1. Principles of holding of elections in the Russian Federation
In the Russian Federation, the elections are held on the basis of universal, equal and direct suffrage principles by secret ballot.
The principle of universal suffrage is implemented for 112 million 83 thousand 840 voters (as of July 1, 2014). Since 1993, the year of adoption of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, federal elections are characterized by high (over 50%) turnout of voters. The dynamics of election of the deputies of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation of the sixth convocation and the President of the Russian Federation are separately presented on slide No. 1.
Slide No. 1
The principle of direct suffrage is currently implemented in elections at federal, regional and municipal levels1 .
Voting in elections and referendum is secret, which excludes the possibility of any control over citizen’s expression of will. The Central Election Commission (CEC) of Russia pays much attention to the booths (places) for the secret voting to ensure the implementation of this principle. According to federal law2 , the CEC of Russia approves standards of booths for secret voting, which are obligatory for observance for all elections held in the Russian Federation. Current standards are presented on slide No. 2.
Slide No. 2
2. Principles of organization of elections in the Russian Federation
The laws on elections in the Russian Federation stipulates principles for organization of elections, such as bindingness, regularity, holding in terms that ensure observance of terms of authorities of bodies being elected.
Currently, the laws of the Russian Federation stipulate unified voting day – the second Sunday of September.
During organization of elections, legislators guarantee principles of publicity and independence of election commissions as bodies entrusted with the functions of preparation and holding of elections, as well as the obligation of ensuring implementation and protection of electoral rights and citizens’ right to participate in referendum.
3. Levels of elections in the Russian Federation
Election commissions of the Russian Federation organize and hold elections at all levels of state authorities and local government, referendums, voting on change of municipal entities boundaries, voting on officials recall.
Levels of elections in the Russian Federation are presented on slide No. 3 on example of elections of December 4, 2011, when more than two thousand six hundred election campaigns were held.
The unified voting day is September 14, 2014
Slide No. 3.1
Slide No. 3.2
Slide No. 3.3
4. Election commissions as elections arrangers
Elections and referendums in the Russian Federation are prepared and held by the following election commissions:
The Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation;
election commissions of the subjects of the Russian Federation;
territorial (regional, municipal) election commissions;
divisional election commissions3 .
Depending on the type of election campaign, various election commissions take part in their organization, and municipal entities’ election commissions and district election commissions may be created. Slide No. 4 shows the system of election commissions, acting on a permanent basis4 .
Slide No. 4
In the Russian Federation, in total more than 900 thousand people are the members of electoral commissions of various levels (916,177, according to information of the State Automated System (SAS) “Vybory”).
5. Political parties
The main subject of the election process in the Russian Federation is the political parties.
There were only 7 political parties in the Russian Federation by the beginning of 2012. Requirements for their creation were pretty strict, for example:
before January 1, 2010 a political party should include not less than fifty thousand members, at that the political party should have regional units in number of not less than five hundred members of the political party in more than half of the subjects of the Russian Federation;
from January 1, 2010 till January, 1 2012 a political party should include not less than forty-five thousand members of the political party, at that the political party should have regional units in number of not less than four hundred and fifty members in more than half of the subjects of the Russian Federation;
from January 1, 2012 a political party should include not less than forty thousand members of the political party, at that the political party should have regional units in number of not less than four hundred members of the political party in more than half of the subjects of the Russian Federation.
In April 2012, significant changes were made in relation to simplification of procedure for political parties’ creation, in particular, changes associated with reduction in requirement for the total number of members of a political party to five hundred people, which led to the sharp increase in the number of political parties.
In 2012, 46 new parties were registered and 1 more party (Republican Party of Russia) was restored.
In 2013, the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation registered in total 74 parties.
Currently, 75 political parties are registered in the Russian Federation, 71 of which have the right to participate in elections.
STATISTICS ON PARTICIPATION OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN ELECTIONS
54 political parties took part in the elections on the unified voting day of September 8, 2013.
63 political parties took part in the elections on September 14, 2014.
This number included also the parliamentary parties (there are four of them, represented in the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation):
CEC of Russia jointly with the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation publishes reference material “Political parties in the Russian Federation”. The reference material contains systematized information on registered political parties, the parties’ statutes, represented by themselves, excerpts from the parties’ programs, information on the leaders and the governing bodies of the parties (slides of the reference material).
