In the Lipetsk region, state employees were recommended to take a survey on the autumn by-elections to the State Duma at the State Services
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In the Lipetsk region, employees of budgetary institutions were recommended to take a survey on the Gosuslugi portal about the autumn by-elections to the State Duma. In addition to awareness of the fact of voting and the desire to participate in it, citizens are interested in which of the candidates they intend to vote for. The election commission says that the poll does not violate the law, while the Ministry of Digital Development assures that its customers will not receive access to personal data. The expert believes that the study is “mobilizing” in nature, but fears that its conduct at the State Services does not guarantee anonymity.
The Lipetsk regional committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation reported last week that Lipetsk state employees, on behalf of the Department of Internal Policy of the region, are strongly recommended to take a survey on elections at the State Services. In September, by-elections to the State Duma in the Lipetsk constituency No. 114 will be held: the main contender for the vacant mandate is the speaker of the regional council Dmitry Averov (United Russia), and his main competitor is the leader of the Communist Party faction in the regional council Sergey Tokarev. In addition to them, regional deputies Anatoly Yemelyanov (LDPR) and Larisa Ksenofontova (“Fair Russia – For Truth”), as well as former member of the electoral committee Oleg Tokarev (“Communists of Russia”) apply for this post.
The Election Awareness poll, according to the CPRF, consists of three questions. Respondents are asked to indicate whether they know about the elections, whether they plan to participate in them, and for whom they would like to vote. The list, in alphabetical order, begins with Dmitry Averov and ends with Sergei Tokarev. According to the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, employees of a number of budgetary institutions were required to complete a survey by August 16. To participate in it, you must log in to the “State Services”.
As Kommersant was convinced, during authorization, the portal requests the rights to view an impressive amount of data, ranging from information about the gender, age, contacts, passport and even transport of the respondent and ending with data about his children. At the same time, it is indicated that the survey is anonymous, and its results are presented in an anonymized form in the format of statistics.
Sergei Tokarev has already applied to the Central Election Commission (CEC) with a request to take measures to protect the electoral rights of citizens. In his opinion, the poll violates the secrecy of expression of will. “When sociologists conduct polls, people are impersonal. At Gosuslugakh, everyone is authorized, and you can see who gave their preference to whom, ”the communist explained to Kommersant.
In the regional election commission, to Kommersant’s request about the legality of the poll, they replied that the law does not prohibit their conduct, they are not recognized as election campaigning. And in the Telegram channel of the electoral commission, a comment appeared by its chairman, Sergei Elmanov, who stressed that this poll “has nothing to do with the activities of the election organizers,” and voters “have the right not to participate in it.” At the same time, one can speak “with full confidence about anonymity and reliability” “only in relation to remote electronic voting,” the head of the commission added.
Electoral lawyer Oleg Zakharov considers the experiment with a poll at Gosuslugakh to be a dangerous practice, because in this case there are no guarantees that the results of the poll will not be used in the interests of specific candidates. “This is, in fact, a selection of voters, where “ticks” appear next to each surname – loyal, disloyal, vacillating,” the expert explains. According to him, agitators perform the same function, working “from door to door”, but they do this in the interests of their candidate, who “uses this information to mobilize supporters and increase his chances of winning.” At the same time, the candidate must pay for this work from the electoral fund, and the identification of voters is voluntary, but it is impossible to guarantee the anonymity of the survey at the State Services, since the system has a permanent authorization of a specific user, recalls Mr. Zakharov.
Kommersant’s source in the authorities of the Lipetsk region assures that the poll does not violate the laws and is aimed at informing voters. The interlocutor explains the appeal of the communists to the CEC by their unwillingness to engage in a real election campaign.
The Ministry of Digital Development, which is responsible for the work of Gosuslugi, confirmed to Kommersant that the Election Awareness survey on the feedback platform Gosuslugi. Let’s decide together” was posted by the Department of Internal Policy of the Lipetsk Region. This platform is regularly used for surveys, public discussions, public hearings, and more than 60,000 events have already been held with its help, the department stressed. “The results of the survey are anonymous, the initiator has the opportunity to get acquainted only with the statistics and there is no access to the personal data of users,” the Ministry of Digital Development assured.
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