The election commission was allowed to come light – Newspaper Kommersant No. 148 (7349) of 08/16/2022

The Third Court of Cassation of General Jurisdiction in St. Petersburg sided with the ex-candidate for the head of a rural settlement from the Nenets District, who was previously supported by the prosecutor’s office in his dispute with the election commission. The court reminded election commissions that they have no right to ignore a candidate’s application for nomination, even if he did not provide all the necessary documents. The expert says that such violations are more typical for lower-level elections and are associated with the low level of qualification of municipal election commissions, but sometimes they become a tool of “dirty technologies”.

The Third Court of Cassation upheld the prosecutor’s submission made a year ago to Alena Vyucheyskaya, chairman of the electoral committee of the municipality of the Pustozersky village council of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug. This was reported by the press service of the court on August 15. The text of the decision has not yet been published, but it follows from the case file that the election commission refused to consider the application for self-nomination of a candidate for the election of the head of the municipality: the commission did not register him properly, did not notify the self-nominated candidate about the shortcomings in the submitted documents and did not decide on registration as a candidate or denial of it, according to the case file. Prosecutors conducted an inspection and submitted a proposal to the chairman of the commission to eliminate violations of the law.

The head of the election commission did not agree with the prosecutor and challenged his presentation in court. She referred to the fact that the candidate did not present his passport and other necessary documents along with the application for self-nomination. He was informed that he would receive confirmation of the acceptance of the application for nomination and documents after the elimination of the shortcomings. “Since the citizen did not submit the documents necessary for nomination and registration, the election commission had no legal grounds to consider the issue of registering him as a candidate or refusing to do so,” the press service cites the plaintiff’s arguments.

However, the court of first instance confirmed the legitimacy of the submission of the oversight agency and refused the election commission to satisfy the claim. The appeal left this decision unchanged, and a year later it was confirmed by the cassation instance. At the same time, the court explained that, according to the law, the election commission is considered notified of the nomination of a candidate immediately after the election commission receives a written application for consent to run, from that moment the candidate receives the status of nominated and acquires the corresponding rights and obligations.

“The legal regulation does not provide for an election commission to leave without consideration a candidate’s application for his nomination if all the necessary documents are not attached to it, since the nomination (self-nomination) itself is of a notification nature, which imposes on the election commission the obligation to consider the submitted candidate’s application and documents (if any) and make an appropriate decision on them,” the cassation explained. The court also recalled that the election commission is obliged to notify the candidate of shortcomings in the submitted documents no later than three days before the meeting at which the issue of registration is to be considered.

The refusal to consider a candidate’s application is a situation that is more typical for municipal elections, and it is most often explained by the low level of qualification of the commissions, says electoral lawyer Roman Smirnov. In the course of more significant elections, according to him, such situations, if they arise, are resolved already at the level of a higher commission, “you don’t even need to call the prosecutor.” In fact, the election commission does not have the right to refuse to accept a candidate’s application, even if it is “even if it is written on toilet paper,” but later the commission has the right to make a decision to refuse registration, having previously notified the candidate about the shortcomings in the submitted documents, the expert explains. The fact that this did not happen is most likely a consequence of the formal logic that one of the members of the commission was guided by, Mr. Smirnov suggests. In any case, the prosecutor’s office promptly corrected the commission – in the Nenets district, the supervisory agency is generally very active in protecting the rights of voters, the lawyer notes.

Massive problems with the submission of documents for registration by candidates were recorded, in particular, during the municipal elections in St. Petersburg in 2019: the commissions concealed the fact that elections were called, artificially created queues that did not allow candidates to submit documents on time, or simply closed the doors to them. However, according to Roman Smirnov, the northern capital has long turned into an independent “electoral sultanate”, and in general the problem is not so typical for Russian elections. Although certain electoral technologies could “leak” into neighboring regions, especially since the Nenets district electoral committee was recently headed by a native of St. Petersburg, the expert concludes.

Anastasia Kornya