The laws of the Russian Federation establish requirements for the parties to participate in formation of all election commissions, except for the CEC of Russia: at least half of the members of commissions are appointed under received proposals of political parties. Thus, the legislator maintains the balance between the principle of professionalism of election commissions’ activities and due regard for the parties’ interests.
As seen on slide No. 5, political parties have their units in about 51% of the divisional election commissions.
Slide No. 5
6. Control functions of election commissions as the condition for ensuring the principles of holding elections.
6.1. Financial control.
Election funds. One of the main tasks of election commissions is to control the incoming and expenditure of election funds created by candidates and political parties to finance their election campaigns. Cash of the funds are accumulated in the special election accounts, election commission has direct real-time access to control over them. The law establishes prohibition for financing campaigns of candidates and parties besides the election funds and maximum amounts of election funds.
In elections of deputies of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, the aggregate maximum amount of expenditure of political parties’ election funds with regard to regional units in all subjects of the Russian Federation is approximately RUB 3.4 billion, or USD 107 million.
In elections of the President of the Russian Federation, the maximum amount of expenditure of cash from the candidate’s election fund is RUB 400 million, or USD 12.6 million.
Election funds are formed at the account of voluntary contributions of individuals and legal entities, candidate’s own funds.
Prohibitions to make contributions to election funds are established, in particular, for:
The purpose of control over the election funds is to ensure that the candidates and political parties observe these legal requirements.
Higher commissions are also should implement control over the target expenditure of budget funds allocated for preparation and holding of elections5.
Control and audit services. To ensure these authorities, control and audit services (CASes) are obligatory established under the CEC of Russia and the election commissions of the subjects of the Russian Federation.
The CASes are composed of heads and expert of government and other authorities and institutions, including law-enforcement, financial, tax authorities 6.
6.2. Control over conduct of election campaign
Election commissions are entrusted with control over observance of regulations of election campaign in mass media, outdoor advertising, issuing printed campaign materials.
In particular, election commission makes draws on the distribution of free air time, print space, receives from candidates and parties notices of issue and samples of printed campaign materials.
In elections of deputies of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation of the sixth convocation, the CEC of Russia directly received 633 campaign material, in 10 of them it revealed the signs of violation of the law.
In elections of the President of the Russian Federation, the CEC of Russia received 342 campaign material, in 20 of them it revealed the signs of violation of the law.
The samples of legitimate campaign materials, submitted to the CEC, are presented in slides No. 6 – 9.
Slide No. 6
Slide No. 7
Slide No. 8
Slide No. 9
As elsewhere in the world, the large-scale election campaigns in the Russian Federation can’t do without issue of illegal, counterfeit and anonymous campaign materials. Counteraction to such forms of campaign materials is carried out by election commissions in close cooperation with law enforcement authorities. The information on the activities of the MIA of Russia is presented on slide No. 13.
However, in the terms of its powers, the authorized members of election commissions are entitled to make protocols on administrative violations in accordance with a number of articles of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation7 .
6.3. Control over legality of lower election commissions’ decisions
Control over legality of lower election commissions’ decisions is one of the most important control functions of election commissions, which are entitled with authority to reverse decisions of directly lower election commissions and the right to adopt decision on the subject matter in question.
Thus, in this part the functions of election commission are made closer to the functions of the judiciary, although the court may reverse the decision of any election commission.
Thus, in election of deputies of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation of the sixth convocation the CEC of Russia adopted 6 resolutions, by which it met 4 complaints. 2 complaints were not met.
One of the features of this commissions’ control function is that the higher commission is entitled, prior to counting votes of the corresponding territory, in case of revealing irremovable law violations on the polling station, to cancel the results of voting on this station. In practice, there are a few cases of applying this authority, each of which is an extraordinary event.
6.4. Control over ensuring guarantees of equality of the parties, represented in the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, in legislative assemblies of the subjects of the Russian Federation, when covering their activities
In terms of ensuring equality of political parties represented in the State Duma, on May 12, 2009, the Federal Law “On guarantees of equality of parliamentary parties when covering their activities by public television and radio channels” was adopted.
The coverage of the parliamentary parties’ activities by the state mass media is implemented on the basis of a number of principles, among which I would like to mention:
1) distribution of information on activities of each parliamentary party in equal amounts;
2) creative independence and professional self-reliance of mass media editorial staff when covering the activities of the parliamentary parties.
