There is no polling station, equipped with Web cameras, which at least one person, registered on the website webvybory2012.ru, would not like to watch on the day of the presidential elections, a spokesman for "Rostelecom" told RIA Novosti.
Website webvybory2012.ru is open on February 3 until Sunday midnight, anyone can register on it and select any number of sites to monitor on election day. Many of the selected sites are in Moscow because of famous people’s interest in voting.
"There are more sites in Russia which are not selected for monitoring by at least one user. The sites selected by only one user are now about 300," the representative of "Rostelecom" says.
It will be impossible to register on the site and change the list of selected monitoring sites after midnight. According to recent reports, voiced by the head of the Ministry of Communications Igor Shchegolev, 670,000 people have registered on the website
The system of web-broadcasting of the presidential elections on March 4, 2012, initiated by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, has been organized in order to prevent possible fraud.
During the project, all the polling stations, except for closed and mobile ones, should be equipped with video surveillance cameras. According to the technical requirements which "Rostelecom" follows, the system will cover about 91 thousand local electoral commissions, and its performance will allow connecting 25 million users with the possibility of concurrent views of 60,000 images from one camera. One can follow broadcasts on the website webvybory2012.ru.
OJSC "Rostelecom" is defined by the Russian government as the sole provider of internet broadcasting of voting procedures and counting of votes in the presidential elections.
Moscow police will not allow any provocations during the elections and would prevent any illegal action, the Chief of the Main Administration of the Ministry of the Interior (GUMVD) of Russia in Moscow, Vladimir Kolokoltsev, told a briefing in Moscow. "In general, the GUMVD of Russia in Moscow is ready to conduct all the activities planned in the city. We are ready to provide the proper arrangements for and security of citizens taking part in elections and political activities," Kolokoltsev says.
At the same time, he warned citizens against organizing and participating in provocations during the voting and mass actions. "We are concerned about the fact that the action is being prepared with the goal of questioning the legitimacy of the electoral process. We analyzed the incoming information on social networks and other sources and concluded that such attempts are being planned. I declare that we will respond to provocations with force, within the law," Kolokoltsev added.
He cites as an example one type of provocative action: a voter receives a ballot paper and simulates the voting process, pretending to put the ballot in the ballot box while in fact hiding it. Then he or she goes out and passes the ballot to another person who makes a mark for one of the candidates, goes to the polling station and tries to put the ballot in the ballot box.
"At this point, the specially hired people make a noise and this serves as evidence that the elections are illegitimate. Such actions directly affect order and public safety in the city, they are aimed at rousing citizens to unauthorized actions which, in the condition of mass gatherings, can lead to unpredictable consequences, and we will respond by all means," Kolokoltsev said.
He also sharply criticizes internet calls to "arm the people with reinforcement steel, grafts from shovels and similar items," found out by the police. "I do not advise anyone to test the strength of the security forces in Moscow. We are pulling in additional forces to Moscow, and it is no secret why this is being done. We are ready to provide security, but peace of mind during the election process and mass actions depends also on the behavior of citizens. We urge you not to succumb to provocations and stay in the legal field," the head of the GUMVD of Moscow says.
He added that the police in Moscow would not interfere in the electoral process, but that violations of the law wou;d not be tolerated. "Police should not interfere in the election process, but will stop and record any violations of the law, including those from members of electoral commissions," Kolokoltsev said. He noted that to reinforce the police who will be on duty at polling stations, a special group of skilled employees has been created, which, when receiving information about violations, will go the place and document it. "The position is clearly articulated: we should record any violations but distinguish them from provocations," Kolokoltsev reports.
The Moscow authorities, in turn, urged citizens to avoid travelling to the city center by car on the evening of March 5 and use public transport instead. As Deputy Mayor Alexander Gorbenko reported at a briefing on Saturday, the meetings which will be held on Sunday afternoon cause the authorities less concern because of the lack of major traffic at this time. In addition, the actions have been shifted to a later time, after 8 pm or even 9 pm, in order not to hold a meeting during the voting period, when any campaigning is prohibited.
However, the City Hall worries that two major rallies on Monday - on Pushkin Square and on Manege Square - could stop traffic on Tverskaya Street. "The peculiarity of these meetings is that their organizers can hardly predict the number of participants,” Gorbenko tells. “We should foresee and elaborate the scheme of action in case of a significant excess of this number."
According to the chief of Moscow’s police department, Vladimir Kolokoltsev, who also took part in the briefing, the police are preparing to minimize the burden on the transport network in any case. So by increasing and decreasing the number of protesters on Pushkin Square, one lane of traffic will be correspondingly closed and opened and, if necessary, Tverskaya Street will be blocked. In addition, the possibility of rescheduling the work of underground and surface transport is also being considered.
At the same time, Kolokoltsev warns, all the elaborated schemes will work only if there is no "provocation aimed at destabilizing the situation." Otherwise, order in Moscow will be threatened. "I am also concerned about the statements by the organizers of the authorized rallies about their continuation in the form of processions," Kolokoltsev said. What a suggestion to walk really means we saw in December." According to him, the police will not allow the traffic problems of the populous city to be exacerbated and passage of emergency services to be prevented. "We will thwart any attempts at disorganization in the city. As for penalties - administrative detention will be the penalty," Kolokoltsev warns.
"To date, all questions of organizing and conducting public events have been discussed with the applicants and all questions have been cleared up," he explains.
"The organizers can hardly know how many participants will come. So we have to consider possible options of taking measures in the case of a significant excess of protesters," he added.
Earlier, the head of the Central Electoral Commission of Russia, Vladimir Churov, said that the CEC did not record any significant deviations from the law during the presidential campaign of the Russian Federation. "The campaign for the presidential elections is being completed, it has been held in a relaxed atmosphere, and we have not received any complaints regarding the preparations for voting. All the complaints received are related to campaigning, the candidates complain about each other, but no one complained about access to the media. Everyone who wanted to speak in the media, succeeded, no one was denied. There are complaints about the unevenness in the coverage of certain events by informants. The complaints have been considered by the CEC, no serious deviations from the law were found," Churov says.
"We have received and are checking the information from the police, that one of the NGOs funded from abroad empowered its representatives in two regions of Siberia to buy absentee ballots. The information is being checked, investigations are being conducted, and all across the country 11 such cases have been revealed," the head of CEC reported.
According to him, the Central Electoral Commission supervises the issuance of each absentee ballot and can check where it was used for voting.
