Electoral commissions at the crossing will change – Newspaper Kommersant No. 229 (7430) of 12/09/2022

At the annual meeting at the Central Election Commission with the chairmen of regional commissions on Thursday, they summed up the results of the past campaign and discussed plans for the upcoming one. One of the main tasks next year will be the reappointment of precinct electoral commissions, participants in the event told Kommersant. In addition, the regions were instructed to share with colleagues from the newly annexed territories the experience of using “electronic ballot boxes”, organizing remote voting and public observation headquarters.

On December 8, the Central Election Commission began a two-day meeting with chairmen of regional election commissions. For the first time, the heads of electoral commissions of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), Zaporozhye and Kherson regions took part in the traditional event. “Now we have not 85, but 89 subjects of the Russian Federation,” said Ella Pamfilova, chairman of the Central Election Commission.

Representatives of the electoral commissions of Crimea and Sevastopol told Kommersant that at the meeting they especially noted the work of colleagues from new regions, who, with the help of Russian specialists, were able to quickly organize and hold referendums on the accession of new territories to the Russian Federation. This work was recognized as done “excellently”, and work has already begun on the integration of the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions into the Russian electoral system. The regions were instructed to share with new colleagues the experience of using KOIBs (“electronic ballot boxes”), organizing remote electronic voting (DEG) and public observation headquarters. In addition, personnel issues and the formation of a personnel reserve, work on the enlargement of sites were discussed, and the results of the regional campaign that took place this year were summed up.

New elections are approaching, and this will be a large-scale campaign – in 2023, at least 20 heads of regions and 16 legislative assemblies are to be elected, one of the participants in the meeting says. In addition, he recalls, next year the composition of precinct election commissions should be reappointed – there are about 96 thousand of them in the country, and most of them will expire in 2023. It is important to carry out this work in a timely manner, because the term of office of election commissions is extended for the period of the election campaign. And taking into account the start at the end of the 2023 presidential campaign, the prolongation may drag on for almost a year, and it’s not a fact that the people who are now on the commissions are ready to work for so long, the source explains.

The chairman of the electoral committee of St. Petersburg, Maxim Meiksin, reminded Kommersant that the meeting with the regions had not yet ended and would continue on Friday. For himself, he has already noted the attention of the participants to modern technologies – the expansion of the DEG and the scanning of signature sheets. According to Kommersant’s interlocutor at the Central Election Commission, the possibility of using DEG in the course of the upcoming campaign in about 10% of the territories is being discussed – that is, on the same scale as in 2022. At least, this figure is taken as a basis, he notes. It was also planned to increase the number of KOIBs by September 2023, but, apparently, these plans will have to be adjusted due to problems with the contractor, the source says. In any case, according to him, the use of digital services will be improved and expanded, including in the field of functionality of election commissions.

Innovations can also be expected in terms of organizing voting abroad, another participant in the meeting told Kommersant. He recalled that Ukraine had previously refused Russia to hold elections on its territory. “There is reason to believe that in the future it will not be the only such country, and we need to see how best to organize everything here,” says Kommersant’s interlocutor. There are already proposals, and it is possible that in the future they will be formalized as legislative initiatives, he adds. In addition, we have to think about how to implement the recent decision of the Constitutional Court, which spoke in favor of the right of candidates, even after registration, to make clarifications in the information materials of the commissions, the source concludes.

Anastasia Kornya, corset “Kommersant”