Observers will be told Monday if they are allowed to count votes

Meanwhile in Babruisk, a specimen ballot paper was hung in the polling booth so that it was hinting

Halina Lisitsyna, UDF’s election monitoring coordinator in the Mahilyou region, says that the constituency election commission responds to some requests from observers. However, it will be too late when this respond comes. For instance, the constituency election commission today sent out a respond on whether observers would be allowed to monitor the vote count. But it will arrive on Monday only.

Observers spotted an interesting violation in the constituency No 78 in Babruisk. A sample voting paper was hung in the polling booth to show how people should vote. Hanna Hatavets says:

“The name of the candidate is Karlyak. He is No 3 on the list. A tick is put against his name. The name begins with K”.

Vasil Palyakou, an observer from UDF in the Homel region, says it is impossible to obtain information from the election commission about the number of those who voted today. The information about early voting from the election commission differs greatly from the records gathered by observers.

“According to calculations by observers, 194 people cast votes at the 18th polling stations of the Constituency No 34, while election commissions report that 504 voters allegedly came to the polls.

Alexander Bukhvostov, UDF’s election monitoring coordinator, says that the majority of polling stations have no space for observers.  “Almost not a single polling station in the Shabany Constituency is equipped for a proper monitoring procedure. There are no tables for observers. The question of election control is pushed into the background”, he said.

Siarhei Vakupenka, an observer from Kobryn at the polling station No 1, says the commission chairman refused to bring the ballot box for early voting while Vakulenka was holding a camera in his hands.

“At the moment the voting began, I requested the commission chairperson to bring around a ballot box for early voting. She demanded that I remove my camera and would bring the box only if I hid the camera”.

Observers are now writing statements on the acts of violations. But many doubt that regional commissions will recognize these violations. According to Vasil Palyakou, election commissions are most likely to announce that the violations have not affected the polling results.