Central Election Commission of Russian Federation held 225th meeting

On 4 September 2019 the CEC of Russia held its regular meeting which was opened by the Chairperson of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation Ella Pamfilova with a report “On the Readiness of election commissions to hold elections on a single voting day on 8 September 2019”.

The Chairperson of the Commission recalled the main points of the campaign.

“On the single voting day on 8 September about 6 thousand election campaigns of all levels and referendum campaigns will be held in all 85 constituent entities of the Russian Federation,” said Ella Pamfilova, “The voters lists for these elections include more than 56 million voters - almost half of all voters in the country.”

The Chairperson of the CEC of Russia noted that during the voting more than 47 thousand mandates and elected posts will be replaced. In elections of all levels, over 118 thousand candidates were nominated. Moreover, the majority are candidates nominated by various political parties - more than 91 thousand people.

Ella Pamfilova recalled that on a single voting day of 8 September in addition to the already tested Mobile Voter mechanism, two more new types of voting will be applied on an experimental basis in Moscow.

The first experiment is an opportunity to vote at one of 30 digital polling stations. Voters who will be in Moscow on election day but whose place of residence is located either in one of the four regions where by-elections of deputies of the State Duma are held, or in one of 16 regions where governor elections are held, will be able to take part in the experiment.

The second experiment concerns only the election of deputies of the Moscow City Duma - voters of three districts of Moscow (No. 1, No. 10, No. 30) will be able to use remote electronic voting.

“Digital services were created to optimize the activities of all participants of the electoral process and are aimed at creating a qualitatively new level of openness and accessibility of election procedures,” emphasized the Chairperson of the CEC of Russia.

Ella Pamfilova noted that during the 8 September elections, 8 services of the first stage are already being used in experimental mode and the ninth will be launched soon. The “Gosuslugi” portal has services for submitting applications for voting at the location, including at the digital polling station, as well as for voting outside the polling station.

“As for the Mobile Voter mechanism, more than 33.5 million voters in 36 constituent entities of the Russian Federation, where federal and regional elections are held, will be able to use it on a single voting day on 8 September,” said Ella Pamfilova. “Today, through the SAS “Vybory” system, more than 235.5 thousand voter applications have been processed to be included in voter lists at their actual location.”

The upcoming elections on a single voting day will be held in 66 regions. 7,913 ballot processing complexes will be used and nearly 15 million voters will be able to vote. In 5 regions, 272 electronic voting complexes are used and 428.5 thousand voters will be able to vote.

15,767 premises will be equipped with video cameras. This number includes 1,076 Territorial election commissions and 14,691 premises of polling station. At these polling stations, about 26 million voters are included in the voter lists.

The Chairperson of the CEC of Russia noted that an important component of any election campaign is informing voters and covering the election process. To do this, on the main page of the official website of the CEC of Russia, a special section, “Single Voting Day 8 September 2019”, was created where informational and methodological materials are placed in a systematic form.

On 8 and 9 September coverage of the voting process, its preliminary results and preliminary election results will be organized as part of the work of the Information Center of the CEC of Russia (the slide shows the time of the start of work on September 8 and 9).

Ella Pamfilova drew special attention to the fact that the CEC of Russia strictly controls the process of organizing and holding early voting in order to avoid the use of illegal technologies and administrative resources.

“At the same time, there are objective reasons for early voting that relate to voters living in hard-to-reach and remote areas, or because of the performance of official duties, for example, on ships,” the Head of the Commission explained. “Today, over 11 thousand voters in remote areas and on ships have been able to exercise their electoral rights in the course of early voting.”

Ella Pamfilova thanked the election commissions, which did a great job to ensure the electoral rights of citizens with disabilities. According to the Pension Fund of Russia, in the Russian Federation more than 11 million voters are disabled with about two million with the need of special conditions to exercise their voting rights.

Today 89 percent of polling stations are located on the ground floors of the buildings, if possible equipped with ramps, lifting devices, tactile pointers, help buttons (only 69 percent of the indicated premises correspond to accessibility conditions).

Ella Pamfilova drew attention to the fact that voters employed in production with a continuous cycle of work can vote between working shifts on a single voting day.

The legislation allows the increase of time of voting at individual polling stations, therefore, in a number of constituent entities where federal and regional elections are held, such decisions were made by commissions.

At 139 polling stations in the Murmansk, Novgorod, Sakhalin, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk regions and the city of Moscow, voting will begin at 6 a.m., at seven polling stations in the Orenburg region at 6.30 a.m., and at 30 polling stations in the Novgorod and Chelyabinsk regions at 7 a.m.

In addition, according to regional legislation in the Republic of Bashkortostan, voting at elections of the head of the region and other elections will be held from 7 to 21 hours, and in the Republic of Tuva the voting at elections of deputies of the Supreme Khural and other combined elections will be held from 8 to 22 hours local time.

“In general, we believe that the preparation for the conduct of elections on a single voting day is carried out in accordance with federal and regional laws,” said Ella Pamfilova. “Once again, I want to thank everyone for their hard work in preparing for the voting.”