Thus, the coverage of activities of the parliamentary parties is regulated in relation to the air of television and radio channels, included in the Federal State Unitary Enterprise “All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company” (FSUE VGTRK).
Here are 2 information television channels and 3 radio channels. FSUE VGTRK has 89 branches, 178 TV and radio channels in 83 subjects of the Russian Federation, that is, covers the entire territory of Russia.
The control over observance of requirements of the law is implemented by the CEC of Russia. The control is implemented since September 2009, except for the periods of federal election campaigns.
Starting from April 2012, the coverage of activities of the parliamentary parties on the air of all-Russia TV and radio programs took 149 hours 43 minutes and 49 seconds.
In the same period, the coverage of activities of the parliamentary parties on the air of the regional TV and radio programs took 116 hours 22 minutes and 39 seconds.
From the beginning of effect of the Federal Law, the coverage of activities of the parliamentary parties on the air of TV and radio channels of FSUE VGTRK took in total 2330 hours 1 minute and 28 seconds, that is, more than 97 days.
Federal legislator established the similar requirements for regional state television and radio broadcasting companies. Control over observance of the laws by them is implemented by election commissions of the subjects of the Russian Federation.
In case of revelation of inequality in coverage of any parliamentary party’s activities during any calendar month, the compensation should be made in the following month.
6.5. Control over financing of political parties
In accordance with the Federal Law “On Political Parties”, the CEC of Russia, the election commissions of the subjects of the Russian Federation implement verification of information on incoming and expenditure of funds of political party, its regional branches and other registered structural units.
The law establishes a number of restrictions in part of entities eligible to be donors, in particular, the parties are prohibited to transfer funds to foreign countries and foreign organizations, foreign citizens; Russian legal entities with state or foreign participation of more than 30 percent; international organizations and international social movements, and a number of other entities. In the context of the above provisions of the laws, one of the most important tasks of election commissions is to control the legality of implemented donations.
Every quarter political parties, their regional branches and other registered structural units submit information on incoming and expenditure of funds, which are summarized for the purposes of verification, entered in subsystem of SAS “Vybory” and automatically verified for arithmetical errors and inaccuracies made when completing reports. The information on donors is further sent to the appropriate regulatory authorities for verification of compliance of donations with requirements of the laws.
The information on revealed violations is submitted to the political party which is entitled to eliminate them. The information on irremovable violation is submitted to the Ministry of Justice, which is entitled to take measures to ensure the observance of the law, including appeal to court for liquidation of the political party.
7. Technical support of elections and e-voting in the Russian Federation
Development of information society and fast introduction of information communication to all spheres of our life create new requirements with regards to electoral institution. In conditions of global informational support elections organizers shall carry out activities that ensure compliance of technological support of electoral procedures with information society expectations.
Automation of electoral process in the Russian Federation started over 15 years ago with creation of GAS “Vybory”. Usage of this system is regulated by the Constitution of the Russian Federation, electoral legislation, legislation of the subjects of the Russian Federation and regulatory documents of the CEC of Russia.
Presently this is one of the largest permanently functioning information systems in the country. For years of its work the system has proved its reliability during tens of thousands of elections at federal, regional and local levels. GAS “Vybory” has earned complete trust of public at large.
GAS “Vybory” is used at all stages of electoral process from the moment of publication of the decision to conduct election campaign and up to summarizing of the results.
Main objectives of GAS “Vybory” include: procession of information on election campaigns and candidates, control over electoral funds, compilation of voters’ lists, gathering and processing of information on voting returns, prompt informing of electoral process participants on the course and returns of voting.
GAS “Vybory” structure is multilevel and geographically distributed and is in compliance with the structure of election commissions of the Russian Federation: the CEC of Russia, 83 election commissions of the subjects of the Russian Federation and 2726 territorial election commissions are equipped with complexes of automated facilities (CAF). Total number of technical and software facilities in the system exceeds four hundred thousand.
Two types of vote counting technical facilities are used at election precincts in the Russian Federation: ballot processing complexes (BPC) and electronic voting complexes (EVC). Both were developed and are produced in Russia.
Slide No. 10
One BPC has 2 semi-transparent ballot boxes and two scan devices as well as data device and the printing device. The complex reads the graphic ballot image and the note made by a voter in the paper ballot. Complexes were created in 2003 and improved in 2010.
