the Party of Growth received one mandate each in the districts. Also, 5 self-nominated candidates were among the 450 deputies of the lower house of parliament.
Many thanks to our voters. We did everything we could, proceeding from our understanding of honor and conscience, and it’s up to you to judge. These were the most difficult choices
The head of the CEC, Ella Pamfilova, in her report on the voting results, assessed the competition among parties and candidates. According to the commission, 14 political parties nominated 58.8 thousand candidates for elections at all levels. If we talk about the Duma campaign, the competition for one mandate on party lists was 17 candidates for a seat, in single-mandate constituencies – 9 candidates. Thus, the quantitative competition in the elections was high, the head of the CEC stated. And the quality of the candidates was determined by the voters, she added.
The turnout this time turned out to be higher than in the last elections to the State Duma: in 2016 it was 47.88%. This year, 109,204,662 people were included in the voter lists, 51.72% of citizens with active suffrage came to the polling stations.
“Many thanks to our voters. We did everything we could, based on our understanding of honor and conscience, and it is up to you to judge. These were the most difficult elections,” Ella Pamfilova said. I would like to express my gratitude to members of election commissions of all levels, who ensured voting at 96 thousand polling stations on September 17, 18 and 19.
The CEC did not record any serious violations that could affect the results of the people’s will. In total, since the announcement of the Duma elections, the commission received 8394 appeals, of which only 166 were signals about possible coercion to vote and 200 about alleged falsifications. The materials were transferred to law enforcement agencies, the Investigative Committee and the Prosecutor General’s Office, said Ella Pamfilova.
The CEC did not record any serious violations that could affect the results of the people’s will
She also answered all those who, within an hour after the start of voting, started talking about the “dirty” elections and the off-scale number of violations. The real scale of violations, she said, is evidenced, for example, by the number of canceled ballots. The head of the CEC stressed that she demanded from her colleagues in the regions to mercilessly suppress abuses and cancel the results wherever there are doubts about their reliability. Thus, as a result of the checks, “the commissions recognized 40 605 ballots invalid at 157 polling stations in 43 regions of the country,” Pamfilova said.
She clarified that this is “only four ten thousandths of a percent of the ballots issued to voters.” “Is this a dirty campaign?” – the chairman of the Central Election Commission is perplexed.
Anyone who disagrees with the results should submit substantive complaints, and not “blueprint blanks” that only distract the commissions from their work, Pamfilova added.
By the way, not a single complaint requiring collegial consideration at the CEC level was received. One of the few appeals was from Yabloko, which the commission examined in the morning, before approving the final results of the Duma elections. The commission members did not find any serious grounds for not recognizing the results, which the applicants insisted on, and they refused to satisfy the complaint. Ella Pamfilova called Yabloko’s actions a provocation. “You disrupted our work. Cynically. They brought a complaint by eight o’clock in the evening, putting the entire CEC apparatus in an extreme situation. This is ugly, this is a deliberate provocation, it does not honor you,” she said at the meeting.
Ella Pamfilova also responded to opponents of the three-day vote. “You are against it, but the people are for it,” she said, and cited as evidence a petition against the multi-day format, which “has barely collected 30,000 signatures since May”. “Here is your base, those who speculate on this topic. The three-day voting has justified itself in a pandemic. We will analyze this situation further,” Ella Pamfilova said.
The work of the CEC in the elections does not end with summing up the results. The Duma campaign will officially finish after all parties and candidates have submitted financial reports. This work will be completed by December.
In the coming days, the new deputies will also have a lot to do. The law states that the winner of the election, within five days after receiving the notification of the election, must confirm his intention to work in parliament or resign from his mandate. Among single-mandate candidates, cases of refusal are an exception; shifts in party lists occur more often. A deputy elected from the list has the right to transfer his mandate to a party member registered in the elections. One and the same people’s deputy may participate in the distribution of mandates no more than two times. However, parties, as a rule, promptly resolve personnel issues. The State Duma has already created a commission for the preparation of the first plenary session of the chamber, it should take place on the thirtieth day after the election. The President of Russia has the right to convene a meeting earlier than this date.
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