Attempt to return elections

Association "Voice" presented the draft Electoral Code, which will teach Russians to vote

A group of experts from the Association for the Protection of Voters' Rights Golos, led by Arkady Lyubarev, developed a draft Electoral Code of Russia. The code is intended to replace the five federal laws governing elections by making...

A group of experts from the Association for the Protection of Voters' Rights Golos, led by Arkady Lyubarev, developed a draft Electoral Code of Russia. The Code is intended to replace the five federal laws regulating the conduct of elections by making the electoral legislation consistent, easy to use and understandable. And also - to establish the priority of electoral rights over electoral procedures. The current laws, on the contrary, establish a presumption of guilt of candidates and parties.

The first version of the Basic Law on Basic Guarantees of Citizens' Electoral Rights, which came into force in December 1994, was ten times smaller than the current version, and elections over the years have become an order of magnitude less equal and fair. The more complicated the law became, the more opportunities appeared for the arbitrariness of election commissions. The purpose of changes to this law in recent years was not to develop political competition, but to limit it; not expanding the control of society over power (elections are the main way), but control of power over elections; not the replacement of power in accordance with the preferences of voters, but ensuring its irremovability regardless of these preferences.

The need to streamline the electoral legislation is obvious. It is cumbersome, contradictory, and written in such a way that election commissions have the ability to weed out candidates almost at their own discretion. Meanwhile, the law should be clear to those whom it concerns, and not just members of election commissions, who like to explain the difficulties of the opposition by the fact that they supposedly "saved money on lawyers."

Golos experts have developed such a structure of the code so that each subject of the electoral process can easily understand which chapters and articles are useful to him in a given situation and which are not. Duplicate rules have been eliminated. They are grouped into articles, chapters and sections that they really should relate to. In order not to confuse anyone, the draft excludes the division of norms into imperative (direct action) and dispositive (referring to other laws). Finally, the Code is divided into two parts: a general one (similar in meaning to the current Law “On Basic Guarantees…”) and a special one (describing the procedure for presidential and State Duma elections). At the same time, the general part contains norms that will be in force at regional and municipal elections and that will not need to be duplicated in regional laws.

Electoral commissions without officials?

Now about the substantive innovations that change the electoral process itself based on the principle of "rights are more important than procedures." First of all, Golos experts proposed a new principle for the formation of election commissions. They propose to exclude the participation of bodies and officials of the executive branch in the formation of election commissions. This measure should deprive officials (although not completely) of the ability to control the elections.

The authors of the project suggest that the Central Election Commission should be formed by the Federation Council, regional election commissions - by regional parliaments, municipal election commissions - by municipal councils, and commissions should consist of two-thirds of party representatives, and one-third of "non-party public." At the same time, the party quota applies to all parties, not just parliamentary ones, as it is now.

When registering candidates, the current principle of collecting signatures remains only for small regions and municipalities. At the same time, the number of signatures is reduced to 1% of the number of voters, and if in municipal elections there are less than 500 voters per deputy mandate, then all candidates are registered in a declarative manner. Without signatures and collateral (his experts from Golos propose to restore it), lists of candidates nominated by parties that won more than 2% in the last elections are registered. The remaining candidates will collect signatures, however, "in certain places under the supervision of election commissions" and in an amount up to 0.1% of the number of voters.

Now the verification of signatures of voters for candidates is the moment of truth, for election commissions it is the most convenient moment to eliminate inconvenient ones. In the Golos project, the grounds for recognizing a signature as unreliable or invalid are formulated in such a way that it is impossible to “reject” a signature if the voter “can be unambiguously identified and there are no grounds to believe that he did not put his signature.” If a voter stated in writing or orally (at a meeting of the election commission or a working group that verified signatures) that it was his signature, then handwriting experts are unable to declare it unreliable (now even a voter’s personal testimony is powerless to refute the “expert’s opinion”). Exceeding the allowable proportion of defective signatures (10%) must be confirmed by a court decision that has entered into force. This is also intended to reduce the possibility of arbitrariness.

How do you like it

One of the chapters of the code is devoted to the electoral systems used in elections - their experts "Voices" offer a great variety. Thus, in the presidential and gubernatorial elections they intend to use the usual majority system with a two-round vote. Elections of heads of municipalities can be held in one or two rounds.

State Duma deputies are elected according to a mixed system, similar to the one that operated before 2007: the voter votes both for the party list (with the "barrier" reduced to 4%) and for a candidate running in a single-mandate district. Party and independent candidates have the right to run in single-mandate constituencies.

Neither a fully majoritarian nor a fully proportional system is allowed in regional elections. The proportion of deputies elected both by lists and by constituencies should not be less than one third and more than two thirds (the “barrier” cannot be higher than 4%).

In the elections of municipal deputies, the use of the proportional system is allowed only in the version of open lists. In this case, the voter can vote for one candidate from the list.

In all elections, the right of the voter to vote against all is restored (but the turnout threshold is not returned). The right to create electoral blocs is returned, and public associations can again send observers to elections. At the same time, the ban on criticizing rivals on television is lifted.

When voting, the mandatory use of transparent ballot boxes and disposable numbered seals is introduced. Before counting the votes, the members of the precinct election commissions divide the duties by lot: some announce the content of the ballots, others sort, and still others count. Finally, precinct commissions are deprived of the right to recount votes and draw up repeated protocols without the permission of a higher commission or court.

Why half measures?

The draft code is not without flaws, and the main one, in my opinion, is the preservation of the “subscription system” for registering candidates. Rightly calling the granting of one or two mandates to the parties that got 5-7% (the barrier should be lowered) a "timid half-measure", the authors of the draft themselves propose a half-measure - the collection of signatures should be abolished altogether. The solution seems simple: all parties register candidates in all elections in a declarative manner. And for candidates who do not want to represent any of the existing parties, an affordable electoral deposit can be introduced.

As for the return of elections in single-mandate districts and elections of governors (which many representatives of the democratic opposition advocate), the expediency of this is not at all obvious. So, the party in power in majoritarian districts (for example, the elections of the Moscow City Duma) takes all the mandates, but according to the lists, the opposition has a chance to break into parliament, especially with a lower barrier. Gone are the days of “bright loners” who can “break through” into parliament through the constituency and who, with the rarest exceptions, will not find themselves in the ranks of the party in power after that.

The same applies to the election of "non-partisan" governors, who, after the victory, join United Russia. The formation of responsible governments by regional parliaments can become a much more reliable mechanism for public control over power than the election of governors who subsequently appoint people to the government of the region for whom no political force is responsible.

All this, however, does not detract from the merits of the project. Its authors refuted the common thesis about the lack of constructive proposals from the opposition.