§ Article 48Preparation of Polling Stations

1. A polling station of the polling district must be completely prepared for the referendum not later than 12 hours before the beginning of voting. The referendum committee must also have counted all ballot papers received from the city, regional referendum committee and drawn up their acceptance report by this time. In the polling station of referendum polling district there must be a ballot box, secret voting booth (booths) in which a voter could fill out referendum ballot papers in private. Referendum agitation material or voter information material, issued by the Central Electoral Committee, may be displayed in the polling station. The text of this Law must be accessible in each referendum-polling district. The campaigning material, except for the material issued by the Central Electoral Committee, must be removed from the polling station, passageways leading to or out of it (corridors) and from the territory within 50 metres of the building in which the polling station is situated. Working places for the referendum committee members and places for referendum observers must be also organised. Upon completion of preparations the polling station shall be closed, sealed, left under the police protection and the chairman of the referendum committee of the polling district shall inform the city, regional referendum committee thereof.
2. Other requirements for the preparation of polling stations shall be laid down by the Central Electoral Committee.
3. The chairman of the referendum committee of the polling district shall be responsible for fitting out the polling station by the due date and in an appropriate manner. If the municipality administration fails to allocate premises suitable for establishing a poling station or fails to ensure the provision of equipment necessary for voting, the chairman of the referendum committee of the polling district must forthwith notify the city, regional referendum committee thereof and take adequate measures to find premises suitable for fitting out a polling station and to acquire the necessary equipment as prescribed in Article 77 of this Law.