How was the second day of the presidential election?

The main news of the second day of the presidential elections in the Russian Federation was overcoming the 50% turnout mark: according to the Central Election Commission (CEC), in Russia as a whole, 58.74% of voters took part in voting. Among the most active regions were, in particular, Tuva (87.2%), Kemerovo region (83.2%) and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (82.4%). Moscow, in turn, continues to lead in the share of voters who used online voting (74%). There were also new attempts to damage ballots in ballot boxes and set fire to polling stations, but compared to Friday, the number of such incidents has noticeably decreased, including due to strengthened security measures.

Activity records

By the end of the second day of voting, the first region appeared in which the turnout had already surpassed the result of the previous presidential campaign in 2018. As of 20:00 local time in the Jewish Autonomous Region 77.3% of voters came to the polling stations. Six years earlier, when voting lasted one day, the overall turnout in the Jewish Autonomous Region was 60.3%. Nevertheless, the leaders in activity in the Far East, as on the first day, still remain Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. On Saturday, polling stations there closed with a total turnout of 78.4%.

At the same time, six Chukotka villages – Nutepelmen, Vankarem, Enurmino, Neshkan, Nunligran and Billings – reported 100 percent attendance at the sites.

Outperformed its own result in 2018 and Sakhalin region. According to the results of the second day of voting, 64.8% of voters cast their ballots in the ballot box, which is 3.6 percentage points more than six years earlier. There are no record holders yet among other Far Eastern regions, but the number of voters has already exceeded 50% in the Magadan region (61.3%), Buryatia (59.6%), Yakutia (58.8%), Primorye (55.7%), Amur region (54.6%) and Transbaikalia (50.4%). In Khabarovsk Territory turnout on March 16 stood at 48.1%.

A new absolute leader in activity has emerged in Siberia – Tuva, where 87.2% of voters voted at the end of the second day.

Almost record numbers were also recorded Kuzbass, where the attendance of polling stations almost did not reach the result of 2018 – 83.17% versus 83.23%. However, it is possible that after summing up the results of Saturday’s voting in the European part of Russia, Tuvinians and Kemerovo residents will still be overtaken by residents Chechnya: as of 15:00 on March 16, the turnout in the republic was 75.2%.

Among other Siberian regions, it set a record Krasnoyarsk region, where turnout also exceeded the result six years ago – 61.9% versus 60.4%. Residents completed the second day of voting with a bang Republic of Altai (57.2%) and Omsk region (55.6% as of 18:00). In Khakassia turnout has so far stopped at 48.9%, in the Novosibirsk region — by 47% (including DEG), in Irkutsk – by 46.9%, in Tomsk – by 46.8% (including DEG). Finally, voters showed the least activity among residents of Siberia Altai Territorywhere on Saturday the polling stations closed with a turnout of 38% (excluding DEGs).

In the Urals traditionally active in leadership Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrugwhere 82.4% of voters came to the polling stations after two days. In the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug turnout was recorded at 68.5%, in the Tyumen region – 68.3%, in Sverdlovsk — 56.1% (including DEG), in Kurgan region – 53.6%. At the time of writing, the final turnout at the end of Saturday was also reported in the Perm regionwhere 47.2% of the voters on the list voted.

Among the regions European part of Russia they reported that they had overcome the 50% mark already in the afternoon, as of 15:00 in Orlovskaya (58.3%), Bryansk (58.2%), Volgogradskaya (56.4%), Penza (56.1%), Tambov (54.6%), Kursk (54.2%), Lipetskaya (53.8%), Orenburg (53%), Astrakhan (52.2%), Voronezh (51.5%) and Samara regions (50.5%), and also in Kabardino-Balkaria (61.5%), Crimea (59.6%), Karachay-Cherkessia (54.7%), Tatarstan (54.5%), Chuvashia (53.8%), Stavropol region (53.7%), Dagestan (51.5%) and in a number of other regions. In the Belgorod regionwhich broke the 50% barrier on Friday, the turnout as of 15:00 on March 16 reached 73.7%.

In Moscow, according to the Public Election Observation Headquarters, by the end of the second day, a total of almost 4.3 million voters (more than 56% of the list), about 3.2 million (74%) of whom preferred online voting. “We expect that tomorrow there will be even more people at the polling stations – this always happens on the last day of voting,” its head Vadim Kovalev said in the Telegram channel of the headquarters.

Security questions

On Saturday, attempts continued in different parts of the country to stain ballot papers with green paint, set fire to the voting premises, or otherwise interfere with the expression of the will of citizens. For example, in Yekaterinburg in the morning a man tried to fill the ballot processing complex (KOIB) with green paint, but was stopped in time.

Later, in one of the city’s gymnasiums, a police officer detained a 50-year-old woman who was trying to spill green paint on the site. She turned out to be a doctor of chemical sciences, professor at the Ural Federal University Emilia Nosova, director of the university’s media center Dmitry Benemansky told Kommersant.

Similar facts were recorded in Cheboksary (Chuvashia), Zelenogradsk (Kaliningrad region), Mayma (Altai Republic) and a number of other cities. And in Borisoglebsk (Voronezh region), where yesterday two criminal cases were opened regarding damage to ballots, the third incident with brilliant green occurred.

