Walking on TEGs – Kommersant

In the autumn elections of the mayor of Moscow, new terminals for electronic voting will appear at each polling station. The Moscow City Election Commission (MGIK) has already begun training members of precinct commissions (PECs). According to Deputy Chairman of the IPCC Dmitry Reut, paper ballots are not canceled, and each voter will be able to choose their preferred method of voting. The usual procedure for verifying identity and verifying passport data is also preserved: a citizen will be able to use the new terminal only if he is successfully identified by a member of the precinct commission.

Moscow is preparing another innovation for the 2023 mayoral elections: an electronic voting terminal (TEG) will be installed at each polling station, which will immediately send data to the remote electronic voting system (DEG). The IPEC has already started training PEC members to work with the new system, Andrei Klyukin, a trained member of PEC No. 1661, told Kommersant. “During the training, each member of the PEC was equipped with a workplace with a laptop and a scanner. We studied the work with an electronic list, voter registration, issuance of a ballot, refusal to issue and other situations. The main innovation will be the use of TEG,” he said.

Recall that Moscow tested the electronic voter list in the municipal elections in 2022 along with a new passport scanning system. The introduction of such a list allowed Muscovites to participate in the DEG without an appointment and choose the method of expressing their will directly on the voting day. The information in the electronic list was updated in real time.

IPCC Deputy Chairman Dmitry Reut told Kommersant that the training of PEC members will take as long as it takes to master the new material. TEGs will be installed at all polling stations, but paper ballots will not be canceled – the voter will have the right to choose how he wants to vote, Mr. Reut explained. “The PEC member will notify the voter about the possible ways of voting, and the voter will answer in what form he wants to vote. To choose a voting method, nothing but the desire of the voter is required,” he said. According to him, the installation of TEG in Moscow will not require additional changes in legislation.

The use of TEG, together with the expansion of the DEG (in the 2022 elections, 1.7 million Muscovites voted online, and only 695,000 at polling stations) reduces the need for paper ballots. But so far, according to Dmitry Reut, their printing is planned according to the norm stipulated by law – 70% of the number of voters (as of January 1, 2023, there were 7.6 million of them in Moscow).

As Artem Kostyrko, head of the Department for Improving Territorial Administration and the Development of Smart Projects of the Moscow Government, explained to Kommersant, before using the TEG, the voter will go through the usual procedure for verifying passport data and an identity card with a member of the PEC, and only after successful identification will he get access to voting on the TEG, if prefer this format. “The voice will immediately enter the blockchain, as with the DEG,” the official said. He stressed that the abolition of paper ballots is out of the question: “Just as the DEG did not replace, but supplemented the traditional voting format, so terminals at polling stations are an additional opportunity. Last year, more than 70% of Muscovites who voted did so electronically. Why not offer an electronic voting format at the polling stations in parallel with the paper one?”

Mr. Kostyrko also recalled that last year the media discussed the electronic list of voters as a serious innovation. “Although it took a huge amount of effort to implement it, for us, as a technical team, it is only one element of the digital elections ecosystem. The electronic list of voters, the electronic ballot, the storage of residents’ votes in the blockchain — all these elements of the Moscow electoral system ultimately have one goal: to make elections in the capital a modern convenient service,” Artem Kostyrko summed up.

TEG will not be the only innovation in the mayoral elections. As Kommersant previously reported, the CEC allowed Moscow to reduce the number of polling stations from 3,400 to 2,000. At the same time, all voting locations familiar to citizens will remain, and optimization will mainly take place by merging neighboring polling stations. The main arguments in favor of the reform are the growing popularity of DEGs and the reduction in the load on ordinary sections. This process should be completed by the May holidays.

Elena Rozhkova