Who feels good in Russia with DEG – Newspaper Kommersant No. 172 (7373) of 09/19/2022

The results of remote electronic voting (DEV) on the federal platform, which was used on September 9-11 in seven regions, did not significantly change the final election results. According to Kommersant’s calculations, the most noticeable differences between different forms of expression of will were observed in Pskov, where the list of Yabloko in the elections to the City Duma took third place in the “paper” voting, and sixth in the DEG. Candidates from the Communist Party in different elections also received less online results than offline. Deputy Chairman of the Central Election Commission Nikolai Bulaev explained this by the position of the parties in relation to the DEG and their call for voters to come to traditional polling stations.

Of the seven regions where the DEG was used on the federal platform, governors were elected in four subjects, and representative bodies of administrative centers were elected in three. Kommersant analyzed the results of gubernatorial campaigns and elections on party lists to the city dumas of Pskov and Kursk (in Yaroslavl, all deputies were elected in single-mandate constituencies).

In the elections to the city assembly of Kursk (17 mandates on lists and 17 in single-mandate constituencies), United Russia (ER) confidently won, winning in all constituencies and receiving 54.4% of the votes in party lists. At the same time, the result of the United Russia in the DEG was higher – 58.46% (about 3.9 thousand out of 6.6 thousand “electronic” votes) against 54.04% in the polling stations (in total there were 75 thousand people). The second place in both the DEG and the “paper” voting was taken by the LDPR (14.53% and 13%, respectively). But the third place online and offline went to different parties: electronic “bronze” was taken by “New People” (8.34% in the DEG against 6.05% in polling stations), and “paper” – by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (10.16% offline and 7 .23% online). As a result, according to the party lists, EP received ten seats in the city assembly, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the Liberal Democratic Party – two each, New People, Just Russia – For Truth (SZRP) and the Pensioners’ Party – one each.

In the elections to the Pskov City Duma, the DEG was in higher demand (10.4 thousand people voted on the Internet, 22.6 thousand at the polling stations), and the difference in the results turned out to be more noticeable. All 15 single-mandate constituencies were also taken by United Russia. United Russia took first place in the single constituency (51.33% of the vote), but if in the DEG its list gained 57.41%, then in the polling stations it was almost 9 percentage points less (48.75%). The second-placed Communist Party of the Russian Federation (14.52%), the results of the DEG, on the contrary, are worse: 11.04% versus 16.19% in the polling stations. Yabloko has a similar alignment: 9.96% on paper and only 7.11% online. Moreover, according to the results of the DEG, Yabloko took the last, sixth place, losing to the Party of Pensioners (8.25%), the Liberal Democratic Party (8.05%) and the SZRP (7.38%), but in the overall party standings they still became third ( 9.04%). In general, according to the party lists, four deputies from United Russia, two from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and one each from the SZRP, Yabloko, the Pensioners’ Party and the Liberal Democratic Party passed to the City Duma.

Note that, as the leader of the Pskov “Yabloko” Lev Shlosberg drew attention, already in the first two hours of voting on September 9, the turnout for the DEG exceeded 40%. “Remote and electronic voters seem to have a fantastic electoral appetite and started voting on the first day of voting before breakfast. I can’t eat, so I want to vote, ”the party website quotes Mr. Schlosberg. Yabloko urged its supporters to vote on the last day and at the polling stations. The head of the Regional Electoral Committee, Igor Sopov, explained the interest of citizens in online voting by serious information work in this direction.

At the elections of heads of regions this year, the DEG was used in the Kaliningrad, Novgorod, Tomsk and Yaroslavl regions. Everywhere, candidates nominated or supported by EP won by a wide margin. At the same time, Novgorod Governor Andrey Nikitin received almost the same results online and offline (77.11% and 77.03%), his Kaliningrad counterpart Anton Alikhanov was more popular at polling stations (80.47% versus 75.4% in the DEG), and Acting head of the Tomsk region Vladimir Mazur – on the Internet (88.05% in the DEG and 84.63% on “paper”).

The campaign in the Yaroslavl region, which has a long tradition of protest, was considered the most difficult for the authorities. However, even there, Acting Governor Mikhail Evraev, as an independent candidate, scored a confident 82.31% (85.97% online and 81.79% offline). The second place in the DEG was taken by Vladimir Smirnov (LDPR) with 4.22%, but in the overall standings, thanks to the “paper” voting, Mikhail Paramonov from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (3.85% in the DEG, 6.46% in the polling stations and 6.14% generally).

The results of the online voting were discussed at the Central Election Commission meeting on September 15. Nikolai Bulaev, deputy chairman of the commission, who oversees the DEG, showed tables showing that none of the gubernatorial candidates has a critical difference between the results at the polling stations and online. “When we are afraid that the DEG can distort the results, and even more so correct the voting results, these tables will be available, everyone can see that it is very difficult to catch a pattern that would be characteristic of some party. There is a regularity like this: the voting results practically coincide with those at the classical polling stations,” said Mr. Bulaev. The deputy chairman of the CEC explained the difference in the performance of the candidate from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the Yaroslavl region by the negative position of the party in relation to the DEG and its calls for its voters to come to traditional polling stations.

Political scientist Rostislav Turovsky recalls that the most active supporters of the opposition, who do not trust this procedure, mainly refused to participate in the DEG. “So it was, for example, at the municipal elections in Moscow. Pskov also became an example precisely because of the presence of an active Yabloko organization there. In other regions, opposition supporters did not see the point in opposing electronic voting and could vote in both ways, so the results were not radically different, ”the expert believes. In his opinion, in Russia as a whole, DEG practices are increasingly being introduced to attract a loyal electorate.

Elena Rozhkova, Anastasia Vinnitskaya