As while voting with BPC paper ballots are used there is always opportunity to compare results of manual and authomated counting. Such opportunity is laid down in law. The legislation of some subjects of the Russian Federation requires the obligatory manual counting at polling stations. Those polling stations are chosen by random. I would like to note that for the whole period of BPC usage there were no facts of differencies between the manual and authomated counting results.
The first batch of electronic voting complexes (EVC) that uses paperless technology of voters’ will expression was produced in 2005.
Slide No. 11
Electronic voting complex automates the voting process at election precincts and ensures conduct of electronic voting, automated votes count, establishment of voting returns and compilation of election precinct protocol of the election results.
EVC consists of microcontroller electronic chips and its own data format. This technical solution allows reliable protection of EVC from any attempts of unauthorized access and virus attacks. One complex consists of fixed touch screen voting devices (2 to 9 devices), 2 mobile touch screen devices, and 2 touch screen trainers that are placed at the election precinct entrance allowing voters to vote in a training mode.
Slide No. 12
At an election precinct a voter presents his passport and receives a bar code card. By using it with reader of a touch screen device he is granted access to an electronic ballot. Bar code on cards is generated and printed out with the usage of a special program of random numbers generation. The card may be used only once and only at one specific election precinct. There is no possibility to use it twice.
Before the voting starts at each precinct equipped with vote counting technical facilities (EVC or BPC), these facilities shall undergo mandatory testing. Complete cycle of voting in training mode is carried out in presence of the chairman, members of election commission, observers. In the process of testing the complex software is checked with regards to its correct work. All facilities are checked with regards to possibility of choosing each of candidates, and the final protocol of test voting is compiled and signed by members of precinct election commission and observers. Further on the facilities are sealed.
In February 2014 Russian EVC were used at municipal elections in the Republic of Ecuador – at the polling station Tumbaco in the province Pichincha. The device came out to be successful. EVC can work independently even without electricity.
At 2012 presidential elections in the Russian Federation more than 9 mil people had the opportunity to vote with BPC use. Total amount of electors included in EVC polling station lists was 312 thousands 750 hundred people.
None of electoral process participants complained about BPC or EVC performance.
As the result of active public participation in monitoring elections trust of voters in EVC becomes stable and considerably high which allows their future increased application at election precincts.
Slide No. 13
We plan to automate activities of precinct election commissions with regards to compilation of electronic protocol of voting returns signed with the usage of electronic-digital signature by commission members and its automated transfer to GAS “Vybory”. Special software-technical facilities – automated work places at the polling station (AWP PS) equipped with data transfer devices will be established.
Slide No. 14
The unique system of video monitoring of election precincts was successfully implemented at the election of the President of the Russian Federation on March 4, 2012.
Over 200 000 webcams were installed, 2 at every precinct election out of more than 90 000 precincts all over the country. Video broadcasting system was established for the purpose of connecting up to 25 million users with the possibility of 60 000 simultaneous viewing with each camera.
At the slide you can see the screen installed in the CEC of Russia during the election period at which there was the translation from thousands of polling stations in authomated regime.
Simultaneous recording time amounted to 500 mil of video. through the portal www.webvybory2012.ru, and altogether they watched over 7.9 million broadcasts. Within one day 500 million of views were recorded for webvybory2012.ru site that was established for broadcasts monitoring. Over 100 ddos-attacks with wide geography were attempted.
Presently in the Russian Federation modern information communication technologies are implemented at all levels of electoral system. New integrated automated system of vote counting and data transfer from election precincts is being established. This work is carried out in close cooperation with voters, representatives of political parties, expert community and national organizations.
Implementation of electronic voting systems in the Russian Federation is carried out with the account of feedback provided by representatives of expert community, political parties, and public organizations in order to maintain the balance between increasing technologies range and trust of citizens in electronic voting systems.
8. International cooperation in the field of election systems
At the end of the presentation I would like to speak about another important line of activity of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation – the international cooperation in the field of election systems.
The Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation is a federal state organ that prepares and conducts elections and referenda, exercises international cooperation independently in the sphere of election systems regarding the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation № 375 of March,12 1996 « On the coordinating role of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation in the conduction of a single international political line of the Russian Federation», cooperates with state power organs responsible for the realization and coordination of international cooperation.
