A WEB

 ​-contributed by the Central Election Commission of Russia-

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The year of 2021 marked one of the largest Single Voting Day exercises in modern Russian history. Over 31,000 officials were elected through some 4,400 electoral campagins for federal,regional, and local level positions.The test to the system of over 99,000 electoral commissions required a need to carry on the first multi-day voting cycle to offset the risks of the COVID-19 pandemics. A three-day voting was offered to the participants as an optimal choice to level down concurrent presence of voters at the precincts, ensuring transparent and secure elections.

A total of 56,484,685 out of 109,204,662 voters included in the electoral roll at the end of the voting took part in the elections of deputies of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the rusian Federation. The steady spread of the participants across the three-day voting on 17,18,and 19 September suggested that the participants were in favor of multi-day voting. 

The number of voters who decided to vote ouside the polling premises was 8,133,713, which was 14.4% of the total number of voters who took part in the elections. This includes those who voted in hospitals, pre-trial detention centers and other places of temporary stay and persons in hard-to-access or remote areas, as well as in settlements with difficult transportation conditions. The percentage of voters who voted outside the voting premises in the previous elections for the State Duma was : 6.48% in 2016; 6.62% in 2011; 6.36% in 2007. However, in previous years, voting took place for a day and members of precinct commissions visited citizens only on the voting day. Therefore, if we extrapolate the data from previous periods to the opportunity to vote within three days, the proportion of one day of "home voting" in these elections would be lower than in previous periods. The increase in figures on homebound voting reflects the level of public concerns in regard to the pandemic risks. In Russia, there are 32,357,474 voters aged 60 years and over on the electoral roll. The older generations traditionally participate very actively in elections, but under the situation of the pandemic in 2021, many preferred to vote at home. 

The 2021 campagin saw a steady deployment of technological innovations to the electoral process. The innovation was the technology of automatic verification of signatures using "artificial intelligence" technology (a special software and hardware complex used for the recognition and intelligent processing of digitized images of signature sheets). 3,500,000 voters were provided "Mobile Voter" services (an online facility that substitutated an absentee ballot since 2016). Over 2,500,000 voters in seven constituent entities of the Russian Federation casted their ballots online using the digital electronic voting technology. The digital services were further developed by the CEC Russia to meet the growing public demand. Now there are 11 services based on the "Mobile Voter" mechanism. It provides the remote checking of home constituency of the voters, including their presence on the electoral roll, assigns them to a new polling station, and extracts data for upcoming elections, information on standing candidates as well as the results of elections. 

Compared to 2016, when 5,500 precincts employed electronic ballot boxes , the number was more than doubled to over 13,700 in 2021. To the aides of all precinct commissions, a special software, Interactive Workbook, was available, containing step-by-step instructions and downloadable forms of all protocols needed during the electoral process. And it has already become a routine when all the protocols of the precinct election commissions are printed with QR codes to speed up and safely upload counting results to the State Automated System "Vybory". which serves as a nation-wide database for the whole electoral process. 

In 2021, about 96% of some 96,000 polling stations were covered by means of round-the-clock video suveillance and recording. In 2016, there were 21,500 polling stations equipped with cameras. The Ministry of Digital Development of Russia, which operated the service platform with online streaming from the products, provided about 120,000 accounts for access to the service portal in accordance with the requests of all participants in the electoral process.

The requisite of transparency of elections has long been key performance indicator manifested by the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation.All meetings of the Commission are public and broadcasted live online, and same goes for the voting process where the level of access to observers is hard to match. Any citizen who wants to objectively evaluate the work of the Election Commission can be appointed in the election commission board by any party, or a registered candidate or to be nominated by regional civic chambers as civic observer.

​During the three-day voting period in 2021, each campaign participant or civic chamber gained the right to assign observers, up to six in one precinct. A total of 498,086 representatives got accredited to the precincts for the period of three days of voting. 334,324 representatives were nominated as observers.157,111 were introduced as election officers with the right of advistory vote into the election commission boards and 6,651 were accredited as media. Among 334,324 observers, 202,211 were appointed by political parties, 75,344 by civic chambers, and 56,467 by registered proportional elections candidates. 

Parliamentary political parties were the most active in sending observers to polling stations. Among the non-parliamentary parties, two political parties sent the largest number of observers: "Russian Party of Pensioners for Justice" - total of 23,769 people, covering 25% of total precincts; "NEW PEOPLE"- total of 15,014 people, covering 16% of PECs. The most vocal opposition party "YABLOKO" managed to mobilize up to 1,218 activists as representatives. The Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation also accredited 245 people as international observers. Foregin observers visited about a third of the regions of the country of their own choosing, and observed the voting process, vote count and tabulation in territorial election commissions, as well as determination of election results in single-seat electoral districts.

In 2016, 1,189 candidates from the federal lists of political parties failed to pass the registration stage, whereas in 2021, there were only 372 failed candidates, 220 of whom were introduced in the list of the "Russian People's Union." This was three times smaller than the numbers in 2016, even taking into account the "RPU."

Following the results of the State Duma elections, representatives of eight political parties and five self -nominated candidates became deputies of the parliament. For the last 14 years, five parliamentary factions for the first time formed in the chamber.

The CEC of Russia responds promptly to any violation of election legislation, and demands tough and principled decisions from election commissions, if there are the slightest grounds that raise doubts about the transparency of the elections during the voting process. In total, the voting have been cancelled on 22 precincts in 14 constituencies and 40,605 ballots were declared invalid on 157 polling stations in 43 constituencies.

Durign the period of the election campaign in 2021, 10 complaints were reviewed collectively at the meetings of the Central Election Commission, of which only one inquiry presented falsely to be a complain concerning the conduct of the elections of deputies of the State Duma, but was in fact a political treatise, and did not provide the specific facts of violations(of the "YABLOKO" party). Of the remaining nine complaints on issues of conduct of regional elections, the applicants' demands were met in four cases. The number of appeals about possible coercion to vote has also decreased significantly compared to 2016. In 2021, the CEC of Russia received 166 appeals on this issue. In 2016, there were 711 such appeals, which was 4.5 times more. 

Despite the democratic nature of the elections in 2021, and fair and transparent work of the officials, numerous attempts were made to discredit the work of the election commissions. The numbers of fake news about the elections have increased dramatically. According to observers from the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, the total number of fake news about State Duma elections has increased tenfold, about 20,000 of such messages. Those cases had to be addressed time and time again during the three-day voting period in the Information Center ath the CEC Russia. The examples of the techniques used vaired from editing the videdo recordings form the past years to filming videos in a set-up studio. Another technique was aimed at misrepresenting the legal actions of the election commissions and voters as breaches of electoral law. Interestingly, majority of fake messages on the conduct of the voting benefited from the footage of the video surveillance system by the CEC Russia which had been broadcasted freely online at the federal elections for a decade to combat electoral fraud.

According to the study conducted by the Russian pollster WCIOM(All-Russia Center for Study of the Public Opinion) in October 2021, 57% of the respondents believed the elections were fair, 30% of the respondents said that had there been minor infringements, they did not have decisive influence upon the results.

Relevant data: election data of Russia

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