Several organizations responsible for monitoring elections and electoral processes, following random inspection, observed a series of irregularities in the collection of signatures for organizing the national legislative referendum on Moldova’s accession to the Customs Union Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to Sergiu Ostaf, head of the Human Rights Resource Center (CReDO), a rapid examination of signature lists revealed at least 10 cases of violations of electoral laws, including fake signatures, people who were misled to sign and others who were promised a reward for signing. “It’s obvious that a number of signatures aren’t valid, according to the law. We don’t know the exact number. It may be 1%, 10% or even 30% of the total number of collected signatures. At this stage, we have tens of known cases. In our opinion, this should be enough to alert the Central Election Commission and other public institutions. We mean those bodies that must ensure that people aren’t misled and signatures aren’t faked. We want authorities to verify comprehensively and responsibly the legality of the collection of signatures in order to find out the amplitude of this phenomenon”, stated Sergiu Ostaf. The CReDO director said that all the information was sent to CEC this morning, July 31. He announced that similar cases will be detected and presented periodically at press conferences. “It’s important for CEC to verify the signatures from precinct list according to the electronic registry of signatures and to verify whether the people who signed the lists were actually in Moldova at the time, by using the data held by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs”, said Sergiu Ostaf. Besides, Ostaf asked full access to files from the Central Election Commission, within the limits of confidentiality, to be able to compare the signatures. On the basis of reported irregularities an investigation should be started and the evidence will be sent to relevant bodies. As evidence, he presented during the press conference some video footage of irregularities in the process of collecting signatures and a phone conversation with mayor of Carnateni village Anatolie Coada from Causeni district. The mayor confirmed that several people who allegedly signed on the list, weren’t actually in Moldova, but were working abroad in Russia. The personal data was put on the list by faking the signatures. The press conference was attended by a representative of the initiative group for the organization of the national legislative referendum regarding Moldova’s accession to the Customs Union Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan. The secretary general of the Social Democratic Party Sergiu Corobceanu contested the truthfulness of the findings presented by CReDO.