RUSSIAN BALLOT UNVEILED.

A bewildering "concertina of four pages" is how one Western observer described the ballot paper that will confront Russia’s voters on December 17. As unveiled yesterday by the Central Electoral Commission, the ballot displays party slates in the order in which they were picked last week by a television lottery machine. Women of Russia had the good fortune to be chosen first among the forty-two parties whose names were in the drum. Positions near the top of the list could be worth untold numbers of votes on the assumption that many citizens will not wade through a ballot paper that takes a long time to read. Voters will have to grapple with an additional ballot for elections from the 225 single-member constituencies. (4)

Border Troops Complain of Underfunding.