Crimea prints ballots and waits for referendum and observers from the OSCE

OSCE chairmanship country Switzerland received an invitation to its observers, both from individual countries and the ODIHR, to attend the referendum in Crimea on March 16, reports the Supreme Council of Crimea.

Meanwhile, in Simferopol, the Government Printing Office "Tavrida" started printing ballots for voting in the referendum on the status of Crimea, the head of the referendum commission Mikhail Malyshev said.

"Today at 11am the printing office started the production of ballots," says Malyshev, RIA Novosti reports.

In total, 1.55 million ballots are to be printed for the referendum. In Crimea, according to the state registry of voters, 1,534,000 voters were registered by February 28.

The head of the referendum commission also said that all the ballots will be printed on A5 sheets of paper; in order to protect against counterfeiting, a lemon-colored shading film in the form of intersecting ellipses will be applied.