Kirov will do without stumps – Newspaper Kommersant No. 161 (7362) of 09/02/2022
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The Kirov Regional Electoral Committee on Thursday canceled its own two-day-old decision to hold voting in the gubernatorial elections “in the adjacent territories”, which is often called “voting on stumps.” Previously, the Central Election Commission (CEC) did not recommend the regions to use this type of expression of will. According to the official version, the decision was canceled at the request of the regional public headquarters for election observation. According to Alexander Efremov, a member of the regional electoral committee from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the authorities realized that the revival of “stumps” could “hit the legitimacy of the governor’s election.”
The Kirov Regional Electoral Committee adopted a resolution “On the coordination of the list of polling stations and addresses (descriptions of places) of voting using an additional form of voting on September 10, 2022” at a meeting on August 30. According to the appendix to this document (Kommersant has it), some residents of the region will vote in rather unusual places: for example, in the buildings of first-aid posts, libraries, village clubs, at public transport stops, near shops, in shopping centers, pavilions, not far from mobile shops, etc. In a number of settlements, voting will take place right on the street, and in case of “bad weather conditions” – in private homes of citizens. At the same time, the document does not specify either the criteria for choosing private houses, or the signs by which the weather can be considered “bad”.
The only member of the commission who voted against this resolution was the representative of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Alexander Efremov. As he reminded Kommersant, the head of the Central Election Commission, Ella Pamfilova, had previously said that in the September elections, voting in the adjacent territories, which was popularly called “voting on stumps,” would not be used. “She noted that this method worked when there was a peak in the incidence of coronavirus, but now there is no need to return to this form of voting,” the communist stressed. In his opinion, during the house-to-house voting “serious problems will arise with the preservation of the secrecy of the vote and there will be no control over the observance of the rights of citizens.” The Communist Party of the Russian Federation suggested that the reason for this decision by the local election commission could be fears that the acting governor, Alexander Sokolov, might not win in the first round.
The chairman of the regional electoral committee, Maxim Finchenko, did not comment on the situation for Kommersant on Wednesday. And the very next day, the commission canceled its decision of August 30. As Mr. Efremov told Kommersant, the discussion at the meeting was stormy. In particular, the question was raised that “voting on stumps” would “strongly hit the legitimacy of the gubernatorial elections.” At the same time, the communist did not rule out “intervention by the federal center” in connection with the resonance that arose in the media.
In the evening, a message appeared on the website of the regional election commission, from which it follows that the issue of repealing the decision was considered at the request of the deputy chairman of the regional public headquarters for election observation, Valentin Pugach. In his address, he called on the commission to “revise” the decision, “taking into account the negative attitude of the public towards these forms of voting.” The Electoral Commission supported this proposal. “Voters who live in settlements where there are no polling stations and transport links with which are difficult will be able to take part in the elections by submitting an application to their precinct election commission for voting outside the voting premises, i.e. voting at home”, – the message says.
Recall that the term “voting on stumps” appeared during a week-long all-Russian plebiscite on amendments to the Constitution in the summer of 2020. It was then that the CEC for the first time allowed voting “in the adjacent territories”, citing the high incidence of coronavirus and taking into account the higher risk of infection indoors. In connection with this, many photos of such an expression of will were published on social networks – on the trunks of cars, on benches and literally on stumps. By the 2021 elections, they decided to abandon such voting, and the CEC, in its resolution on the voting procedure, from additional new forms tested in the plebiscite, left only a special organization of polling stations in remote and hard-to-reach places. As a rule, these are sparsely populated villages with poor public transport. The procedure for voting in the 2022 elections, which the CEC approved in June, does not differ much from the previous version, and it again directly recommends regional election commissions “to refrain from making a decision to conduct voting of voters … outside the voting premises in territories and in places suitable for equipment for conducting voting (in adjacent territories, in common areas and in other places).
CEC member Yevgeny Shevchenko confirmed to Kommersant that the decision not to vote in places where there are no voting premises and transport links with which is difficult, the Kirov Regional Electoral Committee made in agreement with the regional election observation headquarters. “The Electoral Commission has decided to intensify explanatory work so that people living in this area can apply to vote at home,” Mr. Shevchenko specified.
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