On the eve of the presidential campaign, the CEC will conduct the largest test of the new digital system

Next week, testing of the new digital platform of the Central Election Commission will begin, which will subsequently replace the outdated GAS “Elections”. The new platform will be called GAS “Elections” 2.0 and, unlike the first version, will work on Russian components. All 89 constituent entities of the Russian Federation will take part in the tests, and the readiness of the online voting system for peak loads will also be checked. Testing will last until the end of November, and based on its results it will become clear what the state of the new platform is in anticipation of the presidential campaign starting in mid-December.

At a meeting on October 5, the Central Election Commission (CEC) announced a large-scale training of a new digital platform on the eve of the start of the presidential campaign. All 89 regions will take part in the tests and will last from October 9 to November 29. The head of the Federal Center for Informatization (FCI) under the Central Election Commission, Alexander Sokolchuk, said that “such a powerful” training is being conducted for the first time, it will involve an updated version of the State Automated System (GAS) “Elections”, a remote electronic voting system (DEG), a unified identification system and authentication (Gosuslugi portal) and a number of additional peripheral devices.

The system will be tested in three stages. The first is training the specialists involved and developing a scenario. The second is the preparation and conduct of impromptu elections, including three-day voting from November 15 to 17, said Mr. Sokolchuk: “The main task is to conduct real load tests for the digital platform, conduct its full testing during the work of about 3 thousand system administrators simultaneously in a centralized database data. We want to see what our digital platform is really capable of, see the problems and solve them.” At the third stage, results will be summed up and reports will be generated, the head of the FCI said. According to him, the current State Automated System “Elections” is also fully preparing for the presidential campaign. It is planned to switch to a completely updated system (GAS “Elections” 2.0) next year, clarified Alexander Sokolchuk.

Vice President of Rostelecom Vladimir Volkov added that it is important for the DEG system to test the load at peak time, which usually occurs in the first hours of the first day of voting. Deputy Chairman of the Central Election Commission Nikolai Bulaev recalled that DEGs have so far been used in only 30 regions out of 89: “Therefore, it is proposed that voters from all 89 subjects submit an application through State Services to participate in the DEG in training.” To ensure peak load, it is necessary to select a time at which test participants from all regions will be able to vote at the same time, taking into account the time difference, added Mr. Bulaev.

CEC member Evgeniy Kolyushin asked a Rostelecom representative how many voters the DEG system was designed for and whether it could, for example, withstand a load of 80 million people (73.6 million voters took part in the 2018 presidential elections, or 67.5 % of their total number.— “Kommersant”). Nikolai Bulaev volunteered to answer. He recalled that in all regions where the DEG was already used, no more than 15% of voters voted through it, so one cannot count on high loads in the 2024 elections. “DEG is not water in a well, when you can draw, it has settled, and you can continue drawing. This is generally about the budget, and each DEG vote costs more than three kopecks. Therefore, in order to create a system for 80 million people, it will be necessary to spend 10 billion rubles multiplied by some other figure,” lamented the deputy chairman of the Central Election Commission. Therefore, according to him, calculations should be carried out taking into account the experience already gained, and now the DEG system is designed for 15 million voters.

Mr. Kolyushin had one more question: the digital platform, which is mentioned in the resolution, and the State Automated System “Elections” 2.0 – are they one or two systems? Mr. Bulaev decided to answer again: “There is a concept of GAS “Elections” version 1.3.1. This is the old version on which we worked and are working. Second: there is a digital platform, which at the first stage had the working name “Digital Platform” and which today we called GAS “Elections” version 2.0. After the tests are completed and the digital platform of GAS “Vybory” 2.0 is put into operation, version 1.3.1 will be taken out of technical circulation, and only GAS “Vybory” version 2.0 will remain.”

Then Evgeniy Kolyushin proposed amending the document on the training and removing the numbers 2.0 from the name of the GAS “Elections”, since funding has always been allocated only for one system, but now in fact there are two of them: old and new. But Nikolai Bulaev had objections to this too. According to him, funding from the federal budget was allocated for the maintenance and maintenance of the current GAS “Elections” (about 1.5 billion rubles annually), and for the creation of a new digital platform, which will later become GAS “Elections” 2.0, money was allocated from the federal national project “Digital Economy”. This was done in order to create a platform entirely on Russian components, because the current version 1.3.1 was built on foreign ones, summed up the deputy chairman of the Central Election Commission.

As a result, the members of the Central Election Commission voted to adopt a resolution on the appointment of the training, but taking into account other technical amendments from Mr. Kolyushin to the text.

Let us remind you that the current state automated system “Elections” has been in operation since 2012 and has a high degree of wear and tear. In 2020, the CEC began creating a digital platform, which will become a new version of the State Automated System “Elections”. As Deputy Head of the Ministry of Digital Development Oleg Kachanov (chief designer of GAS “Vybory” since October 2020) previously reported to Kommersant, a full update of the system should be completed by 2024, and it is created mainly on Russian developments. After the start of the special operation in Ukraine, several foreign IT companies suspended their activities in Russia, including Microsoft and Oracle, whose products are now used to support the State Automated System “Elections”.

Elena Rozhkova