Plus codification of all elections – Newspaper Kommersant No. 209 (7410) dated 11/11/2022

The Communist Party on Thursday at a round table in the State Duma presented its draft Electoral Code. At the same time, its participants discussed the latest changes in the electoral legislation, which cause them particular rejection: remote electronic (DEG) and multi-day voting, the abolition of the institution of members of election commissions with the right to consultative vote, etc. Member of the Central Election Commission (CEC) Yevgeny Shevchenko tried to reflect the reproaches, citing on the confidence of ordinary Russians in the election results. In response, he was invited to a “tour of the sites”, where he can be beaten by “thugs from the nineties.”

The draft Electoral Code, published on the website of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, is a 464-page document (.pdf). It, as party leader Gennady Zyuganov assured, contains “all the best that was in the developments of various parties and movements.” Head of the commission for the preparation of the code, first deputy chairman of the Duma Committee on Legislation Yuri Sinelshchikov toldthat work has been going on since the beginning of the year and has not yet been completed. According to him, members of the commission agree that “Russian electoral legislation is excessively cumbersome and unstable, allows for double standards” and “serves as a tool for maintaining the power of the ruling elite,” which leads to “stagnation of the political system and growth of distrust in power.”

Mr. Sinelshchikov recalled that the topic of codifying the electoral legislation began to be discussed back in the 1990s, and since the early 2000s, representatives of the Central Election Commission, including its current chairman Ella Pamfilova, have repeatedly spoken about plans to develop a code.

The purpose of the code, according to the communist, is “to ensure real political competition in the country”, for which it is necessary to simplify the rules governing electoral procedures and “get rid of the massive linguistic imperfection of the terms used.”

The deputy also stressed that the code should be “worked out by all parties, the presidential administration, the government,” and after being adopted in the first reading, it “should be discussed at extended parliamentary hearings.”

It should be noted that when Yuri Sinelshchikov spoke about the draft code at a meeting of the State Duma on November 8, its speaker Vyacheslav Volodin criticized this idea, calling the Russian electoral system “one of the best in the world.”

Member of the CEC from the Communist Party Yevgeny Kolyushin called the main advantage of the project “the desire to return the electoral legislation to the path of consistency”, from which it left due to “numerous point changes.”

“Now it has already become common that the normative acts of the election commissions speak about the operation of the law with the additions provided for by the act of the commission. As a result, election commissions, contrary to their nature as law enforcement bodies, are turning into law-making bodies,” Mr. Kolyushin emphasized.

State Duma deputy Andrei Kuznetsov (A Just Russia – For Truth) supported the initiative, and among the necessary, in his opinion, changes in the electoral legislation, he called the abolition of the municipal filter in the gubernatorial elections, at least for candidates from parliamentary parties, and the inadmissibility of a completely majoritarian system in the regions. Deputy Anzhelika Glazkova (KPRF) recalled that the Communists also advocate the abolition of the DEG and the return of members of commissions with an advisory vote to the territorial and precinct election commissions.

Suren Avakyan, head of the department of constitutional and municipal law at the law faculty of Moscow State University, also supported the idea of ​​the code, but criticized certain shortcomings of the CPRF project. Thus, he did not like that it does not provide for a mechanism for recalling an elected person and does not say anything about the participation in elections of other electoral associations, except for political parties.

Former deputy of the Saratov Regional Duma from the Communist Party Nikolai Bondarenko very emotionally accused United Russia of adopting the wrong laws, the consequences of which Russia is now “watching with horror”.

President of the Russian Association for Public Relations Yevgeny Minchenko said the same thing, but more restrained, in particular, expressing the opinion that the rejection of direct elections of mayors and elections by party lists in the regions “did not justify itself.” At the same time, he admitted that he is not a supporter of the abolition of the DEG, but “if such things are accepted, there must be a consensus of all political players.”

CEC member Yevgeny Shevchenko undertook to answer the reproaches. “I will express the thoughts that are shared by the majority of the members of the CEC. If we look at the numbers of sociological services that conduct research after each election, we will see that about 65-70% of voters trust the election results. And in the United States, voting has not yet begun, and already 63% of voters do not trust the results of the elections,” Mr. Shevchenko said. In his opinion, all the reforms benefited the electoral process, including the DEG and multi-day voting, which create convenience for voters. According to the CEC member, there are no problems with control either: the number of observers – by the way, at the proposal of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation – has been increased from two to three, and public observation centers make it possible to monitor broadcasts from video cameras at polling stations online.

The participants of the round table listened to Yevgeny Shevchenko very tensely, and when he was about to evaluate the draft Electoral Code of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, there were shouts from the audience that the time for the speech was over and it was time for the speaker to leave the podium. Nevertheless, he managed to report that he especially did not like the lack of a ban on running for people with a criminal record and foreign assets in the project.

The first deputy chairman of the Communist Party faction, Nikolay Kolomeytsev, responded to Mr. Shevchenko’s optimism by inviting him “on a tour of the polling stations in the Rostov region,” which the deputy represents: “Only without a certificate! There you and I can be beaten by your chairmen of the commissions and thugs from the nineties!” And the ex-deputy of the State Duma from the Communist Party Valery Rashkin recalled how he “often came to Ella Pamfilova”, but she did not receive him, so he had to speak on the street – to protest against the DEG, “violating the principles of the secrecy of voting and voluntary participation in elections.”

Summing up, Yuri Sinelshchikov noted that it might be worthwhile to reflect in the draft code the position of its authors against the DEG. One of his shortcomings, the deputy called the lack of responsibility for organizing the DEG IT-specialists. While members of the election commissions are “punished” for the violations committed, “for these guys, the election campaign is just a game in front of the screen,” the communist summed up.

Ksenia Veretennikova