Invurable voting

Why you can’t vote again "for any other party." Invitation to discussion

Before the elections to the Moscow City Duma and the election of the Governor of St. Petersburg, a “smart vote” is widely advertised-for the one who has the most chances to defeat the candidate from United Russia. But this is not a "smart vote." Remember one of the consequences from the laws of Murphy? "Any difficult task has a simple, easy to understand the wrong solution." It is useful to recall that exactly the same - simple, outwardly attractive, but categorically incorrect in terms of results - there were two earlier, proposed by the same initiators and the same advertised strategies: “Vote for any batch except“ United Russia ”in 2011 and“ Boycoting the President’s Elections ”in 2018.

From the editorial office
On the eve of the election on September 8, “New” begins a discussion about the prospects for opposition mobilization of voters and, in particular, about the work of the Smart Voting system proposed by Alexei Navalny, within the framework of which the voter is offered in every election and in any district to vote for a candidate who has a chance to win a representative of the authorities - regardless of ideological views and the program of such a candidate. The first text is a criticism of such a platform, in the nearest numbers of the newspaper - the arguments of supporters of “smart voting”.

There is no doubt: what is arranged by the authorities in the elections of the Moscow City Duma, where the vast majority of opposition candidates were not allowed to elections is a mockery of citizens' electoral rights.

Exactly the same mockery is arranged in the elections of the Governor of St. Petersburg, to which, in addition to the temporary mayor of Alexander Beglov, only those who agreed with Smolny about the passage of the “municipal filter” were made and do not pose any danger to Smolny.

How to behave to the voter?

“Register on our website, and closer to the elections we will tell you who to vote for,” the organizers of the Smart Voting report. They will evaluate who has more chances to defeat the “United Russia”, and it must be supported, no matter who he is. Communist, Stalinist, Zhirinovets - it does not matter. At the same time, as one of the organizers of the process Leonid Volkov claims, since in the elections in the MD “there is no one to choose from, we will pick up literally any rabble in the list of“ smart voting ”.

And he repeats: “There will be a couple of decent people, but mainly a rabble. But this will also break the game of "United Russia", Putin, Sobyanin "...

Want a "rabble" to the deputies? I don't want. And I do not advise others.

In St. Petersburg, the Smart Voting is propagandized through the slogan “for any other than Beglov”, so as not to allow to drag Beglov in the first round of the elections.

However, this is not a “smart vote”, but quite the opposite.

Determining optimal election behavior is a difficult task.

The answer to it depends, including on the rules of the elections - and they are different in different elections. Already, therefore, by the way, there is no and cannot be any only true “single -line” strategy in the form of a “smart vote” for all elections, which does not take into account any election features, but offers to support “less evil”.

The rules of the elections to the Moscow City Duma (paragraph 13 of Article 76 of the Moscow Electoral Code) are as follows: the elections are held on one tour, and the candidate who gains more votes than the rest wins.

This means that it is pointless not to come to the elections - you will not affect anything at all.

You can make the ballot invalid - but this will not affect the result of the elections in the MDD. The only thing that is important is for: if a choice is proposed from obviously unacceptable options, none of which suits, then a large number of invalid ballots (they are considered separately) is an indicator of disagreement with this way of selecting candidates.

So we must vote - but for whom?

For the candidates who can win with United Russia?

It has already been once. In the 2011 State Duma elections, when we were called to vote "for any party except the batch of crooks and thieves."

What did we get later, remember?

We received in the State Duma a huge number of communists and Socialist -Revolutionaries, which very quickly became indistinguishable from the deputies of United Russia and the LDPR.

And all these four shades of gray in the “frantic printer” voted for the “Law of Dima Yakovlev”, for the Law on NPOs - “foreign agents”, for the “package of Yarova”, for tightening punishments for public actions, for the annexation of Crimea ...

Yes, a couple of times Sergey Mironov flaunted a white ribbon at the Duma meetings - but then, together with his entire faction (with rare exceptions), he habitually joined the missiles. And there was no “breaking of the game of United Russia”.

If you follow the same advice in the elections to the Moscow City Duma and see who is registered with candidates in the districts, it will immediately become clear what the “smart vote” will lead to: the support of candidates from the Communist Party, LDPR, “Fair Russia” or “Communists of Russia”. And then in the MGD they all merge into the common pro -government choir - because they adhere to, as my colleague and friend Lev Schlosberg, as Putin, say.

Because they are just the same for political repressions and against the “orange infection” (as Gennady Zyuganov just broadcast), for the war in Ukraine and Syria.

They will also repeat about “sovereignty” and “scrapers”, support “antisanctions” and stigmatize “American puppeteers” and demand, as Sergey Mironov, “to investigate the intervention of the West in protest promotions”.

By the way, the State Duma has just created a commission to combat foreign interference in the internal affairs of Russia - after protests against the uncertainty candidates for elections to the Moscow City Duma. Zyuganov repeated that it was from such actions that the Soviet Union began to fall apart, and Zhirinovsky - that "recently the propaganda of the West has been intensified," and the purpose of this is "to repeat what happened in Kyiv, Tbilisi and so on."

Candidates from these parties are now proposed to be held at the MGD, only so that the "United Russia" does not go away? Egor Zhukov, Konstantin Kotov, Valery Kostenok and other prisoners of Moscow protest are sitting for this?

Look at the 37th District in MDD, where Elena Rusakov from Yabloko was not allowed before the elections. Who remained there for "smart voting"? Three candidates. Communist Gubenko, still grateful to Stalin for “restoring order”, “Socialist -Revolutionary” Romanovich, who, according to his own colleagues, merged the list “SR” for the sake of the city hall, and Zhirinovets Maksimov. Choose. “Break the game“ United Russia ”(which has not put your candidate at all, freeing the district for Gubenko) ...

Well, how many times still need to step on the rake of “smaller evil” to understand that it always turns large?

As for the election of the governor of St. Petersburg, here the rules are others. And accordingly, another strategy.

These elections are held in two rounds, and to win the first round you need to gain more than 50% of the total number of voting participants.

The number of voting participants is the number of all who lowered the ballot into the urn: it does not matter whether it is valid or invalid.

If so - to approach the second round, the “invalid ballot” strategy is suitable: this reduces the percentage of votes that all candidates will receive. This is a legal and logical choice of behavior for everyone who does not want to choose between Beglov and his sparring partners.

It is necessary to vote in general not “against”, but “for”.

Not in order not to pass the "alien", but in order to support "their own."

Not for the one who has more chances to win the United Russia, but for the one who is close by beliefs and who can be counted on.

Does the democratic voter have such candidates in the MGD elections?

Eat. Evgeny Bunimovich and Sergey Mitrokhin, Maxim Kruglov, Daria Besedina, Roman Uneman. Perhaps in other districts there are candidates for whom you can vote. Not because someone pointed to them as favorites, but because they would not let them down.

Finally, we recall that during the 2018 presidential election, the initiators of the “smart vote” called for a completely different one.

They did not urge Putin's opponents to “break the game of the Kremlin”. They called for a boycott of the elections. And this increased the result of Putin (did not come to the polls, responding to this call, namely those who could support his competitors). And he showed Putin that there is no democratic voter and one can not reckon with him.

Pension reform and increasing taxes, lawlessness in the MGD elections and equating a peaceful protest with “riots”, beating citizens on the streets of Moscow and the persecution of the Corruption Fund are the inevitable consequences of this tactics.