Report on the results of monitoring of the first day of early voting at the elections of President of the Republic of Belarus in 2015

The early voting started at the elections of President of the Republic of Belarus started on October 6 in conformity with the Electoral Code of the Republic of Belarus. 

More than 400 short-term observers of the campaign “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections” conduct daily monitoring of early voting at more than 200 polling stations all over Belarus. 

The results of the voting are processed everyday and are representative (monitoring is held at 3.24% of 6,129 polling stations) and allow to judge about the main tendencies in the conduct of early voting.

The information below was received by processing the data received from 155 polling stations by 10.00 a.m. on October 7.

Registered violations

Forcing to voting took place at 10.6% of the polling stations. 
Non-members of precinct election commissions (PECs) interfered with the work of the commissions at 11.5% of the polling stations. 

Conditions for observation

At 2.5% of polling stations observers were deprived of the opportunity to monitor the sealing of the ballot boxes.
At 3.5% of polling stations obstacles were created for the independent observers who counted the electors who have cast their votes.
At 1.2% of polling stations accreditation denials were issued to independent observers. 

Participation in early voting

The protocols with the data of the early voting were hung out at all 155 polling stations (100%). According to calculations of independent observers, the number of the persons who cast their votes on the first day of the early voting is 10,344 people, whereas according to the protocols of the PECs it is 10,949 people. The difference is 605 people, or 5.5%.