Russia's Central Elections Commission (CEC) may annul State Duma election results in Mytishchi, a suburb of Moscow, after the Novaya Gazeta newspaper published an investigation into electoral violations in the town.
"If [the claims of violations] are true, then we, the Central Election Commission, will be the first to do everything possible to ensure that the perpetrators are punished, to take the matter to court and even annul the election results in the town of Mytishchi," CEC head Ella Pamfilova said in an interview with the TASS news service.
Pamfilova also warned that there was an attempt to discredit the results of the election.
"According to all data, all facts which have been gathered, a massive information war has begun in order to discredit the recent elections," she said.
Pamifilova said that her office has already prepared requests for an investigation and will send them to the Prosecutor General's office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Investigative Committee. She also promised to form a working group and invite the journalists from Novaya Gazeta to participate.
On Monday, Novaya Gazeta published an article alleging violations in Mytishchi during the State Duma election in September. The paper analyzed 84 out of a total of 98 polling stations in the town and concluded that 68 stations showed discrepancies in their results when compared with the state's automated vote-counting system.
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