As in Moscow they tried to organize a shadow online voting. Investigation of "Rain" as part of "Syndicate-100"

Voting on amendments to the Constitution showed that the system of electronic will, which was used by more than a million Russians, is imperfect. She does not cut off the re -vote of those who have already cast their vote offline. But most importantly, there was an opportunity to steal the voices of real people. Details of the scheme that could lead to mass falsifications are in the investigation of the rain. The New Gazeta publishes it as a member of the Syndicate-100.

Disclaimer

During the voting on amendments to the Constitution, certificates appeared indicating the imperfection of the electronic will system. It turned out that one person can give his voice twice - both on the site and online. Facts were also found that the electronic voting system could be vulnerable to scammers who decided to steal other people's voices. In this material, Rain talks in detail about a scheme that, if you do not close existing gaps, can be used for multiple voting instead of other people.

The materials used in the preparation of this investigation were transferred to the “rain” to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Public Chamber of Moscow was informed about the problem of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation.

“Rain” expresses readiness in the future to provide assistance to law enforcement agencies and all interested parties to prevent illegal actions that can lead to falsifications.

Rain also thanks the Public Chamber, who expressed his readiness after the end of voting on amendments to provide his site for public discussion of the open problems in the system with experts, law enforcement officers and journalists.

See the rain investigation on the TV channel website.

The abduction of the voice

For pensioners, whose personal data were at the disposal of the organizers of the shadow scheme of online voting on amendments to the Constitution, it was possible to vote through the account at Mos.ru. As the rain found out, the registered personal account is verified without problems and then enters the register for participation in all -Russian voting.

To get a ballot, the Rain correspondent used a SIM card. Its correspondent was given by two young people who introduced themselves as Oleg Anikin and Alexander Gorostinkin (under the same names, accounts on social networks were registered on them). Annikin and Milostinkin were transferred to everyone who wanted to participate in the scheme of the instructions and the data necessary for registration.

For each voice, 125 rubles were promised. Read more “Rain” talked about it here.

As of June 30, the police did not establish the location of Annikin and Milostinkin, as well as the customers of the crime. The rain sent to the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Moscow, the Investigative Committee and to the Moscow City Electoral Commission requests about how advanced the investigation has advanced. The Ministry of Internal Affairs replied that from June 17 the information is being carried out “On possible attempts of falsifications”.

The rain correspondent registered an account on Mos.ru on June 20 and on the same day submitted an application - less than 24 hours before the closure of the registration of electronic voting. Earlier, the deputy chairman of the Public Chamber of Moscow (OPM - is monitored by the voting progress in the capital) Alexei Venediktov, as well as the main developer of remote electronic voting by the Kostyrkoyki art that accounted after June 5 would not be allowed to vote.

“In total, 89 thousand 348 statements in Moscow and the Nizhny Novgorod Region were rejected, that is, 7%, as I expected,” Venediktov told Kommersant two days before the voting began. Of the almost 90 thousand accounts, only 16 thousand were deleted due to the “cut-off date”. Whether some other criteria (account activity, checking by phone number and e-mail) were used when deactivation of accounts-it is unclear.

According to one of the developers of the electronic voting system, Artem Kostyrko, the databases transferred to the Rain to the Office for Combating Extremism of the Ministry of Internal Affairs did not fall into the hands of Moscow. Therefore, it was impossible to check the data with their help. “I am not involved in operational-search actions, so I can only check the methods available to me. This is a check of the phone numbers that have been recorded recently, and sleeping accounts that did nothing but voting, ”Kostyko said to rain.

The case of violation revealed by the rain was eliminated, and the electronic ballot was canceled.

Note that having received the ballot, the correspondent of "rain" did not vote.

The editors informed Alexei Venediktov about the possibility of voting through an electronic system instead of another voter. After that, the pensioner's account was blocked. The pensioner himself told the rain that he was able to vote at home.

The essence of the scheme

Oleg Anikin and Alexander Gorostinkin offered a simple way to vote for elderly voters, who usually vote through the usual paper ballot. They handed over packages with SIM cards (25 and 50 pieces) to everyone who left the corresponding application in a specially created chat in WhatsApp. It should be noted that it was possible to vote in this way only for those pensioners who had not previously registered an account on Mos.ru.

Already in another chat, Anikin and Grastinkin transferred logins and passwords from Google accounts, where tables with personal data of pensioners were stored - 25 or 50 people in each table

(Copies of the rain tables handed over the police to the police, now all these data are deleted from Google accounts). The data should be entered in personal accounts on the website mos.ru, and then mark in the table for which pensioner which account is assigned.

