The Resource Center for Human Rights (CReDO) will monitor the parliamentary elections on February 24 to see if the anomalies witnessed at the legislative elections of 2014 and the presidential elections of 2016 repeat this year. CReDO director Sergiu Ostaf, in a news conference at IPN, said of the over 2,000 polling places opened at the previous elections, behavioral deviations in the conduct of elections were identified at almost 40 polling places in ten districts.

The expert explained that a voting anomaly is a rigging risk that is identified and is investigated to determine the causes. A voting anomaly is a deviation from correct behavior. Compared with the previous elections, there are no significant indexes of deviant behavior. The recorded anomalies cannot influence the election results. Their impact is below 1% of the total number of votes and a number of parties were beneficiaries.

According to Sergiu Ostaf, the recorded deviations should be analyzed to see if the almost 40 polling places are responsible for particular frauds such as organized bringing of voters to polling places, voter corruption and vote buying or coincidence of the election results of a particular contender at a number of polling places.

If a number of people vote in a region in a particular way and in another region in a different way, while in a third place there is a balance, this distribution should be explained. If the behavior of a polling place differs from that of other polling places situated nearby, this anomaly should be investigated.

Sergiu Ostaf said that after the results of the elections of February 24 are made known, there will be presented a comparative analysis to see if the structure of anomalies changes or remains the same. “We would like to see how the situation is like in 2019. We should have an eye on the polling places to see if there are arrangements and if these repeat,” he noted.

A comparative analysis will be presented in two-three days of the announcement of the election outcome.