Moscow authorities are already preoccupied with the September elections

On September 11, Moscow will elect municipal deputies in 125 districts. Remote Electronic Voting (DEV) will again be used in these elections.

The journalist of Moscow 24 (part of the Moscow Media holding, which unites the media of the Moscow authorities) Alexander Dobrynin (the name and surname of the hero was changed at his request) told Kholod that the management asked those who work in his department to “find three people who would like to vote remotely in municipal elections” and provide the editorial secretary with their full names and phone numbers. “They explained to us that nothing would happen to us if we did not provide a list. But literally it sounded like this: “You know that we work in a city publication, and our curators asked.” I believe that the curators are employees of the mayor’s office,” says Dobrynin.

According to an employee of Moscow 24, in the elections to the State Duma in 2021, his management asked the employees themselves to vote remotely: “I took part [because of this request] in voting in the State Duma, I didn’t like it. Now the deadline for the list was June 23, I did not provide it, because my circle of relatives and friends would react negatively to this.

Sergey Konstantinov (the name and surname of the hero was changed at his request), who works at the Moscow City News Agency (also part of the Moscow Media holding), told Kholod that he had received the same request from the office manager. According to him, the personnel department of the holding is compiling the lists of potential voters, and this happens every year before the elections. “Now they asked for three months, but earlier it could happen in a week,” says Konstantinov. “You can refuse, but then it will be inconvenient in front of the personnel officer, management.” He clarifies that the people on the list must be registered with mos.ru. However, Konstantinov himself, according to him, will not provide a list. Kholod sent an inquiry to the Moscow mayor's office, whether employees of the city government turned to the holding's management with a request to collect voter lists, but have not yet received a response.

What's wrong with e-voting?

The idea of ​​electronic voting was discussed back in 2018 before the mayoral elections in Moscow. In February 2019, Aleksey Venediktov, former editor-in-chief of the Ekho Moskvy radio station and former head of the Public Headquarters for Election Monitoring, spoke about plans to hold electronic voting in the capital. After that, the relevant bills were adopted by the State Duma and the Moscow City Duma. The experiment was used in the 2019 Moscow City Duma elections.

Then it turned out that the results of the electronic voting were very different from the results of the usual one: through the DEG, pro-government candidates received noticeably more votes. For example, Roman Yuneman (who was a self-nominee in the districts of Chertanovo Central and Chertanovo Yuzhnoye) won by the results of voting at ordinary polling stations, however, when the results of electronic voting appeared, it turned out that Margarita Rusetskaya, United Russia, was winning in terms of total votes.

In the 2021 State Duma elections, Mikhail Lobanov, associate professor at Moscow State University, was at first ahead of Evgeny Popov, TV presenter of the Rossiya-1 TV channel, by almost 12,000 votes, but after receiving the results of the electronic voting, Popov won with 35.8% of the vote, and Lobanov received 32.3%.

The opposition and observers sharply criticized the electronic voting procedure. For example, in the 2019 Moscow City Duma elections, politician Alexei Navalny demanded the immediate cancellation of the results of electronic voting: “Absolutely everything is wrong with electronic voting. Starting with the fact that it was invented, promoted and organized by the Moscow City Hall (...) Finishing with the fact that the process itself and the technical infrastructure, created hastily by no one knows who, showed itself in the most shameful way.” In the 2021 State Duma elections, Roman Udot, co-chairman of the Golos movement, called this voting procedure a “shame,” and the State Duma elections themselves were “one of the dirtiest” in Russian history.

In the last municipal elections in Moscow in 2017, the United Democrats coalition created by Dmitry Gudkov and candidates from opposition parties defeated United Russia in more than 20 out of 125 districts of Moscow, in 6 of which the ruling party lost all mandates. In the Krasnoselsky district, the team of Ilya Yashin won, in Zyuzin, the team of Konstantin Yankauskas won, and in the Gagarinsky district, where Vladimir Putin usually votes, all 12 mandates were won by Yabloko. That year, the e-voting procedure had not yet been applied.

Municipal deputies deal with local problems, but they are still persecuted

In Moscow, municipalities are mainly involved in the overhaul of houses, landscaping courtyards, guardianship and guardianship. The main measure of influence for them is a deputy's request, to which representatives of the authorities and organizations are obliged to respond. Municipal deputies also have delegated powers to participate in public hearings, oversee capital repairs and development. The deputies hear the reports of the head of the council, social service centers and Zhilischnik, coordinate plans for the improvement of the area, the placement of summer cafes, and weekend fairs. In addition, the deputies distribute the money that the mayor's office allocates for the development of districts (for example, for the repair of housing for veterans and the disabled, targeted assistance, improvement of courtyards and parks, major repairs and leisure activities). In the Moscow mayoral elections, all candidates need to overcome the municipal filter - to collect from 110 to 115 signatures of municipal deputies.

“Objectively, there are very few in Moscow this time, with grief in half there will be 200-250 independent candidates,” says Alexander Zamyatin, an independent deputy of Zyuzino, who, together with Mikhail Lobanov, launched the Nomination platform for opposition candidates. “Last time, thousands were nominated, and, of course, there will be no such result as then.” According to him, the purpose of the platform is “to help people with close political views to advance in different parts of Moscow.” Now more than 100 candidates from 50 districts of Moscow have registered on it - "somewhere there are big teams, somewhere there are single deputies."

Recently, many independent deputies have been persecuted for their anti-war stance. Moscow municipal deputies Elena Rusakova and Gordey Nefedov were fined 150,000 rubles. The army was discredited in their appeals to Putin and the Federation Council calling for an end to the war. The court put Elena Kotenochkina, the head of the Krasnoselsky municipal district, on the wanted list, against whom a criminal case was opened for "fakes" about the Russian army. The head of the Yakimanka municipal district Andrey Morev received a subpoena on charges of discrediting the army. According to Morev , Yabloko plans to nominate about 200-300 candidates in the municipal elections. Mikhail Lobanov was fined 45,000 for the "No War" banner hung on the balcony. Now he is serving 15 days of arrest in Sakharovo for another case - for "inciting hatred" for posts on VKontakte (he wrote a post about Kadyrov, who "sends Chechens to kill Ukrainians" - Note "Cold") . The former head of the Krasnoselsky municipal district, deputy Ilya Yashin, was arrested for 15 days under an article on disobedience to police officers.

“None of us are surprised by this. It is strange that not all candidates are in special detention centers. It is not clear, during the war there can be opposition candidates in the country? I don't know," Zamyatin says. He notes that his team will encourage supporters to vote at paper ballot stations, as such voting is easier to control. “It is clear that electronic voting is a black hole. You can throw as much as you want and kill any results of the opposition,” the deputy says.

The municipal deputy of Zyuzino, Konstantin Jankauskas, who is also nominated in these elections (in 2017, his team won the majority of seats in the council), says that “the last few weeks there has been systematic pressure on those who are going to participate in municipal elections.” “Protocols are being drawn up either under the article about discrediting the armed forces of the Russian Federation, or under the article on the demonstration of prohibited extremist symbols, "says Jankauskas. He notes that a new and reliable way to prevent a candidate from being elected is to draw up a protocol under an "extremist" article. In this case, a person will not be able to run for election. elections during the year.“Now either people have the opportunity to express their attitude to what is happening by voting, or the temperature of the water is rising, and then [wait] for the lid to be torn off by other, non-electric methods,” says Jankauskas.