Who is better off with less – Newspaper Kommersant No. 61 (7506) dated 04/10/2023

Moscow mayoral elections will be held this year under new conditions, when the number of polling stations will be reduced from 3,400 to almost 2,000 amid the growing popularity of remote electronic voting. The parliamentary parties polled by Kommersant, which are highly likely to nominate their candidates for these elections, do not plan to change their campaign strategy much, but will focus on strengthening monitoring of online voting. According to experts, the digitalization of elections in Moscow can also affect the costs of parties and candidates for campaigning: it is cheaper and more efficient to conduct it using “partisan methods” on the Internet.

As Kommersant has already reported, the process of reducing polling stations in Moscow should be completed by the May holidays. One of the main arguments in support of optimization is the change in the load on precinct election commissions (PECs) in connection with the introduction of remote electronic voting (DEG). As Kommersant found out, parliamentary parties do not plan to radically change their usual campaign strategy, but one obvious change will definitely affect them – this is a reduction in the required number of observers. Recall that with the introduction of the practice of multi-day voting, parties and candidates were faced with the task of significantly increasing the number of their observers in order not only to “cover” all the polling stations in Moscow with them, but also to select people for each election day.

Maksim Rudnev, head of the executive committee of United Russia’s metropolitan branch, told Kommersant that the party had never had difficulty recruiting observers and covering all metropolitan polling stations. We have the required number of experienced observers, whom we systematically train on the eve of each election campaign,” United Russia explained.The popularity of the DEG, in his opinion, will only grow.

The Communists in this campaign will again call on their supporters to vote in traditional polling stations, despite their “optimization”, since the principled position of the party against the DEG does not change. “Our task during this election campaign is to do everything to fully protect the will of citizens at the polling stations. The authorities will promote the DEG, and we will promote voting at the polling stations, ”said Yury Afonin, First Deputy Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, State Duma deputy (he was included in the shortlist of possible party candidates to participate in the mayoral elections). Also, according to the deputy, the communists have set the task of closing 100% of polling stations by observers in these elections, and it is planned to solve it by mid-August. “Probably, in this election cycle we will have the most serious representation of observers in Moscow in recent years,” Mr. Afonin believes.

State Duma Vice Speaker from the LDPR Boris Chernyshov, who is also a potential candidate for mayor from his party, told Kommersant that the Liberal Democrats will monitor how the final architecture of polling stations will turn out. “We will work out the format for changing observers so that polling stations are maximally “closed” as part of the multi-day voting, so that we carefully monitor all the events that take place,” Mr. Chernyshov explained.

The leader of the Moscow branch of A Just Russia – For Truth (SZRP), State Duma deputy Dmitry Gusev, who has already announced his intention to participate in the mayoral elections, believes that under the new conditions it is necessary to strengthen monitoring of the DEG, which will be emphasized. In general, the coverage of polling stations by party observers in the capital has always depended on the level of elections and the number of candidates, the deputy adds: for example, in the municipal elections in 2022 there were more observers from the SZRP than in the Duma campaign-2021.

If the reduction of polling stations is carried out by merging adjacent PECs that voted in the same building, then “no one will feel much difference,” Anna Trofimenko, secretary of the council of the Moscow branch of the New People party, believes: “It will be worse if the usual places for voting are transferred, then there will be confusion and fewer people will reach the polling stations. Accordingly, the role of DEG will increase even more.” Fewer observers will be needed, but taking into account the three-day voting, the load on them is still significantly higher compared to pre-Covid times, Ms. Trofimenko emphasizes. In addition, the results of voting “on the ground” are important for assessing the mood of people as a kind of “checksum”, according to which the DEG can be checked, the head of the department notes: “Therefore, we will observe, but it is obvious that the main work will need to be done with those voters who they won’t go to the polls.”

Observers to traditional polling stations can be sent not only by candidates and parties, but also by public organizations through the public chambers of the regions. Alexander Asafov, deputy head of the capital’s election observation headquarters and member of the Moscow Civic Chamber, told Kommersant that public observers in the capital in the last elections, when the number of PECs still exceeded 3.4 thousand, had already closed 100% of polling stations. “Even with the reduction of polling stations, everyone who wants to observe the elections in Moscow this year will be able to do it, everyone will find something to do,” Mr. Asafov assured. For the parties, in his opinion, the new polling station scheme will be convenient, “because none of them, except for United Russia, has ever provided 100% surveillance of polling stations in Moscow.”

Oleg Zakharov, a political strategist and ex-head of the Yaroslavl electoral committee, believes that electoral digitalization in Moscow simplifies the life of both the ruling party and the opposition. “The DEG allows candidates with administrative resources to “digitize” their voters and conduct their electronic mobilization. The opposition, in turn, finds it easier to control voting at the polling stations: even taking into account the three-day voting, a smaller number of polling stations makes it possible to cover a larger percentage of them with observation,” the expert explains. In addition, the transition to online elections simplifies the process of campaigning, Mr. Zakharov notes: “Prices for advertising and recruiting campaigners in Moscow are the highest in the country. The transition to online campaigning for online voting, although it requires new competencies from election headquarters, opens up new opportunities, especially for non-government candidates.” Here, according to the expert, “partisan” campaigning technologies on the Internet and social networks are in the highest demand, for example, in “neighborly chats” in instant messengers: “This is now one of the breakthrough technologies, and it is most focused on online voting.”

Political consultant Evgeny Minchenko, on the contrary, believes that in the new conditions, candidates not from the government can only be helped by agreements with the mayor’s office and prefectures. “The weight of the administrative resource has seriously increased, and I think that the technologies of elite agreements are dominant today,” the expert says. In his opinion, increased control over the DEG by parties and candidates can hardly significantly increase the effectiveness of monitoring this type of voting.

Elena Rozhkova, Ksenia Veretennikova