General electric rehearsal – Newspaper Kommersant No. 41 (7486) dated 03/13/2023

Regional electoral commissions continue to apply for participation in remote electronic voting (DEV) during the autumn elections. In 2020, the Chairman of the Central Election Commission (CEC) Ella Pamfilova did not rule out that by the presidential campaign-2024 the Russian electoral system could be ready to conduct a DEG throughout the country, however, only about a quarter of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation are ready to use it at the “dress rehearsal” in 2023 . And some, as Kommersant found out, do not show such a desire, even despite the successful experience of online voting in the recent past.

The Single Voting Day (SED) in 2023 will be the largest in recent times in terms of the number of election campaigns and the last before the 2024 presidential election. Governors will be elected in 25 subjects (including 20 in direct elections), in 20 – deputies of legislative assemblies, in 11 – deputies of administrative centers. In total, campaigns of these levels will take place in 44 regions, in 10 of them they will overlap, and in Yakutia and Khakassia they will be held at all three levels at once.

Recall that in Russia there are two platforms through which citizens can vote electronically. Since 2019, Moscow has been using its own DEG system, which it intends to apply in the autumn mayoral elections. There is no need to send an application to the CEC for this. The second (federal) platform was developed by Rostelecom jointly with the Ministry of Digital Development and the CEC. All other regions vote through it, but those wishing to hold a DEG must first submit applications to the CEC.

For the first time, the Central Election Commission tested its system on an experimental basis in 2020 at the by-elections to the State Duma in the Kursk and Yaroslavl regions. In 2021, applications from the regions were accepted until March 10, and at the end of May, the CEC selected six regions for the DEG: it took place in the Kursk, Murmansk, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov and Yaroslavl regions, as well as in Sevastopol. Finally, in 2022, the CEC decided on the list in early June, and online voting took place in seven regions: Kaliningrad, Kaluga, Kursk, Novgorod, Pskov, Tomsk and Yaroslavl regions.

In 2023, according to CEC Deputy Chairman Nikolai Bulaev, more than 20 regions have applied for the DEG, 10 of which will have direct gubernatorial elections. He announced this on February 22 at a meeting of the Moscow City Electoral Committee. Kommersant sent a request to the CEC about the deadlines for accepting applications for the DEG-2023 and their exact number at the moment, but has not yet received a response.

According to Kommersant’s information, the Voronezh, Irkutsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Ulyanovsk and Yaroslavl regions definitely filed applications for a DEG during the EDG-2023. True, as Yury Andriyenko, chairman of the election committee of the Ulyanovsk region, explained to Kommersant, they did not submit “applications as such”, since each region simply reports to the CEC information about its technical capabilities, about the number of voters registered at Gosuslugi, about the depth of coverage Internet and the level of readiness of the GAS “Vybory” system. The Moscow region also expressed its desire to use the DEG in the gubernatorial elections: on February 16, the Moscow Regional Electoral Committee decided to “apply to the CEC with a request to use the DEG,” Igor Chistyukhin, a member of the Moscow Regional Duma from A Just Russia, wrote on his social networks.

According to Kommersant, Khakassia and Chukotka also filed applications for a DEG. At the same time, Valentin Konovalov, who heads Khakassia, is a member of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, which traditionally opposes online voting. But the chairman of the Khakass electoral committee, Alexander Chumanin, justified the decision to apply with the opinion of voters. He reminded Kommersant that in January 2023, his commission conducted an online survey of 1.3 thousand residents of the region, following which 52.1% of respondents stated that they “tend to trust remote voting”, and only 28% “expressed certain doubts”. According to Mr. Chumanin, the DEG has two “indisputable advantages”: “Firstly, due to its simplicity and accessibility, it is more comfortable for voters. Secondly, the DEG makes it possible to take into account the votes of those voters who permanently reside or will be outside the republic at the time of voting. Their opinion will undoubtedly make the election results more legitimate.”

In the Omsk region, the decision to use the DEG in the gubernatorial elections “may be made after the elections are called, in June 2023,” Kommersant was told in the regional election committee, without specifying whether the application had already been submitted to the CEC. “The decision to conduct a DEG can be made taking into account the readiness of the necessary “digital infrastructure” (the number of active voter accounts on the State Services portal, the provision of the population with access to the Internet),” the commission explained. According to a source in the Samara Regional Electoral Committee, in this region, too, “probably there will be electronic voting” in the gubernatorial elections. In addition, the possibility of using DEG is still being discussed in Bashkiria, Trans-Baikal, Krasnoyarsk and Primorsky territories, as well as in the Sverdlovsk region and in the Crimea.

The Amur Region, Buryatia, Kamchatka, Khabarovsk Territory, and Yakutia are definitely not ready to use electronic voting this year. In addition, the Rostov region does not want to participate in the DEG, which already held it in 2021 in the elections to the State Duma. “Despite the fact that the Rostov region has a positive experience of participating in the DEG, in the elections to the Don parliament, the region will take a timeout in electronic voting. All innovations should be introduced gradually. Provided that the DEG is extended to all subjects of the Russian Federation, this type of voting will certainly be used in the region, along with other forms of voting, ”Kommersant was told in the press service of the regional election committee, without specifying the reasons for this decision.

Elena Rozhkova, corset “Kommersant”