The election commission of the Volgograd region reported that on Saturday the police detained two women at once, one of whom came to the station with a smoke bomb, and the other with a Molotov cocktail. But none of them succeeded in preventing the vote. Against this background, security measures have been strengthened in many regions. In Crimea, for example, they decided to inspect all packages for the presence of potentially dangerous items, and in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug they did not allow people into areas with liquids.

Let us note that, in addition to incidents with green paint, there were rare reports of “ordinary” violations from a number of regions.

For example, in Novosibirsk, at polling station No. 2002, an observer from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation tried to familiarize itself with the list of voters, but the commission refused him, citing the law on the protection of personal data. In this regard, the communists turned to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Igor Krasnov.

Meanwhile, the Central Election Commission on Saturday counted “irretrievably damaged” ballots – according to the chairman of the commission, Ella Pamfilova, there were 214. In total, according to her, in 20 regions at 29 polling stations, “narrow-minded people” tried to set fire to or pour liquids on boxes with ballots , in one case they intended to use a smoke bomb. The head of the Central Election Commission also said that instructions to those who damaged ballots with dyeing liquids and tried to set fire to ballot boxes came from call centers in Ukraine and some European countries. In addition, since the beginning of voting, the remote electronic voting system has been subject to 160 thousand DDoS attacks, Ms. Pamfilova said.

At the same time, according to her, no “ordinary” serious violations were registered during the campaign.

“I can’t give you anything to please — in quotes —,” said Ella Pamfilova, speaking on Saturday at the Central Election Commission information center. “We are woolly, we are sitting there, basically there is garbage, pulled out of thin air, there is nothing serious, so there is nothing to dismantle now.”

Nevertheless, she reminded election commissions of the need, when carrying out standard procedures, to post posters describing their actions – so that the video recording made at that moment could not be used to create a fake about violations. The appearance of such fakes was reported from several regions at once – for example, a video appeared about an alleged mass stuffing at one of the sites in the Amur region. In fact, members of the precinct commission unloaded ballots from the KOIBs, which had been switched to portable voting mode, explained the chairman of the regional election commission, Ruslan Golovin. “Do you have a poster hanging there? It’s not visible,” Ms. Pamfilova complained. The posters were posted on the KOIBs themselves, but observers could see them, Ruslan Golovin apologized. “Colleagues, I say again, fix everything! We understand all this ourselves, we need those who watch it to understand. And so that those who are watching in order to discredit us have no reason to speculate on completely legal procedures,” the chairman of the Central Election Commission instructed the election commissioners.

Staff features

The candidates’ election headquarters continued to work “at increased speed” on Saturday, paying special attention to meetings with foreign observers.

So, at Vladimir Putin’s headquarters, where on Friday one of the three co-chairs, actor Vladimir Mashkov, was in charge, on Saturday another co-chair, Speaker of the DPR Parliament Artem Zhoga, “soloed”. In particular, he met with the head of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation observer delegation, Mohamed Salah Tekaya, and told him about the organization of the process of monitoring the presidential elections in the Russian Federation. Mr. Tekaya, in turn, noted that “families, old people and even children” come to the polling stations. And Mr. Zhoga, following the meeting, emphasized that foreign observers “highly appreciate the legitimacy of our elections” and “do not note any violations,” and expressed the opinion that Western countries also “have a lot to learn from our election commissions.”

Foreign guests were received and at the headquarters of the candidate from “New People” Vladislav Davankov, the head of his public reception rooms, Irina Sorokina, told Kommersant: “Today there were Cambodia, the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly, Abkhazia, Mexico. Many of them are in Russia for the first time, and they are interested in how the Russian campaign works.” As for the voting process, “in principle, everything is taking place without significant violations, the system is working properly, people can cast their vote,” added Ms. Sorokina.

LDPR candidate Leonid Slutsky, personally heading his election headquarters, and his colleagues on Saturday they also hosted international observers, among whom were, in particular, representatives of Indonesia, Georgia, India, Italy, Malaysia, New Zealand, the USA and France. The guests “were told and shown how the federal and regional headquarters work, how the party ensures the voting process,” Mr. Slutsky told Kommersant. According to him, the Liberal Democrats “always check with international experts; they have the opportunity to objectively judge the electoral system.” As for internal surveillance, it is provided by 55 thousand observers from the party and the LDPR.Kolchuga situational incident center, the party chairman recalled:

“The center operates in two shifts, employees answer questions from voters, identify and register violations. At the headquarters, in videoconferencing mode, we check with the regions, and are constantly in touch with the coordinators.”

Finally, at the headquarters of the candidate from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Nikolai Kharitonov Kommersant was told that “in general, the situation is similar to the first day of voting.” “There are some violations and comments regarding home-based voting – several cases have been recorded in the Krasnodar Territory and Orenburg. If something comes to light, we promptly send a complaint to the election commission. No large-scale violations were detected, only isolated isolated cases. In general, the situation is quite calm,” said First Deputy Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Yuri Afonin.

Politics department, corset “Kommersant”