Penza, 14 September 2015. PenzaNews. The September 13 Penza region gubernatorial election went well, said the chairman of the regional election committee Nikolai Taktarov during a briefing in the morning of Monday, September 14, after the election day.

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“I am glad to state and claim that the election went well overall. There were no conflicts, no complaints from polling stations, no forceful removals of election supervisors,” he elaborated.

Discussing the topic of violations, Nikolai Taktarov admitted the regional election committee received only two complaints yesterday, and neither proved to be accurate.

“We are currently analyzing the reports from the locations, as we only received it a day ago. But I can tell you that the regional election committee received only two reports yesterday. One was about the fact that the billboards with election advertising were not removed, but the law allows for that. They must be located no les than 50 meters from a polling station, that is what’s important. That requirement was not violated, so there were not issues. And the second complaint was about the alleged words of Ivan Alexandrovich [Belozertsev] quoted in the newspaper ‘Kommersant’ that he allegedly helped all candidates to gain signatures in their support. We analyzed that material and found no such words in it. It listed completely different words and different meanings. That means neither of the two complaints were proven true,” the regional election committee head explained.

He also announced that the voter turnout during the Penza region gubernatorial election reached 62.26% of the electorate.

“This is a very good result for a regional election. Usually, the highest turnout is during federal-level election or when people choose the new President, then comes the State Duma election, and regional and municipal ones trail behind. This is a very good turnout level for the regional election,” Nikolai Taktarov stressed.

He also clarified the preliminary figures that had been announced at 5.00 of Monday, September 14.

“Ivan Alexandrovich Belozertsev [of United Russia] received 588,265 votes, or 86.04% of the people who voted. Vladimir Alexandrovich Simagin [of CPRF] – 52,955 votes, or 7.75%. Zhigansha Zeiyantullovich Tuktarov [of LDPR] received 19,553 votes, or 2.86%. Gennady Leonidovich Yeroshin [of ‘A Just Russia’] – 9,521, or 1.35%. Vladimir Anatolyevich Popkov [of ‘Rodina’] – 6,610, or 0.97%,” the regional election committee head announced.