In Astrakhan, a PEC member claims a fraud attempt

As reported by Natalia Nesterenko, a casting-vote member of the Precinct Election Commission (PEC) No. 538 of the city of Astrakhan, on March 2, at about 4:00 p.m. Moscow time, an attempt was registered to sign the final voting protocol of the presidential election well in advance.

According to her story, told to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent, she was invited by phone to the sitting of the PEC. When she came there, she saw other members of the commission signing some documents.

Natalia Nesterenko, according to her story, asked Natalia Torgashina, the chair of the PEC, about what should be done with these documents; the chair asked to sign them. Among the documents presented to her, according to Nesterenko, she saw an empty form of the final protocol on the voting at the presidential election.

Immediately the police was called; and the operative-investigatory group took the respective actions; an application was written and handed over to the police about initialization of a criminal case on the facts of forgery and falsification of election outcomes.

So far, the "Caucasian Knot" has no comments of the chair of the PEC No. 538 of Astrakhan on Ms Nesterenko's application about the fact of early signing of the voting protocol.

Today, Olga Mitrofanova, the chair of the Trusov TEC, has assured the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that the protocols will be signed only tomorrow, on the election day; she treated the information about the attempt to sign the PEC protocol beforehand as "nonsense."