Penza, 13 September 2015. PenzaNews. 1,105 polling stations in the Penza region opened at 8.00 of Sunday, September 13, for the regional gubernatorial election. They will remain operational until 20.00, at which point vote counting will begin.

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The Penza region election committee estimates the voter turnout for the gubernatorial election at 45-50%.

However, as no minimum turnout level was set beforehand, the election will be deemed valid regardless of the eventual constituent turnout.

As PenzaNews agency reported earlier, September 13 is the day of the Penza region gubernatorial election, as well as special elections of deputies for local government bodies of several municipalities.

The five officially registered candidates for the Penza region gubernatorial election are Vladimir Simagin (CPRF), Zhigansha Tuktarov (LDPR), Ivan Belozertsev (United Russia), Gennady Yeroshin (“A Just Russia”) and Vladimir Popkov (“Rodina”).

The previous public gubernatorial election in the Penza region were held in 2002, 13 years ago, when Vasily Bochkarev won the vote and went over for the second term, leaving behind his closest competitor Victor Ilyukhin, State Duma deputy for the Communist Party.

According to the Penza region Ministry of the Interior department, some 1,500 police officers will protect the public peace during the unified election day.

At the time of transfer of electoral registers from territorial committees to polling site commissions [no later than September 2, 2015, according to the law], the number of regional citizens eligible for voting was calculated to be 1,098,928 persons.