Regions and municipalities will have the right to finance federal elections

Amendments to the law “On the elections of the President of the Russian Federation” were introduced to the State Duma (State Duma) on October 5 by the heads of the legislative committees of both chambers of parliament Andrei Klishas (Federation Council) and Pavel Krasheninnikov (State Duma), as well as a group of deputies and senators. Most of the changes are of a technical nature and duplicate the provisions of the law on basic guarantees of electoral rights updated in May, which is recognized by the co-authors of the document, but there are also some innovations. Previous amendments were adopted, among other things, to make it possible to hold elections in the Russian Federation under martial law (announced in new regions).

The amendments made to the State Duma in the law on presidential elections concern the accreditation of media representatives: only journalists working on the basis of an employment contract will be allowed to attend meetings of the election commission, Klishas wrote in his Telegram channel. The number of ballots transferred to the precinct election commission during remote voting, according to the amendments, will be determined by the decision of the election commission of the subject, the senator writes. In addition, it is possible to maintain a voting register outside the voting premises in electronic form and a number of other innovations.

The draft also establishes additional guarantees for ensuring the secrecy of voting and the obligation for an already registered candidate to notify the election commission about his criminal record. Such a candidate is obliged no later than 18:00 Moscow time the next day after the appearance of a criminal record to submit information about this in writing to the Central Election Commission of Russia.

“I would like to note that the changes are not novelties: they repeat previously made changes to the laws on guarantees of voting rights and participation in referendums and on elections of State Duma deputies,” the press service of the lower house of parliament quotes Krasheninnikov as saying. It is also proposed to set the maximum cost for the production of propaganda materials in the amount of 2% of the subsistence level per capita in Russia per unit of production (currently 2% is 287 rubles). In the current edition, this limit is 100 rubles. per unit of production.

All these amendments had indeed previously appeared in the law on basic guarantees and were quite expected, says political strategist Oleg Zakharov. According to him, only one of the options was variable and has now appeared in the law. We are talking about the right to finance federal elections from regional and local budgets.

This norm was first tested during voting for amendments to the Constitution in 2020, and this year in a number of regions, an updated format for the work of precinct commissions was tested in pilot mode – door-to-door visits to inform about elections. “Members of the commissions need to be paid additionally for this work, and now there is an opportunity to increase their salaries at the expense of local and regional budgets. Many resource regions will certainly be happy with this option, which will help them intensify the fight for the electoral result within the borders of their subject in federal elections and stimulate precinct election commissions for a larger turnout,” Zakharov told Vedomosti.

The amendments represent a “refinement” of the existing election mechanism, Alexey Didenko (LDPR), Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Regional Policy and Local Self-Government, explained to Vedomosti. For example, the initiative envisages the termination of the powers of candidates’ proxies “simultaneously with the termination of the campaign period.”

“The status of proxies in this law is finite in time,” Didenko said, noting that this will prevent abuse on their part directly on voting days. According to the deputy, often proxies, “having a completely different constitutionally significant goal,” interfered with the normal operation of polling stations. “Now all campaigning activities will end before the voting procedure,” the deputy concluded.