Matvienko again proposed discussing the return of the “against all” column in elections

Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matvienko suggested discussing the possibility of returning the “against all” column to the ballot papers, since this is “required by modern political realities.” Matvienko said this at the opening of the autumn session of the Federation Council, RIA Novosti reports .

The emergence of new political conditions, according to the speaker of the Federation Council, became clear after the "past elections."

Matvienko added that in the autumn session, State Duma deputies will have to consider a number of bills related to the modernization of the political system, in particular, a draft law on the return of a mixed electoral system in elections to the State Duma and reducing the number of signatures required for registration for self-nomination.

“I think the time has come to follow the path of increasing the number of independent deputies in regional legislative and municipal authorities. The relevant law has been developed by our committee on constitutional legislation and has already been adopted by the State Duma in the first reading,” Matviyenko said.

It should be noted that with such a slogan - "against all" the journalist and TV presenter Ksenia Sobchak is going to the presidential elections in 2018. According to her, the same “persons” take part in the presidential elections year after year, but there is no “against all” column. “I want to return the opportunity to vote against everyone,” Sobchak said .

In addition, according to media reports, the TV presenter is even going to change her first and last name so that the phrase “against everyone” is present in them. According to Dozhd's sources, in this way, Sobchak's campaign headquarters decided to provide voters with the appropriate column on the ballot.

Earlier, Matviyenko had already suggested thinking about returning the “against all” column to the ballots in September 2013. Then she also explained the need to return the graph to the new conditions of growing political competition.

This idea was supported by the then leader of the Civic Platform, Mikhail Prokhorov: “This column is important, because cases where a candidate “against all” gains a majority, then this is a diagnosis of both the authorities and the opposition,” the businessman noted.

Recall that for the first time in Russia, the column “against all” was introduced in the elections in 1989, and canceled in 2006. The possibility of returning the article in December 2011 was mentioned then by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

In July 2011, Sergei Mironov and Nikolai Levichev submitted a relevant bill to the State Duma for consideration, arguing that "the absence of a column" against all "is a violation of the electoral rights of citizens."