Presidential election 2015 in Belarus

MINSK, 16 September (BelTA) – A reliable mechanism to prevent double voting has been created in Belarus. Chairwoman of the Central Election Commission (CEC) of Belarus Lidia Yermoshina made the statement during the online conference hosted by BelTA’s website on 16 September.

“It is possible to vote twice only as a provocation. No voters will do such a thing regardless of their attitude to the government because they understand that such actions are illegal. This is why we cannot say that it is a problem even from the moral point of view. As far as the legal aspect of the process is concerned, voting based on passports that contain the [current residence] registration stamp is the most reliable safeguard,” said Lidia Yermoshina.

The official noted that voters can produce documents other than passports, including military service cards, student cards, pensioner identification cards or civil servant cards. “But I repeat: the voter has to be on the voters list in order to use the documents to cast the vote. And voters lists specify citizens based on their registered residence,” explained the CEC head.

Lidia Yermoshina underlined that Belarusian voters are directly prohibited to vote outside the area of their registered residence. This prohibition alone guarantees that voters will not be able to cast votes twice, stated the head of the Belarusian election organization agency.