The first day of silence – Newspaper Kommersant No. 167 (7368) of 09/10/2022
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On September 9, the first day of the three-day voting in regional and local elections started in Russia. In general, it went smoothly, with the exception of the suspension of several polling stations in Yaroslavl due to reports of mining and massive DDoS attacks on the system of the new electronic voter register in Moscow. In the Yaroslavl region, by the middle of the day, the lowest turnout in the elections of heads of subjects was also recorded. Failures in the electronic registry system caused inconvenience to a number of Muscovites who came to the polling stations, but did not affect the traditionally high turnout in electronic voting: by Friday evening, more than 1 million citizens preferred this method of expressing their will.
On Friday, in three dozen regions that decided on a three-day vote, regional and local elections started. In total, by the end of Sunday, they will be held in 82 regions, but somewhere a decision was made on a two-day vote, somewhere on a traditional one-day one, and some preferred different options for elections at different levels. In general, about 4.7 thousand campaigns are being held throughout the country, during which more than 31 thousand mandates will be distributed. In particular, the inhabitants of Russia will elect 14 governors, the composition of 6 regional parliaments and 11 city councils of administrative centers. According to Ella Pamfilova, chairman of the Central Election Commission (CEC), nearly 163,000 people will be watching the elections at polling stations across the country. According to her, 246,700 people in 37 regions plan to use the Mobile Voter mechanism (allows you to vote outside the place of registration). More than 23,000 voters voted ahead of schedule by Friday in the regional elections, and more than 290,000 people voted in the local elections.
A significant contribution to the statistics on early voting, apparently, was made by the voter Omskwhere elections to the local city council are held (the usual voting will take place there one day).
According to the regional electoral committee, in the first week of early voting (from August 31 to September 6), 3.5% of voters, or about 30.5 thousand people, took part in it (according to the State Autonomous System “Vybory”, 873.9 thousand voters). For comparison: in total, according to the CEC, 73.2 thousand people have voted early in the elections of deputies of local self-government of administrative centers, that is, Omsk accounts for more than 40% of their total number. On August 31, one could see impressive queues at the premises of the territorial election commissions (TECs).
A number of opposition parties announced a large-scale use of administrative resources – the transportation of voters, and the regional branch of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation sent an appeal to Mrs. Pamfilova about this situation. The CEC has not yet officially responded to the claims of the Omsk communists, early voting there will end on September 10 at 14:00.
On the eve of the elections, Mrs. Pamfilova described the current election campaign as one of the calmest in the last ten years. And as if in confirmation of her words, in most regions the first day of voting passed without excesses.
Thus, observers at the elections in Altai Territory, Krasnodar Territory, Udmurtia, Tambov and Kursk Regions. AT Saratov region, according to the regional election commission, a complaint was filed with the police against a member of one of the Saratov precinct commissions from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Tamara Ignatovich, who, without the permission of the chairman of the PEC, photographed the register for home voting containing personal data of voters. And in areas in Pskov region posted notices stating that journalists were not allowed to be present during voting outside the polling station. The regional electoral committee explained their decision by the norms of the law on mass media. However, representatives of the commission did not specify the number of the specific article of this act containing such a restriction. AT Yaroslavl a number of stations temporarily suspended their work due to a series of calls about the mining of educational institutions where they are located, but by the middle of the day they were all working normally.
Against the general background of regional electoral appeasement, the Moscow, where elections of councils of municipal deputies are held in 125 districts. This year, the capital is testing new digital innovations: in particular, an electronic voter register and passport readers. On Friday, citizens were met at the polling stations by members of commissions sitting at computers, who did not enter their data into paper books, but read passports using special scanners.
However, soon after the start of voting, reports began to appear on social networks about the system freezing, failures and the inability to receive a ballot. Such situations were personally observed by Kommersant correspondents.
So, in front of one of them, at one of the polling stations in the Konkovo region, several voters did not wait for the system to hang and the ballot to be issued and decided to return later, and the Kommersant correspondent in the Marfino region was able to get the ballot only on the second attempt after resetting the reader. Askhab Ganiev, voting member of precinct commission No. 88, told Kommersant that a failure occurred at their polling station after the voter’s passport was scanned – the system simply hung on his data. “It turned out to be on the verge. But he managed to get a ballot and vote. They didn’t hold him,” says a member of the PEC. According to members of the commissions, at several polling stations there were both those voters who waited and insisted on issuing a ballot, and those who were in a hurry and promised to vote later, as there were still two days ahead. Representatives of precinct commissions have different attitudes towards innovations. “On the one hand, the system, of course, simplifies the work of the commission. But, the main thing is that it works,” says Daria Yurova, chairman of PEC No. 91 of the Presnensky district. Chairman of PEC No. 90 of the same district, Vladimir Zhukov, believes that with the advent and expansion of remote electronic voting (DEV), the “sacredness of elections” is decreasing: “This is purely my personal opinion, but before elections were like a holiday. And now you can vote between a glass of beer and a cup of tea.”
At the public election observation headquarters, problems with the electronic registry were explained by massive DDoS attacks: 350 of them were committed in the morning alone, and by the end of Friday more than 5 thousand.
However, this did not affect the electronic turnout: more than 1 million Muscovites preferred this method of expressing their will. Perhaps this was facilitated by the fact that this year, thanks to the unified electronic register, residents of the capital did not need to pre-register for the DEG. The register is available at all polling stations, and if the voter has already voted electronically or live, according to the members of the commissions, the system was blocked and a red warning was displayed. According to the developers of the system, this makes it possible to exclude double voting without a preliminary application for the DEG. The total turnout for the municipal elections in Moscow at 20:00 is 16.7%: about 195 thousand people voted at the polling stations.
In addition to Moscow, remote voting takes place in seven other regions, but on a federal platform that does not imply a single register.
On Friday it started in five regions, in two more it will begin on Saturday. According to the deputy chairman of the TEC DEG Oleg Artamonov, there were no failures in the DEG on the first day of the elections, and the total turnout in five regions was about 47% of those who applied for this type of voting. The highest turnout for DEGs is in the Pskov region (about 71%), the lowest is in the Kursk region (about 45%).
As for the traditional voting at the polling stations, then, according to the Central Election Commission at 15:00, the highest turnout in the gubernatorial elections was in the Tambov region – 14.8%; the lowest in Yaroslavl – 4.17%. In the elections to the legislature of the regions, the highest turnout at 15:00 on the first day of voting was in the Sakhalin Region – 13.06%, the lowest in Udmurtia – 8.39%.
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