ELECTIONS-2015. Vitebsk Regional Election Commission notes the high quality of work carried out by initiative groups

The number of unreliable signatures for the nomination of presidential candidates in the Vitebsk region indicates serious preparation and the quality of the signature collection process itself. This opinion was expressed by the Chairman of the Regional Election Commission, Dmitry Khoma, after considering the issue of establishing the number of voters who signed in support of proposals for the nomination of candidates for the President of Belarus in the Vitebsk region at a meeting of the regional election commission.

"The number of signatures collected by five initiative groups in our region and found to be unreliable during the verification process was about 300. This is a small number. Considering that each candidate had no more than 1% of such signatures identified, we can talk about serious preparation and the quality of the work of the initiative groups themselves," noted Dmitry Khoma. He added that the commission members had no questions regarding the submitted materials, protocols, and acts, and the decision to establish the number of signatures was made promptly and unanimously. Now, the regional election commission is to submit all documents to the Central Election Commission by September 5.

Among the initiative groups, the most active was the group collecting signatures in support of Alexander Lukashenko – over 281 thousand signatures were submitted to the territorial election commissions, of which almost 280 thousand were recognized as reliable. The smallest number of signatures – 1 thousand 655, of which 9 were recognized as unreliable – were collected by members of the initiative group of Viktor Tereshchenko.

According to Dmitry Khoma, the signature collection for the nomination of presidential candidates proceeded calmly, without incident. The placement of pickets of different initiative groups in close proximity to each other to some extent contributed to greater public awareness of the election process taking place in the country.

The regional election commission also added that during the reporting period, 6 appeals against the decisions of executive committees on the formation of precinct election commissions were received by the region's courts. Of these, 4 were considered and not satisfied, and 2 were left without consideration.

Ekaterina Knyazeva, BELTA.