Single voting day starts in Russia

On Friday, three-day voting starts in most constituent entities of the Russian Federation for elections at all levels (except regional and municipal; by-elections to the State Duma are being held in four districts). The day before, the information center of the Central Election Commission (CEC) opened in Moscow, which this year changed its location for the first time in many years, moving due to renovations in the commission building to the site of the Rossiya Segodnya agency. Chairman of the Central Election Commission Ella Pamfilova recalled that the 2023 elections, like last year, are being held under the conditions of a special military operation, which has already led to the postponement of voting in two areas of the Belgorod region exposed to shelling. Due to concerns about attacks on digital elements of the electoral system, Russians abroad will not be able to vote online this time. But Ms. Pamfilova notes a decreasing number of complaints about the organization of elections and a low percentage of refusals to register candidates.

Elections at various levels, including by-elections to the State Duma in four districts, are being held in 85 Russian regions. In 21 regions, including Moscow and the Moscow region, direct elections of heads will be held, and in 20 subjects (including in new territories) deputies of regional parliaments will be elected. In most cases, voting will last three days – from September 8 to 10. The elections will last two days (September 9 and 10) in the Sverdlovsk region and Khabarovsk Territory, one day (September 10) – in Bashkiria, Buryatia and the Tyumen region.

This time the CEC information center opened in the press center of the Rossiya Segodnya news agency. The changes in the location are related to the renovation of the Central Election Commission building on Bolshoy Cherkassky Lane in the center of Moscow: it is being updated for the 2024 presidential campaign. Traditionally, the CEC information center is a space for journalists to work, equipped with digital panels and screens on which information about voter turnout and voting results in each region is broadcast online. In addition, briefings from members of the Central Election Commission on the progress of the elections are held there periodically. At the Rossiya Segodnya MIA site, all these functions have been preserved: in the hall between the briefing rooms there is a large digital panel that will display the voting progress in all regional campaigns and in by-elections to the State Duma in four single-mandate constituencies.

The work of the information center according to tradition opened briefing by the Chairman of the Central Election Commission Ella Pamfilova, who reported on the readiness of the electoral system for the start of voting.

She began her speech with a minute of silence and a video in memory of nine election officials from different regions who died during the special operation.

It was precisely the holding of elections in the conditions of the Northern Military District that Ms. Pamfilova called the main feature of the current campaign, as well as last year’s: “We all understand that this imposes on us even greater responsibility, an understanding of the line beyond which we cannot cross, a heightened sense of justice and responsibility to those who is at the front now.” The special operation has already led to the adjustment of some plans: due to the high alert regime introduced in connection with regular shelling from the territory of Ukraine, the electoral commission of the Belgorod region postponed voting in the elections of the council of deputies of the Shebekinsky urban district and the zemstvo assembly of the Zhuravlevsky rural settlement, the head of the Central Election Commission said.

Another feature of the current elections is the inability to vote online from abroad. As Ella Pamfilova explained, most of the servers from which attacks on digital elements of the Russian electoral system are carried out are located outside the Russian Federation, and blocking foreign traffic is the only effective way to protect against such attacks. As for electronic voting within the country, more than 1.2 million people submitted applications to participate in it in 24 regions of the country, the chairman of the Central Election Commission said. But there will be more real participants in online voting, since Moscowwhich conducts it on its own platform, you do not need to submit an application in advance.

Also, during the 2023 elections, an experiment is being conducted on two new projects: “Mobile PEC,” in which members of election commissions go to voters’ homes and inform them about the upcoming elections, and “Stop-Double,” to prevent repeated voting. As part of the Mobile PEC, 37 thousand commission members in 78 regions visited 6.5 million houses and apartments, and the Stop-Double project is being tested in 31 regions, Ms. Pamfilova specified.

The head of the Central Election Commission also particularly noted the low percentage of refusals to register candidates for elections at all levels.

Thus, during the by-elections to the State Duma in four districts there was not a single refusal of registration at all – there were only candidates who themselves did not submit the required package of documents to the election commission. In the gubernatorial elections, only two candidates were denied registration (in the Moscow and Samara regions), four more dropped out of the race after registration, and 29 nominated candidates lost this status, in particular due to an incomplete package of documents. In the elections to legislative assemblies, according to the head of the Central Election Commission, 113 candidates on party lists and 35 nominees in single-mandate constituencies were denied registration. In general, according to Ms. Pamfilova, the share of refusals to register for all campaigns does not exceed 1.5%, and the total percentage of registered candidates from the number of initially nominated ones was 95%: in absolute numbers this is 81,062 candidates, of which 70,668 from 20 parties and 10,394 self-nominated candidates.

The chairman of the CEC also reported on the complaints received by the commission about possible violations before the start of voting, the number of which, compared to 2022, decreased from 481 to 307. Separately, she dwelled on complaints regarding forced online voting: in total, the CEC received 13 of them, but most turned out to be “fake”. The only real case, according to Ella Pamfilova, was an incident in Dzerzhinsk (Nizhny Novgorod region), where the head of one of the city administration departments sent out emails obliging employees to register for remote voting. In a number of cases, the Central Election Commission has discovered a tendency to “deliberately discredit” electronic voting, Ms. Pamfilova added.

Elena Rozhkova