Penza, 20 October 2015. PenzaNews. The new staff of the supervision body “For Clean Election” officially began preparations for independent observers to be employed during the State Duma election, as decided during their October 20 organizational meeting held at the Penza State University on Tuesday.

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According to Gleb Sintsov, federal coordinator of the Russian civil movement “For Clean Election, chairman of the regional branch for Russian Lawyers Association, there was a suggestion to form a supervision body on the federal level just like during the 2012 presidential election.

“That means we required 1,150 observers, on every polling station in the Penza region. Along with staff for the situation analysis center that traditionally monitors all requests, complaints, analyzes activities of the observers. It will work both in Penza city, and major cities and towns of the region,” he explained.

Dispatch groups for the upcoming election will be covering the whole region, contrary to it being limited to Penza city during the September 2015 gubernatorial election, Gleb Sintsov explained.

The preparation schedule includes various events, including lectures and training sessions, designed to produce a staff of qualified observers, he noted.

“Presently, there are 2-3 regional coordinators in the Penza region. We plan to make it 50, each of whom will create their own team of observers, 30-45 persons. This will create a multi-layered structure with maximum youth involvement percentage, not only from Law faculties like it usually happens but from various universities,” Gleb Sintsov stressed.

The general stance towards elections slowly changes, he added.

“During the presidential election, there was a lot of agitation over the so-called ‘attraction managers,’ when people actively sought to locate them in the Penza region, often pointing at nothing. However, in the most recent election, we saw no provocations – such as calls, reports to the center, any claims there were some groups of people doing that. We hope our observers also contributed to that,” said the federal coordinator.

According to Gleb Sintsov, the supervision body underwent changes in its staff and observation process strategy over the past four election campaigns.

“While the first year saw people coming mostly because they said they wanted to be observers […] now we see more and more people thinking about the importance of this process, their place in it, the options they miss out on by not voting,” the lawyer emphasized.

Gleb Sintsov also said he believes involving the required number of persons to facilitate the work of the supervision body “For Clean Election” in the Penza region will be an easy task.