Smena, the website that published the video of a woman stuffing a ballot box on 2 December, has now published more images filmed in the same polling station. This second video shows the fraudsters folding the voting slips before putting them in the box. The person in charge of Smena said that they didn’t publish this film before because they wanted to wait for the reaction and denial of the authorities first. They say that they have yet more videos proving fraud.

By Team Observers

This video, filmed on a mobile phone, was originally posted on www.smena.info, a site hosted by Smena, a relatively unknown Russian opposition group. It has since been snapped up by numerous television chains. It shows a woman stuffing a ballot box with voting papers at a polling centre. In the background, a man’s voice asks her, in Russian, to “turn over the ballot slip”. The rest is inaudible. At the end of the film, however, we hear the person who’s filming ask a guard: “Do you have any pistols? Which model?” The video is dated Dec. 2, Russia's parliamentary election day. But the tape date, and its authenticity, are yet to be verified. Our regional editor, Maria Antonova, and our observer Anastasiya Lebedev, will keep us updated.

Material compiled by our Russian/ former-USSR regional editor, Maria Antonova

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