Low turnout at elections to Chelyabinsk Region legislature

YEKATERINBURG, December 25 (RIA Novosti, Oksana Grebenik) - A low turnout was registered at elections to the legislature of the Chelyabinsk Region in Russia's Urals area, the local election commission said Sunday.

According to the commission's data, only 23% of the electors on average had voted by 4:30 p.m. local time, with the required threshold of 25%.

The commission also said that 20% of registered voters had come to the polls in by-elections to the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, in the Kalininsky single-seat electoral district of Chelyabinsk, with the required threshold of 25%.

Chelyabinsk Region residents are electing deputies to the regional legislature in single-seat constituencies and from party lists. The parties include pro-Kremlin United Russia, Rodina (Motherland), the liberal Union of Right Forces (SPS) and Yabloko, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), the Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party of Russia.