"We have never asked or forced anyone to do anything," said Deputy General Director Marina Rachenskaya. "We have not given any information that anyone must do anything."
BIG TURNOUT
Many of the accounts say employees are not told to vote for United Russia, just to cast a ballot. Opinion polls show most voters already support the party.
Reports of employees being pressured have been posted on a specially-created Internet blog, community.livejournal.com/vibory_light.
A blogger who identified himself as a doctor in the Volga river city of Saratov said bosses told staff to vote in the hospital, and were drawing up lists of those who complied.
"Doctors are being forced to ... come to their workplace on their day off for voting. Otherwise they threaten people with the sack," he said.
"They put nearly everyone down in the lists," he said. "One elderly doctor, who has nothing to lose, refused as a matter of principle, as well as two young doctors (including me.)"
Another blogger said staff at the Siberian Federal University in the city of Krasnoyarsk had been told to note down the names of students who had voted, and they were not allowed to go home on December 2 until every student had cast a ballot.
"The students, under threat of being thrown out, are being forced to ensure 100 percent turnout at the elections," said the blogger.
The employee at the Moscow electronics market said she was the only member of staff in the business where she worked who had refused to come in on Sunday and vote.
"There was such blatant blackmail which really knocked me off my stride. I felt like some sort of puppet who can be controlled," she said. "They are trying to turn people into cattle, without rights, without a vote, without anything."