In the screenshot, Oleg Anikin says that with the necessary zeal, you can register 50 accounts of pensioners per day on the portal Mos.ru.
The video is available in the material "Rain".

Registration of the cabinet takes 15-20 minutes, when dextering and experience-no more than 10 minutes, since it is necessary to simply copy the data from the table and change the SIM card in the phone. Given the format of “reporting”, then only two to three minutes are needed to fill out the table. Thus, you can register up to 25 SIM cards for an eight-hour working day. According to Oleg Anikin, "guys who could do 50 accounts per day worked with him." More than 50 SIM cards Annikin and Grastinkin were not given out at a time.

According to Anikin, preparations for the implementation of the scheme began "three to four months ago, to quarantine."

Indirectly, his words are confirmed by the information transmitted: “Rain” found in the received lists of a pensioner who died two months ago. If his data tried to register, they would not have passed the check on mos.ru.

The creation of a network on the abduction of votes is not a strongly expensive event, says politician Maxim Katz, noting that he "had no things with crooks." According to him, an apartment bypass in the midst of an election campaign can cost 3 thousand rubles a day. The operator could receive the same amount for registration of 25 SIM cards. If the tasks are simpler - services are cheaper.

Who are all these people

Where is the fitness trainer and bodyguard Oleg Anikin and his friend Alexander Milostinkin could take a SIM card, and most importantly, the data of hundreds of pensioners from the north and north-west of Moscow?

The police have no answer to this question yet. Representatives of the mobile operator also could not answer where the attackers could have a SIM card.

Meanwhile, as the rain found out, for the 21-year-old Gravinkin and his friend Anikin, the current political campaign is not the first. Last summer, both took part in the election campaign in the Moscow City Duma. Then they worked in the team of the candidate for deputies of the Moscow City Duma Nikolai Tabashnikov - the editor -in -chief of the television channel "My Planet". He ran for Izmailovo district, but lost the elections. According to the "rain", it was in Izmailovo that Milostinkin was registered.

Grastinkin already then fell into the field of police. In the midst of the campaign, he was accused of stealing the campaign cube from another candidate - Anton Medvedev.

The moment of theft came to the video, but the police who came to the place of the incident first refused to open the car, and then start the case.

As a result, the case was brought to Medvedev himself - for the disobedience of the police.

The former candidate took off a fine, and the story of the theft of a cube did not receive a continuation. “He (Milostinkina. - “ Rain ” ) was transferred from suspects to witnesses. And he said to the police that he had patrons in the district and he would not be anything for it, ”Medvedev told Rain. Eight months later, this forecast was fully confirmed.

In the screenshot: Grastinkin after the theft of Cuba at the candidate Medvedev.
Complete video - in the material "Rain".

“I am not interested in these people and I do not advise you,” said Tabashnikov about Anikin and Grastinkin. According to the participants in the summer camp of 2019, Tabashnikov did not know his headquarters well and participated in election events, because "it was necessary."

Milostinkin and Anikin actively used social networks and did not hide. They blocked their accounts on social networks only after the police began a pre -investigation verification of possible fraud with voices. Judging by the pages on Instagram and Vkontakte, friends traveled, played sports and generally spent a lot of time together.

Changes in the lifestyle and content of personal pages became noticeable in the fall of 2019 - after a campaign in MDD. For example,

Annikin, who worked as an instructor in the Zebra budget fitness club, began to visit the premium WorldClass, and Grastinkin, who used to rest on the Black Sea, visited Paris and Arab Emirates with his friend.

According to other participants in the chat, in which the personal data of pensioners were transferred, Grastinkin and Anikin previously offered them a part -time job, but it was not related to politics. “I worked as a waiter at the Circle of Sveta festival, but for a long time. They paid in cash, ”one of the participants told Rain. Anikin also suggested that the chat participants distribute flyers with discounts on English learning, work as promoters and perform another job. Payment has always been smeared and cash.

Bases of the issued

During the election campaign in the Moscow City Duma, the chief editor of “My Planet” Nikolai Tabashnikov was very active - he went to meetings with veterans, disabled, residents of the district. All this for him was organized by employees of the prefecture and councils.

“He (Tabashnikova. - “ Rain ” ) was widely advertised and publicized by employees of the council, budgetary institutions. All the organizations associated with the authorities supported him - both the Council of Veterans and the Society of Disabled. The head of the council and his deputy for public relations are responsible for this. Accordingly, if the prefect or his deputies arrives, the prefecture is participating in the organization, ”Tatyana Tsarenko, the Mundee of the Izmailovo district, told Rain.

