Moscow will get rid of electoral excesses

The Central Election Commission (CEC) on Wednesday allowed Moscow to reduce the number of polling stations from the current 3,400 to 2,000 by the autumn mayoral elections. Deputy Chairman of the CEC Nikolai Bulaev, costs the budget “not three kopecks.” The Moscow City Electoral Committee (MGIK) assures that all voting locations familiar to citizens will be preserved, and optimization will mainly take place by merging neighboring sections. It is planned to complete this process by the May holidays.

At a meeting on March 15, the CEC approved a draft resolution that allows Moscow to “optimize” more than a third of polling stations for the upcoming mayoral elections in September against the backdrop of growing popularity of remote electronic voting (DEV) and a decrease in traditional turnout. As CEC deputy chairman Nikolai Bulaev clarified, it is proposed to cut 1,370 polling stations in total, leaving 2,058 as a result. In 1,688 of the remaining polling stations, the number of voters will exceed 3,000 people. Recall that in the spring of 2022, the State Duma allowed the consolidation of polling stations in cities of federal significance (Moscow, St. Petersburg and Sevastopol), administrative centers of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and cities with more than 500 thousand voters. Prior to this, the maximum number of voters attached to one polling station was 3,000 people.

According to Mr. Bulaev, one of the main arguments for such optimization in Moscow is the change in the load on precinct election commissions (PECs) with the introduction of the DEG. As follows from the materials prepared for the CEC meeting, in the elections to the Moscow City Duma in 2019 (at that time the DEG was used as an experiment in only three districts), 3,605 polling stations worked, and the average workload per PEC was 441 people. In the 2021 State Duma elections, there were 3,645 PECs, but voting lasted three days, and the DEG was used everywhere in Moscow, so there were 179 people per polling station per day. Finally, in the municipal elections of 2022, with a three-day vote, 713 thousand people came to 3261 polling stations (in total, more than 2.4 million voted, including through the DEG), and the load on one PEC decreased to 72 people a day. “It seems to me that we can conclude from this that there is a need to discuss this problem, because funding for election commissions is not three kopecks,” summed up Nikolai Bulaev.

Deputy Chairman of the Moscow State Institute of Cinematography Dmitry Reut, in turn, said that the work of PEC members was simplified not only thanks to the DEG, but also due to the electronic voter register, which Moscow first used in the 2022 local elections. With the introduction of this register, it takes no more than two minutes for a PEC member to issue a ballot to a voter, Mr. Reut assured.

The main principle, according to which the capital will reduce the number of polling stations, is the unification of the majority of PECs located in one building. This will create 2028 voting addresses. At the same time, according to the deputy chairman of the Moscow State Institute of Cinematography, all districts did not row “one size fits all” and an individual approach was applied to each territory. Based on the results of this work, polling stations should be moved to the first floors as much as possible, in addition, 64 premises that are not the most comfortable for voting will be freed up, including kindergartens, hostels, commercial enterprises, leisure organizations in residential buildings and libraries.

Optimization of the PEC will also entail a reduction in the number of members of the commissions – from 45 thousand to 32 thousand people. But, as Dmitry Reut assured, these people “will not be abandoned”: “Conscientious, experienced, qualified members of precinct commissions who wish to continue their work will be enrolled in the reserve.” In addition, in those areas where polling stations will be expanded, the composition of election commissions will also increase to the maximum, and the vacant people will be taken to fill the vacancies.

Mr. Reut also said that special attention will be paid to informing voters about changes in the PEC system. According to him, the work of parties, the Public Chamber of Moscow and public advisers, who are represented “in every house, in every entrance,” will be added to the traditional resources in the form of the media, the Internet and announcements at the entrances. The latter will go from house to house and bring new information to people directly, the deputy chairman of the Moscow State Institute of Cinematography promised. Site optimization should be completed by the May holidays. “I do not see a single reason and not a single objective circumstance that would hinder us in this work. Speaking in worldly terms, it’s just economic,” summed up Dmitry Reut.

Summing up the discussion, Nikolai Bulaev suggested that Moscow continue its innovative successes in the electoral process by the autumn elections and open public voting centers for the 30th anniversary of the Russian electoral system celebrated this year, where people will come, because it will be very interesting there. “There used to be holidays in the village during voting. It seems to me that, taking into account the technologies that are available in Moscow today, and this is an electronic list of voters, a mobile voter, KOIBs, ordinary voting boxes, there is a promising development, which, we hope, will be available for the elections, these are terminals for electronic voting. This makes it possible to create public voting centers,” Mr. Bulaev explained. In addition, he did not rule out that “the day is not far off” when “transformer corners” will appear in the projects of public buildings being erected in Moscow, which will painlessly work as precinct election commissions.

Dmitry Reut, assessing at the request of Kommersant the likelihood of implementing the ideas of Mr. Bulaev, said that “nothing is impossible”: “If something good can be done, we will definitely try. Wait and see”.

As a result, 14 out of 15 members of the CEC voted for the draft resolution. Only Yevgeny Kolyushin, representing the Communist Party in the commission, was against.

Elena Rozhkova