DEG to help - Picture of the day - Kommersant
The Election Commission of Khakassia summed up the results of a survey designed to find out the attitude of the inhabitants of the region towards remote electronic voting (DEG). According to these data, more than half of the respondents trust online voting, and more than two-thirds of the respondents are ready to use it. The election commission promises to take into account the results of a survey conducted on the Gosuslugi portal when deciding whether to apply the DEG in the elections of the head and parliament of Khakassia in September 2023. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation, whose representative Valentin Konovalov has been heading the republic since 2018, opposes the use of electronic voting.
The electoral committee of Khakassia counted the votes of the inhabitants of the republic, cast in the course of a survey about their attitude towards the DEG. The survey was organized by the commission itself and was conducted from December 16, 2022 to January 23, 2023, also in electronic form - on the State Services portal. Residents of the region over the age of 18 could take part in it, who were asked to answer six questions. Among them - do you trust the DEG and will you use the DEG if it is used in the elections to the state authorities of the Republic of Khakassia in 2023?
According to the electoral commission (.docx), 1343 people answered the questions. “52.1% of respondents tend to trust remote voting. Only 28% expressed certain doubts. 19.9% of voters found it difficult to assess their attitude to the DEG,” the press service of the election commission told Kommersant. In addition, 95.1% of survey participants are aware of the DEG, and 68.2% of respondents intend to use online voting if it is organized in the elections in the republic in 2023.
The election committee did not specify the geographic coverage of the survey, noting only that the age of 48% of respondents is from 36 to 50 years. Altogether there are about 400,000 voters in Khakassia, about a third of them live in the republic's capital, Abakan.
“The results of the poll will be taken into account by the election commission, along with other factors, when we decide whether to use the DEG in the elections,” the republican commission explained. According to federal law, the relevant decision of the election commission conducting the elections must be coordinated with the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation.
Several election campaigns are planned for September 2023 in Khakassia, the main of which are the elections of the head of the republic and the Supreme Council. Since 2018, the region has been headed by communist Valentin Konovalov, who has already stated that he does not exclude his nomination for a second term.
At the same time, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation opposes the use of the DEG in Khakassia, calling this procedure non-transparent and making it possible to manipulate the vote count.
The secretary of the Khakass branch of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation for organizational and party work, a deputy of the regional parliament, Lyudmila Kaufman, in an interview with Kommersant, confirmed that the position of the communists had not changed. According to her, the results of the poll and its possible consequences can be considered by the bureau of the republican committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation at a meeting on January 29.
Note that in the Altai Territory, the Communist Party is also trying to prevent the use of the DEG in the autumn gubernatorial elections. To do this, the regional branch of the party intended to initiate a survey in the region on the advisability of online voting, but the corresponding item was not included in the agenda of the next session of the regional legislative assembly, scheduled for January 26. As Andrei Krivov, head of the Communist Party faction, explained to Kommersant, the majority of members of the relevant committee of the legislative assembly on legal policy and local self-government voted against this.
