Russian CEC is completing verification of signatures for three presidential candidates

UFA, 5 February 2018. /Bashinform News Agency, Galiya Nabieva/. The Central Election Commission of Russia is completing verification of the voter signature sheets handed in for registration at the elections by three presidential candidates. This is reported by TASS with reference to the deputy chairman of the Central Electoral Commission Nikolai Bulayev.

Earlier, he informed that the verification of signatures in support of the current head of state Vladimir Putin, running for a new term, was completed. 232 signatures from the selected 60 thousand were recognized as non-conforming with the regulations, or 0.39% of the total. According to Nikolai Bulayev, this result allows registering a candidate for elections, a decision on the registration may be taken at a meeting of the CEC on February 6.

On January 29, almost 315,000 signatures were handed over for Vladimir Putin’s registration, this is the maximum possible number for self-nominees with a minimum of 300,000. On January 31, the CEC completed the reception of signature sheets and registration documents from candidates. On January 30, the candidate from Yabloko Grigory Yavlinsky, the business ombudsman, the leader of the Party of Growth Boris Titov and the leader of the party "Russian National Union" Sergei Baburin submitted the signatures. On January 31, the TV hostess Ksenia Sobchak, put forward by the "Civil Initiative", and the head of the "Communists of Russia" Maxim Suraykin, submitted the sheets. All candidates from non-parliamentary parties submitted about 105 thousand signatures at the required minimum of 100 thousand signatures.

60 thousand signatures were selected for verification from each candidate. Two more candidates - Vladimir Zhirinovsky (LDPR) and Pavel Grudinin (CPRF) - were released from collecting signatures, as they were nominated by parliamentary parties, and have already been registered.