Muscovites want to stay closer to the feeders – Picture of the Day – Kommersant

On August 26, remote electronic voting (DEV) was tested in Moscow, which will be used in the elections of municipal deputies from September 9 to 11. According to official data, during the test voting, 446,616 people received ballots, but only 407,822 of them voted, that is, 91.3%. A little more than 10,000 people came to ordinary polling stations specially opened for the test, where they could vote live. Combining both methods of voting, the organizers tested how the unified electronic voter register works. As part of the test, residents of 125 districts of Moscow were surveyed for further improvement: according to preliminary data, participants willingly voted for improving lighting in parks and increasing the number of bird feeders.

Moscow authorities on Friday tested a combination of online and offline voting for the first time. The main innovation of the upcoming elections in the capital is the electronic register of voters, which technically allows them to choose a convenient way of expressing their will up to the closing of polling stations and should exclude double voting. Accordingly, it was impossible to check the operation of the register only online. Vadim Kovalev, head of the public headquarters for election observation in Moscow, explained to Kommersant that 125 ordinary polling stations were opened for the test, one for each of the districts where municipal elections will be held in September. As a result, slightly more than 10 thousand people came to the polling stations; The electronic turnout was 40 times higher: 446,616 people received the DEG ballot, of which 407,822 voted.

Recall that earlier citizens wishing to vote electronically had to first fill out a corresponding application and detach themselves from the polling station at their place of residence. Now there is no need to detach: it will be possible to prefer the DEG spontaneously until the evening of September 11 – for example, when you discover that a traffic jam does not allow you to get to the site. The register will record both voting at the polling station and online, and the corresponding mark will not allow the citizen to vote again.

Both polling stations and online voting closed at 17:00. According to the developers, the shortened day was supposed to allow the test to be carried out in conditions of the most intensive work. Adult Muscovites registered in the respective districts could participate in the testing. The DEG format was available to owners of a full account on the mos.ru portal. The question “What improvements will help make your area more comfortable?” and 15 answers to it, of which five could be chosen, were approved based on a study of the wishes of Muscovites. The results of the survey, distributed by district, are planned to be submitted to the Moscow government, which will take them into account in further work.

According to Mr. Kovalev, the test voting took place as usual: there were no serious failures, and some questions that have arisen are expected to be resolved in the near future. “We asked the Department of Information Technology of Moscow to take another look at where the failures were, and we plan to discuss this at the beginning of next week, when the headquarters will sum up the results of testing,” Mr. Kovalev told Kommersant.

According to preliminary data, residents most willingly voted for the improvement and improvement of lighting in parks. Also, according to Mr. Kovalyov, a proposal to increase the number of bird feeders in the regions found a lively response.

One of Kommersant’s correspondents, who were going to take part in the testing, could not quickly find a link to vote on the mos.ru website. Another Kommersant correspondent coped with this task. “Your browser has successfully passed the test and is ready for test electronic voting,” the system announced and warned that you can vote from 8 to 17 hours. Voters in the morning had, as practice has shown, about an hour to think about the choice after receiving the electronic ballot, without closing the browser window. Participants who received the bulletin at the last moment had to decide on answers within 15 minutes. To confirm participation in the voting, it was necessary to enter the code received via SMS. Before issuing the ballot, the system also advised the Kommersant correspondent to make sure that the Internet connection is stable, and in case of voting from a smartphone, disconnect from the Wi-Fi network: “If your Internet connection is interrupted when downloading the electronic ballot, do not close the browser and do not restart the device , otherwise the bulletin will become unavailable. Reconnect the internet and refresh the newsletter page.” Before receiving the real bulletin, the Kommersant correspondent was asked to read the trial one, which, however, was no different from the real one. Voters could also request the address of an encrypted transaction of their will on the blockchain. When trying to re-vote, the system regularly and politely warned that it was impossible, since the ballot had already been received earlier.

Voter Vladimir Yegorov (recognized as a foreign media outlet acting as a foreign agent) claims that he still managed to vote twice: according to his version, at 9 am he came to his polling station in the Dorogomilovo district, where the members of the commission, allegedly due to technical reasons, did not have of access to the electronic register of voters and the passport data of the voters, they quite traditionally recorded on a piece of paper. Mr. Egorov states that he paid attention to this detail and later, after 11 o’clock, he voted again from his home computer. As proof, the experimenter provides screenshots of the paper and electronic ballots. “The above screenshots do not allow to identify the voter in any way – for example, there is not even an address bar in the electronic ballot. In this regard, it is impossible to assert that there is a fact of double voting,” Artem Kostyrko, head of the department for improving territorial administration and developing smart projects of the Moscow government, retorts. According to him, there were no cases of double voting in the system.

According to an initiative poll conducted on August 24-26 by the Russian Field research project, 49.2% of Muscovites are going to vote at polling stations, and 48.7% – electronically (two months ago there were only 44.5% of such votes). The survey involved 2,000 respondents interviewed on the street. Statistical estimate of the possible research error is 2.19% with a probability of 95%. Among the main motives for choosing electronic voting, respondents most often named its convenience – 76.3%, 17.8% noted that this method is more modern, and 17.1% expect to receive prizes and gifts for this. 65% of those who choose DEG as a way of voting are young people, notes Eduard Korobeinikov, head of quantitative research at Russian Field.

Afanasy Sborov