Translated material
Peru sample
The heads of election authorities of the two countries decided to exchange experiences
The electoral friendship with the Republic of Peru was strengthened by the Central Electoral Commission. The Chairman of the National Electoral Court of this Latin American country, Hugo Sivina Hurtado, is in Moscow on an official visit. On Monday, the head of the Russian Central Election Commission, Vladimir Churov, and Mr. Hurtado gave a joint briefing, at which they told reporters about plans for further cooperation.An agreement on the exchange of information and technology was signed between the election authorities of the two countries in December last year as part of the visit of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to Peru. Mr. Churov said he had already discussed organizational and technical issues with Mr. Hurtado, as well as working with young voters. For Peru, this issue is relevant, since almost half of the voters in the country are young people aged 18-25 years. To educate the young electorate, a special museum of political history has even been established there, where schoolchildren are taken on excursions. And the youngest future voters are introduced to big politics through comics and cartoons.
Mr. Churov became keenly interested in electoral cartoons back in December last year. Now it turns out that you can learn from your Peruvian colleagues not only animation, but also web design. “We looked at the website of the National Electoral Court and the new version of the website of the Central Election Commission, which began working last week,” said Mr. Churov. - I liked their design better. This will certainly affect the size of bonuses for those CEC employees who were responsible for developing the site.”
Developing this topic, the head of the Central Election Commission even mentioned that “the Peruvians created their website together with Spanish structures - maybe we can also turn to them for help?” Obviously, here he accidentally entered into the delicate area of \u200b\u200bthe relationship between the former colony and the former metropolis, because Mr. Hurtado immediately assured those present that “the site is the result of our intellectual activity, Spain helped at a minimum.” In particular, Mr. Churov liked the ability to find biographies of all candidates on the page of the National Electoral Court of Peru, as well as information about recalled or removed elected officials. But the Peruvians do not publish data on the income and property of their elected representatives.
Mr. Hurtado, in turn, became interested in the use of information technology in elections, especially experiments in electronic voting via the Internet and SMS messages. Peru has three-quarters of its territory covered in mountains, leaving the country with many difficult-to-reach areas with few voters. At the same time, voting is mandatory for all citizens by law, so the use of the Internet could significantly reduce organizational difficulties and the cost of the process. In the meantime, Peru's electoral system continues to be one of the most expensive in the world.
The exchange of experience will continue: Mr. Hurtado's program includes a visit to the Moscow City Electoral Commission and the Regional Electoral Commission. And Vladimir Churov, inspired by the site of his Peruvian colleagues, continues to introduce information technologies in Russian spaces. He told reporters about the upcoming opening of a video blog of the Central Election Commission on the Internet. It is planned that this will be an independent web page for publishing video materials and online broadcasts.