According to the Munds, in Izmailov, two people are responsible for this - newspaper Elena Popova and the deputy head of the council for working with the population of Svetlana Smirnova. “These are related structures affiliated with United Russia. And the administrative authorities - the councils, prefectures - directly, being nods of Osra are associated with them and help each other, ”says political strategist Vitaly Shklyarov.

“Rain” contacted Smirnova and Popova, but both refused to comment on last year’s elections.

“We do not have such powers - we did not help anyone [as part of the campaign]. In our powers - conducting repair work in veterans houses, providing access for the disabled and so on, ”said Popova.

Svetlana Smirnova did not want to answer the questions of "rain" by phone.

The personal data that Gorostinkin and Anikin shared with the recruits they have been shared is not just unloading from the BAZ of the Ministry of Internal Affairs or registry offices. This is specially collected information about pensioners. As the “rain” is more told, the data are sorted at the place of residence, and most of the pensioners are in the field of view of district social protection.

Elena Popova and deputy head of the council Svetlana Smirnova, we note, are involved in not only politics issues, but also oversee social protection.

The other side of the issue is political technologists. It is they, according to the deputy of the Moscow City Duma, Elena Yanchuk, who attract foreman and activists for pro -government candidates.

Who was engaged in the Tabashnikov election campaign is unknown. He himself does not call the office "out of respect for people."

Nevertheless, the cases when the same activists wander from the campaign to the campaign deputy Yanchuk, who passed the two election cycles more than once. “This is usually a matter, because the pool of political technology companies is limited. And the pool of people whom you can attract for different types of work is also limited. And plus it should be relatively entrusted persons, ”Yanchuk told Rain.

“This is a very common situation, the asset is small there. They roam with public hearings for renovation, then campaigned for Putin, then provoke activists, ”confirms the politician Maxim Katz. The political strategist Vitaly Shklyarov agrees with him. This is the work of political strategists - to form loyal teams, he notes. “This is partly because there are very few teams, especially sensible ones. In addition, those pro-government teams work with the same people because of issues of loyalty, security and secrecy, ”says Vitaly Shklyarov.

Be that as it may, Anikin and Grastinkin could well be not the only people who built a shadow network for online voting. Specifically, they were not lucky-they handed the SIM card to the Rain correspondent.

How many more such groups were distributed to SIM cards throughout Moscow and shared personal data, today they do not know either in the Ministry of Internal Affairs or in the CEC.

System test

During the amendments voting were identified as malfunctions in the electronic voting system - the rain journalist Pavel Lobkov voting and offline, and the gap, which is described in this investigation. This is unlikely to lead to the cancellation of the results of the will through the E-Bullet. But if the system is not debugged, there are no guarantees that they will not try to deceive the State Duma elections in 2012 and in 2024 in the election of the President of Russia.

The fact that the electronic system is planned to be used in the future was said by the head of the CEC Ella Pamfilova.

Another goal of the authorities is to test electronic voting not only in Moscow, but also in the province. This was stated by the head of the CEC Ella Pamfilova. “Apparently, we somehow have to intensify our efforts after this campaign, the development of our pilot projects, so that residents of other regions have this opportunity for further campaigns,” Pamfilova said on the last day of E-voting.

As of June 30, more than 1.1 million voters used electronic voting. How many of them voted for themselves twice or through dummy accounts for someone else is unclear. Perhaps this will clarify the police check that began after the publication of the rain. But it may not be.

Experts surveyed by rain believe that introducing electronic voting in Russia is premature, and also note that it is simply impossible to create a safe and protected voting system by a 100% safe.

“All electronic voting systems should be accompanied by very carefully balanced regulatory regulation. This is the only way to compensate for the opacity that such voting systems have in nature, ”explains Dmitry Nesterov, an expert of Voice.

This is a good idea only when there is a certain level of trust between the voter and the state, explains Mikel Slovak, head of the Institute for Political Research by Johan Skitte (Estonia). “This trust should be supported by transparent control and public audit,” says Slovak. “The question is how much we, as a society, are ready for compromises for the convenience of voting and to what extent we trust the election management bodies, election commissions.”

In Russia, there is neither a public audit nor a transparent voting system. Even the CEC is poorly understood the procedure and results of voting online, Nesterov believes: “This is a problem from last year - what does this election commission sign? What digits are it from the protocol? Under those numbers that she absolutely does not control. ”

Political scientist Kirill Rogov is sure that the situation can change the presence of representatives of the real opposition in the CEC. “So far, there is no real opposition that has a third or half of the places in the CEC, while it is not possible to control the independent audit of the system, it is impossible to allow electronic voting in any case. In such an environment as with us, it will certainly be a mechanism for falsifications, ”concludes Rogov.

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