The Central Election Commission discussed the procedure for video surveillance during presidential elections

On December 8, the Central Election Commission (CEC) will hold its first meeting dedicated to the start of the presidential campaign (resolution on calling elections Federation Council must accept December 7), its chairman Ella Pamfilova said at a meeting of the commission on Wednesday. However, the CEC began preparing for these elections a long time ago and has already managed to adopt most of the documents regulating election procedures. On Wednesday, in particular, the commission approved the regulations on the working group on information disputes, the work procedure and composition of the working group for receiving documents from candidates and parties, and also adopted as a basis the procedure for using video surveillance equipment in the elections on March 17, 2024 (in its final version must be approved after discussion).

The video surveillance procedure for the presidential elections as a whole will differ little from that used during the 2021 Duma campaign, follows from a document prepared by the Central Election Commission. Video cameras will be installed in the voting premises of precinct election commissions (PECs), territorial election commissions (TECs) of the DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, as well as in TECs of remote electronic voting. Due to the reduction in funding, video surveillance in the TEC will be carried out only on the last day of voting from eight in the evening until the end of receiving protocols, said Nikolai Bulaev, deputy chairman of the Central Election Commission.

In total, video surveillance is planned to cover 40 thousand objects in 89 regions, where approximately 80% of voters will vote (traditionally, video surveillance is not carried out at sites created in hospitals, pre-trial detention centers, military units, as well as on ships and polar stations). The document prepared by the Central Election Commission describes in detail which areas should be in the surveillance zone: these are the places where ballots are issued, voting boxes and ballot processing complexes, safes and other storage points for election documentation, as well as places where ballots are moved, counted, and the place where the protocol is signed about the voting results. Access to the service portal of broadcasts during voting will be given to the Central Election Commission, territorial and precinct commissions, registered candidates, election observation centers created on the basis of public chambers, as well as human rights commissioners and the Human Rights Council under the President.

Video recordings made during voting must be stored for a year; they will be at the disposal of the Central Election Commission. Access to the video can be provided at the request of a court, prosecutor or investigator, if the issue of initiating a criminal or administrative case is being decided, as well as to campaign participants if they complain about violations of election laws. To do this, those wishing to do so will have to contact the regional election commission indicating the date and time of the violation. Such an application will be reviewed within three days, and the request may be denied if the commission finds that the application does not meet the requirements.

The list of polling stations where video surveillance will be carried out is being compiled for the first time using the personal account of the election commission on the State Services portal; other digital services will also work through them, such as monitoring the collection of signatures in electronic form, monitoring the one-time voting, and candidates’ approval of their photographs and party emblems. As Galina Stashevskaya, deputy director of the e-government infrastructure development department of the Ministry of Digital Development, said at the meeting, the election commissions of 76 subjects have already formed and sent lists of polling stations to the Central Election Commission, four more are in the process, five (Buryatia, Kalmykia, Lipetsk and Rostov regions, as well as Moscow) have not yet started doing this. However, representatives of the “lagging” regions immediately hastened to explain that their lists had been compiled a long time ago and were simply being agreed upon with Rostelecom, which must confirm the availability of technical capabilities for video surveillance.

Ms. Stashevskaya said that 97% of members of election commissions already have their own online accounts, with the exception of mainly new regions and Moscow, with which, according to a representative of the Ministry of Digital Development, communication is carried out via a separate track. Problems arise primarily in a situation where the data entered by a member of the election commission does not match the account on the State Services, but, as follows from the discussion, some party representatives fundamentally refuse to register a personal account. Meanwhile, this is not in the interests of party members, Ella Pamfilova emphasized, because personal accounts also provide access to video surveillance, in which campaign participants themselves are interested.

Also on Wednesday, the CEC decided on the timing of targeted notification of voters about the dates, time and place of voting (the so-called “InformUIK”): it will take place from February 17 to March 7. It is expected that at this time members of election commissions will conduct door-to-door and door-to-door visits to voters, clarifying information about them and the most preferable methods of voting. The pilot version of the project, the Central Election Commission reminds, was successfully implemented during the 2023 regional elections in 78 regions: 40 thousand PEC members visited 6.5 million households, conducted almost 5 million conversations with voters and clarified information about more than 6 million people. However, CEC member Evgeniy Kolyushin noted with concern, during this process voters were asked many evaluative questions, although their information did not seem to suggest this. It would be good to understand whether such questions will arise this time, he added. “No one!” – Mrs. Pamfilova assured her colleague: they will only ask for their name, who else lives in the house and what methods of participation in voting they prefer. At the same time, the chairman of the Central Election Commission advised the PEC members to increase their stress resistance in advance: participants in the bypass will probably have to deal with irritated voters who will throw out at them “everything that has not been worked out by the local authorities.”

Anastasia Kornya