According to him, this question will be discussed in detail at a meeting of the heads of the election commissions of Russian Federation subjects on May 6. The participants of the meeting "will develop a general position and proposals on changes to the norms of separate legislation," he said.
He also said that by June 24, the Central Electoral Commission would ratify the final expense report for the March 14 presidential elections. When the document is published the election commission would legally be finished, Mr. Veshnyakov said.
Earlier, he said that 4.3 billion rubles (approximately $150 million) were allocated from the budget for the presidential elections. These funds were allocated in case a second round of the elections needed to be held. However, as a run off did not need to be held, the presidential elections only cost 2.7 billion rubles (approximately $95 million). The surplus funds should be returned to the state.
At the press conference, Lyudmila Demyanchenko, a member of the commission, said that the savings had not ended. As a result of Vladimir Putin's victory in the first round of elections, over 39 million sheets of paper with special protections that were intended to be made into ballots remained. The Central Electoral Commission has made the decision to use this paper in local elections. This too will save a significant amount of budgetary funds, the representatives of the commission said. They said that the left over ballot paper has already been used in elections in 46 subjects of federation.
