GOLOS Association

The GOLOS Association (Cyrillic: ГОЛОС, meaning "vote" or "voice") is a Russian organisation established in 2000 to protect the electoral rights of citizens and to foster civil society. As of 2008, the organisation covers 40 Russian regions. It is the only election watchdog active in Russia that is independent of the Russian government. The organisation is in part funded by the United States government through the National Endowment for Democracy. For this reason, a new Russian law will require Golos to present itself as a "foreign agent" in outward communication.

Activities
Since 2002 GOLOS has monitored elections and referendums of all levels.

In the March 2008 presidential election and accompanying local elections, GOLOS representatives found many irregularities, including the following.
 * incomplete combined protocols, as in 50% of polling stations in Ufa, Kostroma and Kursk;
 * failure of electoral commissions to prevent voters from reusing their absentee ballots in Veliky Novgorod, Tomsk, Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Ufa;
 * casting ballots by some voters on behalf of other people in Krasnodar, Vladimir, Kostroma;
 * presence of government officials other than members of electoral commissions in Omsk, Adygea, Barnaul, Yekaterinburg, Yoshkar-Ola, Perm, Pskov.

The group publishes a newspaper Grazhdansky Golos (Civil Voice).

The Telegraph describes Golos as being "one of the few organisations able to catalogue and publicise [the Kremlin's] attempts at fraud and intimidation".

Relationships with USAID
After NTV representatives (a major Russian television broadcaster) officially interviewed GOLOS Association on 25–26 November 2011, on 26 November 26, three men entered a room where the organisation conducted an internal training, and accused GOLOS of cooperation with the CIA and such. Two days later, on 28 November, two NTV representatives entered the headquarters of the organisation while GOLOS spokesmen were giving a press conference at an independent press-centre. GOLOS representatives suggested that the men should go and instead take part in the official press session, but the journalists repeated similar accusations as two days before. This incident was recorded on a mobile phone and the video is available on YouTube, showing a GOLOS director constantly repeating that it was a provocation instead of answering any questions.

On 2 December, NTV showed an investigative documentary film, "Голос ниоткуда" (Golos niotkuda, translated as "Voice from nowhere" or "Vote from nowhere"), in which the GOLOS Association was accused of making propaganda paid for with foreign money, in particular from the United States.

On 8 December, the Life News portal announced it had received access to 60 MB of correspondence between GOLOS administration and USAID (a federal government agency of the United States), and correspondence between GOLOS administration and its activists. The correspondence has shown that GOLOS sent reports to USAID on how the money they received from USAID was spent. Also the correspondence has shown that activists received money for working with every report on a violation.

Prosecution
On 1 December 2011 prosecutors in Moscow served Golos with papers alleging the organisation had portrayed an unnamed political party in a bad light before the legislative elections. The unnamed party has been identified as being United Russia.

On 2 November a Moscow court fined Golos 30 000 roubles (about 1000 USD) for violations of the electoral law of Russia.

Support from Memorial
On November 30, 2011 the board of the "Memorial International Society" supported GOLOS against attacks from pro-Kremlin media: "The article published by "Rossiyskaya Gazeta" about this respected organization is no different from the Soviet writings against Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. (...) The main KGB-styled complaint is simple: the organization receives money from foreign organizations and thus leads subversion. The same claim against the non-governmental organizations was voiced in a very rude manner and in a speech at the congress of Putin's "United Russia". (...) We express our support and respect of the GOLOS Association and anyone who strives to make to reduce the number of possible fraud in the upcoming elections."