CEC and Federation Council to fight “electoral terrorists” – Kommersant

Andrey Klimov, Chairman of the Federation Council Commission for the Protection of Sovereignty, and Igor Borisov, a member of the Central Election Commission (CEC), spoke at a press conference at TASS on Thursday about external threats during the 2023 election campaign.

Mr. Klimov, in particular, said that the United States intended to spend about $ 9.5 billion on “so-called support for democracy” in Russia in 2022-2024. Mr. Borisov, in turn, said that the CEC received information about the preparation by foreign intelligence services “electoral terrorists”. “They already have a whole profession like this,” said a member of the Central Executive Committee. According to him, unfriendly countries, “not particularly hiding”, train “volunteers” for provocations during elections, but the CEC and other election commissions oppose this. As an example of such protective measures, Igor Borisov cited the installation in the Moscow region of more than 119,000 outdoor video surveillance cameras in areas adjacent to polling stations. Also, according to him, since the announcement of the elections, about 5 million hacker attacks have been made on the CEC portal, but all of them have been reflected.

In addition, the CEC member added, electoral commissions and authorities jointly prevented attempts by persons with the status of a foreign agent to enter the electoral commissions, which is contrary to Russian law. At the same time, as Mr. Borisov recalled, candidates-foreign agents have the right to participate in the elections, provided that their status is indicated in the ballots and in all campaign materials. Andrey Klimov, in this regard, said that the legislators are not going to change this rule yet, but they can return to this issue if it is required by law enforcement practice.

Ksenia Veretennikova