The league is indifferent

On January 18, at the RIA Novosti press center, a group of famous “non-political people” announced the creation of a voters league

The league is indifferent. On January 18, a group of respected and politically non -angled people announced the creation of a voters league. Vladimir Putin immediately responded to a new threat: “We are ready, and I am personally ready, and my colleagues are ready. Meet and talk. ” Even the first channel gave the news a story about the League. How and who will control the honesty of vote counts on March 4 - learned The New Times

“This idea was rushed in the air, a new public mood has matured, the desire of people to vote consciously, to know where your voice later went, to understand that the country needs political competition, equal opportunities for candidates. Actually, this is meant by the concept of "voters' rights." They are going to defend the league, ”said Leonid Parfyonov. The small hall of the press center was stuffed with journalists. At the round table, the writer Lyudmila Ulitskaya, journalist Olga Romanova, bloggers Rustem Adagamov (Drugoi) and Ilya Varlamov, producer Georgy Vasiliev, political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin, TV presenter Tatyana Lazareva, doctor Elizabeth Glinka (Dr. Lisa). Singer Yuri Shevchuk joined the gathered from the video from St. Petersburg.

Noah's ark?

The League, in fact, left the initiative group formed during the December protest, which included not only civil activists and masters of culture, but also nationalists, and representatives of various political groups - like the leader of the left front, Sergei Udaltsov and Just Russia, Ilya Ponomarev. Now part of the group has gone to the league. “There is a large layer of people who would like to take part in a rally and organization, but as a line of incense are afraid of any connections with politicians. It is they who create a league. It will be the organizational center of the protest movement, ”said Ilya Ponomarev The New Times.

“People who do not have political ambitions gathered here - this is the most important thing,” Yuri Shevchuk confirmed the words of Ponomarev. - I have a favorite saying: “Titanic” was invented by professionals, and Noah's ark built an amateur. Here amateurs gathered here. ” “Yes, any creature in a couple,” Parfyonov smiled. - Our audience is very different. And this is a plus of movement. "

The league tasks are simple: monitoring the honesty of elections, holding the members of the election commission, the development of the success of the December rallies, and the mobilization of public and financial resources for the development of movement. As for the control of the elections, the league is going to attract as many observers as possible to existing projects, such as the Voice and the Observer. In the paragraph “rallies” in addition to participating in the organization of mass processions in Moscow and other cities on February 4, the mass conference of observers on the eve of the presidential election and regular meetings of working groups outside the Internet are planned.

The organization will not officially register yet - it takes a lot of time, and the presidential election very soon. Therefore, participants proposed financing to organize through private accounts and charitable foundations.

Observers

On the League of Voters in the “How to help” section, there is only one entry so far: through Yandex-Poschelles, funds were organized in support of the “observer citizen”, a movement that the League considers as one of the main partners in the upcoming elections. This organization was formed last year from ordinary citizens, long before the start of street protests, without the support of politicians and famous people and even without financing. And she showed brilliant work in the December 4 elections. “Then we managed to close 155 sites by observers - this is 5% of the plots in Moscow,” says Inna Kurtukova, the informal leader of the public association “Observer”. - As a result, we received 131 protocol in our hands - at 21 sections of the number do not coincide with the Tsikovsky. A huge number of violations are recorded. Since there were lawyers among our observers, they organized complaints to the courts. Work is underway on them. Our goal in the presidential election is to close all Moscow observers. This requires 10 thousand people. Now we have 1.5 thousand. ”

The whole way from a citizen to the observer looks as follows. You can sign up for the project by filling out the electronic form on the site. A staff employee is associated with the applicant and reports when and where you can come to classes. The training itself consists of two parts - theoretical and practical. Each takes 4 hours. On the theoretical part, lecturers (volunteers with lecture experience working who studied electoral legislation and have passed the test in the group responsible for training) tell about the basics of electoral legislation, the rights and duties of the observer. Before the parliamentary elections, one of the lecturers was a person working in the territorial election commission, Ilya Mishchenko. He shared his experience in the classification of violations. The practical part is a business game for stress resistance. Teachers lose with future observers various options for violations: you are not allowed to the urns, do not allow you to remove, etc.

“We plan to attract sports psychologists to lectures. We thought that it would be intelligent to falsify, but in practice people were beaten in the face, and the Maty, and the police were eliminated. Our observers were lost, forgot the numbers of laws and could not always give a worthy rebuff. Now we will teach this to this, ”says Kurtyukova.

During the election, the surveillance process is organized as follows: foremen distribute people to areas in areas, lawyers and those who are ready to work on phones remain in the headquarters. As soon as the observer fixes the violation, he calls to the headquarters, and his message is immediately entered in the electric table. If the violation is rude - for example, they try to remove the observer - a mobile group leaves the place: a driver, a lawyer (a volunteer who has a legal education) and an attracted journalist.

There is a large layer of people who, as hell, are afraid of any connections with political organizations. It is they who create a league that will become the organizational center of the protest movement

After the election to the work mail, the organizers send all the materials they collected- scans of copies of protocols, video and audio recordings. Further, they are engaged in volunteer lawyers-help everyone who wants to issue and file complaints to the courts.

Now at the headquarters on an ongoing basis, more than 20 people work for free.

Staff structure: personnel group, a group of negotiations (communicates with parties and presidency candidates about the provision of mandates for surveillance), IT group (ensures the functioning of the site and email), media group (now creates an Internet site-a mixture of the site, forum and social network-for the convenience of communication and coordination of observers and headquarters), the financial group (conducts Yandex-coshell, to which Donations are collected), learning groups, analytical and coordination. The scientific consultant of the “observer citizen” is political scientist Dmitry Oreshkin. The Voice Association helps with methodological material, all lectures are based on their base. “As you can see, the project is very structured. And all this is done by volunteers. Of course, our personal funds were not enough for everything, therefore, a Yandex-wallet was brought up: we need more than 300 thousand rubles to create an Internet site (hosting expensive) and about 150 thousand-for the publication of a book where the experience of our observers in the parliamentary elections in the form of stories is in the form of stories. We want to publish a book in February in order to attract people's attention to the elections and observation activities, ”says Kurtyukova.

After the election

The New Times correspondent talked with the lawyers of the "observer citizen." “In fact, we have zero,” the coordinator Daniil Lapin stated at a meeting of lawyers of the project. “But I ask you not to be upset.” We all understand how our courts and prosecutors work. But the Investigative Committee is already beginning to meet. Let's hope that after the rally on February 4 and the judges will wake up. ”

So far, only 15 cases have reached the vessels from the project observers. But young people do not lose heart: “We must act, despite failures,” says a lawyer, a former CEC employee Evgeny Kalinin. “And then the president will come, for example, Navalny, and will tell the prosecutor general:“ Raise all the refusals in the elections, we will watch and initiate business. ” They open the archives - and there, please, our work. ”