Traditional electronic voting – Vedomosti

The second day of elections ended in Russia. “Yesterday [9 сентября] polling stations opened in 35 regions. Today, 15 more have joined them. So already in 50 regions, voting is taking place at different levels of elections, ”explained the head of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation (CEC) Ella Pamfilova.

In some regions, registration was required to participate in online voting, so the percentage of those who voted is calculated from the number of those who applied for the DEG, and not the total number of voters. In general, as of 21:30 Moscow time. 70% of the 110,000 citizens who signed up for the DEG voted.

Kaliningrad region – 68% (gubernatorial elections);

Kaluga region – 63% (by-elections to the City Council);

Kursk region – 65% (elections to the City Council);

Novgorod region – 64% (gubernatorial elections);

Pskov region – 79% (elections to the city council);

Tomsk region – 60% (gubernatorial elections);

Yaroslavl region – 78% (elections of the governor and the city council).

Pamfilova, commenting on the DEG, said on September 10 that “during the first day of voting, a large number of various appeals from abroad were recorded, including 15 potentially dangerous impacts of a high degree of criticality.” Attacks were also carried out on the CEC website. In Moscow, the online voting system, according to Vadim Kovalev, head of the public election observation headquarters in the capital, was subjected to 5,000 hacker attacks.

In terms of the number of voters in the DEG, Moscow is in the lead, since the elections of municipal deputies in the capital did not require prior registration. As of 20:00 Moscow time. turnout at the DEG was 19.11% of the total number of voters – 1,444,952 people voted. That is, about 6% of Muscovites voted through the DEG in Moscow in a day. The overall turnout (online and traditional) in the capital was 25.5%.

In the last municipal elections in 2017, when online technologies were not used, the turnout did not reach 15%.

On the first day of elections, supporters of the authorities vote more often, on the last day – opposition-minded citizens who do not welcome multi-day voting and the DEG, notes Ilya Grashchenkov, head of the Center for Regional Policy Development. That is why, the expert continued, the increase in voting in the DEG occurred in the first days.

The ardent opponents of the DEG are the communists. After the 2021 State Duma elections, in which online voting was used in several regions, including Moscow, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation spoke about the non-recognition of the results of the DEG, and then introduced a bill to abolish the DEG. It has not yet been considered by the State Duma. The CPRF then prepared a draft electoral code proposing the abolition of the DEG and multi-day voting, but it has not yet been submitted to the lower house of parliament.

The Communists believe that it is necessary to vote “in the old fashioned way” – only at the polling stations and only on the last day of the elections, that is, on Sunday, September 11, Nezavisimaya Gazeta noted. State Duma deputy, secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation for elections Sergey Obukhov explained this position in his Telegram channel by the fact that he does not see guarantees who will be responsible in case of incorrect accounting [электронных] the votes of the electorate. “In the case of traditional voting, all actions are performed by members of election commissions and are responsible for these actions under the law,” he said.

A similar position is held by A Just Russia. In his Telegram channel before the start of the elections, party leader Sergei Mironov called on voters “against the background of multi-day voting introduced in most regions, to come to the polling stations on Sunday, when the elections should have taken place.” “The main limiter of any party tactics in relation to the DEG is the idea that control over its results is vague,” notes political scientist Mikhail Vinogradov.

The new leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, Leonid Slutsky, did not speak directly on this topic, but representatives of the leadership of the DEG party supported him. In particular, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Boris Chernyshov (LDPR) told the Moscow city news agency about the interest of citizens in the DEG: “We hope that everything will also go further. I am currently visiting polling stations, meeting with our representatives, with our members of precinct commissions, observers – everything is positive.”

The leader of the New People, Aleksey Nechaev, noted on his Telegram channel that people are less and less likely to go to the polls. But “this does not mean that people do not want to choose anything,” but prefer electronic survey formats, and for this there is a “ready-made platform – the portal of public services.” The head of the Moscow branch of the party, Anna Trofimenko, spoke more specifically about this: “Incredible activity is observed in these elections. Over a million people voted online on the first day!” This, according to her, means “civil activity of Muscovites”, although the DEG worked “intermittently”, because of which some people could not vote, although they wanted to.

The party in power DEG supports. President Vladimir Putin, United Russia chairman Dmitry Medvedev, and others voted online in the municipal elections in Moscow.

Director of INSOMAR Viktor Poturemsky said on September 2 at the round table of the FORGO that the structure of the result of the traditional voting in Moscow would be heterogeneous, but in the DEG it would be homogeneous and would be of a pro-government nature.

Opponents of online voting among politicians will have to rebuild for the next campaigns, experts say. In particular, according to Aleksey Chesnakov, director of the Center for Current Politics, the DEG will be applied both in the elections of the mayor of Moscow in 2023 and in the presidential elections in 2024, he noted.

In April, in preparation for the current regional elections, Pamfilova said that no one intended to replace traditional voting with electronic voting. “Traditional voting was, is and will be,” the head of the CEC noted. “The DEG goes in parallel and additionally, so that in our vast country mobile people who want to have more choice, we will implement it as we are ready.”

At the same time, as the head of the Political Expert Group Konstantin Kalachev notes, “opposition-minded voters visiting polling stations are also diluted [настроенные позитивно по отношению к власти] elderly people”. “They do not know how to use electronic means of communication, and for them visiting polling stations is a way to look at others and show themselves,” the expert says.

According to political scientist Alexander Asafov, online voting has become “the electoral norm” anyway. He compares the opposition to the DEG with the fight against automatic ballot processing complexes (KOIB, that is, an electronic ballot box): “Now the leaders of the opposition parties are in favor of equipping more polling stations with them.”

Gleb Kuznetsov, head of the EISI Expert Council, says that it is too early to compare municipal elections in Moscow and elections, albeit at a higher level, in the regions: “We need to wait for the results.” From the course of voting in the capital, he concludes that the opposition “fell into a trap” by not approving certain methods of voting for its supporters, in particular the DEG. This can be compared, Kuznetsov believes, with Donald Trump’s criticism of mail-in voting in the US in the 2020 elections.

“Any thesis that the DEG is not an honest way of voting is a blow to the legitimacy of power, etc. actually harm the opposition itself,” Kuznetsov believes. This deprives their own candidates of the opportunity to receive votes from voters who would be more comfortable voting in this way: “Basically, this is a system for“ lazy voters ”. One can argue philosophically for a long time whether this method of increasing turnout is correct or only those who are ready to do it on a particular day should go, but this has nothing to do with the real electoral process.”

The practice of using DEG, according to the plans of the CEC, will expand, says the former head of the presidential department for domestic policy, head of the Forgo Konstantin Kostin: “During the federal cycle 2024-2026. it will be a significant tool.”

He sees no prospects for a “split” into those who invite voters only to the DEG and only to traditional polling stations. “But it looks naive when experienced politicians hope that voters will be willing to sacrifice personal plans if there is a more convenient alternative. [то есть голосования онлайн]”, he noted. Therefore, how they will build their campaigns in the future will depend on the desire of the parties: whether they will start work with their electorate on participation in the DEG.

The sooner all election participants understand and acknowledge that the DEG is an established institution, the sooner they will be able to master the mechanisms for attracting citizens to participate in online voting, Chesnakov says.