Penza, 19 January 2015. PenzaNews. Nikolai Taktarov, chairman of the Penza region election committee, made a statement on the lawsuit that ordered a recount of votes at the polling stations No. 32 and No. 33 of the district No. 7. The dispute occurred over the results of the election to the city Duma of sixth convocation.

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“Since the state law has nothing to say about the manner of recount, we have no official recommendations on how to conduct it. However, the federal Votee Protection Law has a term ‘election list manipulations’ that takes place immediately before counting the votes; ‘vote count’; ‘vote revision’ used to add any necessary information to the result protocol. The court had no statement on working with election list. Because of that, we found the court order very ambiguous,” says the statement of Nikolai Taktarov provided for PenzaNews agency on Monday, January 19.

It also states that the Penza region election committee addressed the Oktyabrsky area court on December 24, 2014, with a request to clarify its decision and possible freedoms.

“The election committee staff will no doubt follow the order after the court clarifies if ‘recount’ means only recounting the votes or fully performing the required manipulations,” says the statement.

“Our actions have no aim to cause any red tape, but to avoid any errors,” believes Nikolai Taktarov.

As PenzaNews agency reported earlier, Monday, September 15, it became known that Penza Election Commission sent a request to the court for a partial cancellation of the voting in district No.7 — they questioned the validity of the ballots.

According to the regional election committee, in district No. 7 the votes are distributed as follows: Vasily Zhuravlev (United Russia) — 46,59%, Lyudmila Kolomytseva (self-nominated) — 46,52%, Anton Ishchenko (LDPR) — 2,15% and Timur Yusupov (Russian Party of National Control) — 1,64%.

The difference between the two closest rivals made only two voices: Vasily Zhuravlev received 1,453 ballots, Lyudmila Kolomytseva — 1,451.

Later it was reported that Lyudmila Kolomytseva expressed disagreement with the results of the vote counting at two polling stations and also sent a petition to the court.

During the meeting held on Friday, September 19, it was decided to combine the claims for co-production of one civil case.

On September 22, Oktyabrsky district court of Penza annulled election results to the City Duma of the sixth convocation at the polling stations No. 32 and No. 33, and ordered a recount.

On October 22, the first tier court decision on the case of Vasily Zhuravlev and United Russia party were countered.

On December 11, the court commission on administrative cases reviewed the complaints as well as a request from Elena Kosolapova, a person unrelated to the case. They disagreed with the decision of the Oktyabrsky regional court. All three complaints were left unsatisfied.

Moreover, the court discussion denied the decision of the city election committee to set the date of vote recount for the polling stations No. 32 and No. 33 of the district No. 7.

On December 25, Lyudmila Kolomytseva said the Penza region election committee attempts to delay the recount because they do not want to touch the election lists.