The court in Hot Key denied the observer's request to annul the voting results.

The Hot Key City Court refused on October 12 to satisfy Valentina Shostak's claims to annul the voting results at the polling station and to address the violation of her rights as an observer. She has not yet been issued written decisions.

As reported by “Caucasian Knot”, resident of Hot Key, election observer Valentina Shostak demanded through the court to annul the results of the State Duma elections at polling station No. 1001. During the preparation for the hearing, Shostak's claims were divided: one concerned recognizing the voting results at the polling station as invalid, and the other – the violation of her rights as an observer in the precinct election commission 10-10.

The first case was considered by Judge Popov. Shostak challenged the actions of the territorial election commission “Hot Key” and the precinct election commission No. 1001. She indicated that due to inattention, she did not drop the ballot for the single-mandate district into the box. At the same time, the number of ballots in the stationary boxes according to the final protocol matched the number issued to voters. In Shostak's opinion, her ballot could have been counted in the vote tally, and she demanded to recognize the voting results at the polling station as invalid.

The court denied her. “The main arguments were that I was issued ballots. Probably, in the judge's opinion, my rights end there. My opponent was the prosecutor. He believes that the vote counting at the polling station was conducted without violations and the votes were counted correctly,” Shostak told the “Caucasian Knot”.

According to her, the court did not explain how the ballot she did not drop into the box was accounted for, and for which candidate her vote could have been counted.

Claim of violation of observer rights

The second claim was considered by Judge Terekhova. Earlier, Shostak stated that during the vote counting, she was not shown the ballots and her ability to observe the procedure was restricted.

The summoned witness and a member of the election commission with a decisive vote from the CPRF did not attend the hearing, according to the activist. The court considered the case in their absence and denied the claims.

Both hearings, according to Shostak, lasted about an hour. Two listeners attended to support her: one commission member and one observer.

“I was not issued decisions on these cases. They told me to come back in a few days. Therefore, the reasoning is unknown. They just denied,” the activist reported.

She has not yet decided whether to appeal the decisions and considers it a useless waste of time and money. In her opinion, the courts act as advocates for the defendants, working for the authorities, and do not find it necessary to summon them to participate in the process and give testimony.