The government did not support the ideas of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation on the codification of electoral legislation

On February 22, State Duma deputies from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, including party leader Gennady Zyuganov, made the draft Electoral Code of Russia to the lower house of parliament. The prepared document includes 20 chapters, which are designed to streamline Russian legislation in terms of conducting election campaigns. “The main goal of the proposed project is the democratization of the Russian electoral legislation, ensuring the electoral rights of citizens while maintaining the basic principles of federalism. The project is aimed at systematizing the current legislation on elections and referendum, eliminating contradictions, gaps and duplication of norms in it. It is designed to make the process of law enforcement in this area more understandable and convenient,” the explanatory note to the bill says.

The Communist Party of the Russian Federation proposes, with the adoption of the code, to actually abandon all the innovations of recent years. The party proposed to hold elections on the third Sunday of March, and not in September, when not everyone is back from vacation, which affects the turnout. This is a topic that the opponents of United Russia, including the communists, have been raising for 10 years. Since 2006, Russia has decided to hold two single voting days – on the second Sunday in March and the second Sunday in October – for elections at all levels in the regions. But in 2012, this practice was abandoned. In addition, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation proposes to return to only one-day voting (for the first time, multi-day voting was used in 2020, when amendments to the Constitution were approved, then it began to be practiced in elections); cancel remote electronic voting (DEG; used since 2019), etc.

The document received a negative conclusion from the White House, which was signed by Deputy Prime Minister of Russia – Chief of Staff Dmitry Grigorenko. The need to implement such ideas of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation as the removal of restrictions on the passive suffrage of people with an outstanding criminal record, the status of a foreign agent, the use of foreign financial instruments, etc., was also considered unproven in the White House. In the explanatory note to the bill, there is no justification for the feasibility of the proposed changes, based on an analysis of the results of law enforcement practice, indicating the inefficiency of the existing legal regulation, writes Grigorenko.

The restrictions and prohibitions proposed by the party on the use of multi-day voting, DEG, etc. are also not justified, the White House noted. “In its direction, the draft law excludes from the number of methods and mechanisms implemented during the preparation and conduct of elections and a referendum, everything that is somehow connected with the use of modern technologies. However, this approach is not consistent with the need to ensure that citizens have access to participation in elections and referendums using the information and digital tools that currently exist,” the conclusion says. According to Grigorenko, the use of modern technologies contributes to an increase in voting citizens and an increase in civic activity.

We also found legal and technical errors in the initiative, and also recorded its contradiction to the Constitution. For example, article 84 (stating that referendum issues should be regulated by federal constitutional law, and not by the code). Based on the totality of the comments, the White House said that the Communist Party of the Russian Federation does not support the initiative.

State Duma Deputy, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Sergey Obukhov noted that the party does not in any way deny the use of modern technologies in the electoral process, but insists on their transparency – whether it be ballot processing complexes (KOIB) or DEG. When discussing the document, the party hopes to understand the seriousness of the arguments, and what is worth or not worth refining (however, with negative reviews from the government, bills do not reach the second reading).

How informed Kommersant in 2018, the Russian Foundation for Free Elections (RFV), together with Moscow State University, has already begun to prepare a draft Electoral Code. One of its developers, the head of the department of constitutional and municipal law at Moscow State University, Suren Avakyan, then specified that the authors “record” the wishes of the Russian Central Election Commission and the presidential administration.

According to Tatyana Lushnikova, vice-president of the Russian Association of Political Consultants, some of the work was done then, but it was shelved, and small pieces were introduced into the legislation in the form of amendments. “In general, the work on the Electoral Code, in principle, had no real prospects. The electoral legislation is connected with such a volume of other laws that the code cannot be written in isolation from the existing legislation,” the expert noted. As for the proposals of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation to refuse the use of digital technologies, Lushnikova expressed the opinion that the DEG has proved its convenience in regions where there are many remote areas, but a high level of digitalization. “It makes no sense to abandon DEG, but to make it more transparent. It is simply not advisable to refuse it now, ”Lushnikova believes.

DEG and multi-day voting is our reality, says political lawyer Anton Rudakov. He also noted that the number of editions of the law “On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights and the Right to the Destiny of Citizens of the Russian Federation” exceeds 100, although the law has been in force only since 2002. “Codification is a reasonable legislative technique, but this issue is not now so acute that there was a need to adopt this law now,” says Rudakov. According to him, the above-mentioned law now partially looks like a “patchwork quilt”, but changes in regional electoral laws, which often copy the federal one, are now more in demand.

According to electoral lawyer Roman Smirnov, the regions of Russia have their own electoral legislation, and it is not very appropriate to combine it with the federal one, which was proposed by the communists. “Despite the fact that many call the law a patched-patched caftan, there has not yet been a global need to change it, since decision-makers have had enough problems lately,” Smirnov says. The expert suggested that the bill of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is a “long-playing” product that will be promoted until voting day.” “But, knowing the statistics of the State Duma, the chances that it will be adopted, or at least reach the first reading, are not great,” Smirnov said.