Moscow Election Observation Headquarters approves question for test online voting

The Public Headquarters for Election Observation in Moscow decided on Monday with the date and issue for testing the remote electronic voting system (DEV) in the capital. The training will take place on August 25, as a test question, Muscovites will be asked to choose from several options for events dedicated to the City Day, from free parking to free entrance to museums. The conditions for monitoring online voting in the autumn mayoral elections will generally remain the same as last year, said Olga Kirillova, chairman of the Moscow City Electoral Committee. But terminals for DEG will be delivered to your home.

This year, it will be possible to test e-voting not only online, on the mos.ru website, but also at polling stations. In Moscow, 147 of them will be opened during the test DEG – an average of one in each district of the city. As Artem Kostyrko, Head of the Department for Improvement of Territorial Administration and Development of Smart Projects of the Moscow Government, recalled, such trainings have already become traditional. Last year, for example, they checked the work of the DEG and the electronic list of voters, and this year another element will be added to the system – electronic voting terminals (TEG) at polling stations.

For voters who came there, the procedure will look approximately the same as last year, Mr. Kostyrko explained: the employees of the precinct commission will verify the passport data and identity card, and after successful identification, the citizen will have access to vote on the TEG if he prefers this format. As Olga Kirillova, chairman of the Moscow City Electoral Committee, said, each commission will have three stationary TEGs and three portable terminals for those wishing to vote at home. This does not eliminate portable ballot boxes for paper ballots, she clarified, but this option will remain for those who absolutely do not want to vote online: “If people do not want, they will be offered a paper ballot at home.” As for the conditions for observation, little will change here, it follows from the explanations of the chairman of the city election committee, observers will not receive new tools.

Last year, observers were deprived of the opportunity to control the voting process outside the public observation headquarters, Alexander Yefimov, head of Yabloko’s election control headquarters, complained. “We sent observers to the Moscow City Electoral Committee, but we got an excellent answer: go to the Public Chamber,” he recalled. “Of course, we went to the Public Chamber, but from the point of view of electoral legislation, this is not very correct.” In addition, Apple was then unable to gain access to the so-called observer node – this is special software that allows you to control the data stored in the blockchain. And, finally, “all distrustful people” have doubts about the need to put a tick during the voting if the voter wants to check how the vote was taken into account, the party member added.

However, according to Olga Kirillova, last year the work of monitoring the DEG was organized quite competently, so nothing will change in essence. As in the previous year, the Moscow City Electoral Committee decided not to create an independent territorial electoral committee of the DEG, but to take over its functions. It will not be possible to include someone in the commission directly during the elections, and it is hardly necessary, Ms. Kirillova insisted. “The image and the input itself (electronic “ballots.”— “b”) we will see in exactly the same way,” she assured. “I think that the Moscow City Electoral Committee is less interesting and less crowded. We’re bored!”

To track the results of their own voting in the DEG system, the voter will still need to check the box, and as for access to the “observer node”, the chairman of the city election committee is sure that if all the technical requirements are met, this issue can be resolved.

Having finished with the explanations, the public headquarters moved on to the main thing – the approval of the question that Muscovites will have to answer during the online training. Moscow City Duma deputy from the Communist Party Yekaterina Engalycheva proposed to discuss the issue of banning electric scooters in places where there is no special infrastructure. “This is something that worries absolutely everyone,” she argued. “It’s scary for people to walk on the sidewalks, what has our city turned into?”

However, the head of the headquarters, Vadim Kovalev, did not support the initiative. “As a deputy, you have the opportunity to influence these issues. We are still a public structure,” he explained. For social activists, even the issue of admitting small dogs without muzzles to playgrounds seemed not the most appropriate. As a result, during the testing of the DEG, Muscovites will be asked what event they would choose for City Day: free city parking, a pedestrian zone on one of the streets within the Boulevard Ring, free attractions for children in parks, or free admission to city museums.

According to Mr. Kovalev, in the near future, the headquarters also plans to complete the formation of a corps of public observers: more than 8,000 Muscovites have already signed up for their ranks, and half of them even managed to complete training.

Anastasia Kornya