The CEC of Russia exercises the international cooperation in the election systems area to exchange experience with other countries’ election bodies to use it mutually while respecting election rights and freedoms of elections and referenda participants and working out of international standards in the field of democratic elections and referenda conduction and observation.
Thus the aims and objectives of the CEC of Russia’s international cooperation activity correspond almost fully to the Association of Asian election authorities Charter objectives.
Currently, the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation signed agreements on cooperation with 26 foreign countries’ election commissions and one international organization – the Secretariat of the Organization of American States (OAS).
Besides it CEC of Russia is member of ACEEEO,A-WEB, cooperates actively in the electoral field with such international organizations as OSCE, Council of Europe, CIS, SOC, OAS.
***
Dear colleagues, I hope that the information, presented in this brief presentation, gave you a general idea that the work of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation is aimed at ensuring organization of elections in strict accordance with the principle of democracy, stipulated in the Constitution of the Russian Federation, and its participation in the Association of asian election authorities will respond both to the Association’s interests in general and all its participants in particular.
Thank you for your attention.
1. Direct elections in the Russian Federation are used to elect:
the President of the Russian Federation,
the deputies of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation,
the senior officials of the subjects of the Russian Federation (the heads of supreme state executive bodies of the subjects of the Russian Federation),
the deputies of state legislative (representative) bodies of the subjects of the Russian Federation,
the deputies of representative bodies of local governments, and in some cases, the heads of municipal entities. Federal Law of June 12, 2012 No. 67-ФЗ On basic guarantees of electoral rights and the right of citizens of the Russian Federation to participate in a referendum.
2. Federal Law of June 12, 2012 No. 67-ФЗ On basic guarantees of electoral rights and the right of citizens of the Russian Federation to participate in a referendum.
3. There are more than 24 thousand of municipal entities in the Russian Federation, elections in which are organized either by election commissions, created by representative bodies of the respective municipal entities, or territorial election commissions, created in large cities and regions, which include the settlements.
4. Election commissions down to the level of settlement act on a permanent basis, their term of powers is 5 years.
The Central Election Commission of Russia, election commissions of the subjects of the Russian Federation, as well as some of the municipal entities’ election commissions and territorial election commissions has legal entity status and small apparatuses. All members of the Russia’s Central Election Commission are appointed for 5 years and work in the Russia’s Central Election Commission on a regular basis (although they have the right to work on a voluntary basis).
In election commissions of subjects of the Russian Federation, as a rule, only the chairman, the deputy chairman and the secretary work on a full-time basis.
In some of the territorial election commissions and municipal entities’ election commissions the chairman and the secretary work on a full-time basis. But the most part of the election commissions’ members’ corps are the citizen that are involved in work in election commissions as in public duties with temporary exemption from the main job.
5. Such control is implemented in the following forms:
- current control over the expenditure of budget funds during the election campaign;
- internal control:
audits of financial statements of lower election commissions, carried out by control and audit services under election commissions of the subjects of the Russian Federation,
audits of target use of budget funds by election commissions of the subjects of the Russian Federation, organized by the CEC of Russia in the period between elections.
6. The full list of such authorities includes:
the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation (the MIA of Russia),
the Ministry of the Russian Federation for Affairs for Civil Defense, Emergencies and Elimination of Consequences of Natural Disasters of Consequences of Natural Disasters (the EMERCOM of Russia),
the Federal Tax Service (the FTS of Russia),
the Federal Service for State Registration, Cadastre and Cartography (Rosreestr),
the Federal Migration Service (the FMS of Russia),
the Federal Service of Financial-Budgetary Supervision (Rosfinnadzor),
the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Communications (Roscomnadzor),
the Federal Service for Financial Monitoring (Rosfinmonitoring),
the Federal Service for Supervision in Education and Science (Rosobrnadzor),
the Federal Financial Markets Service (FFMS of Russia),
the Federal Agency for State Property Management (Rosimushchestvo),
the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (the Bank of Russia)
Sberbank of Russia,
the representatives of the executive authorities of the subjects of the Russian Federation,
the representatives of local governments authorities.
7. Thus, during preparation and holding of elections of deputies of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation of the sixth convocation on December 4, 2011, the authorized members of election commissions had made 99 protocols on administrative offenses. After consideration of administrative offenses, the Justices of the Peace had adopted 37 decisions on bringing to administrative responsibility.
During preparation and holding of elections of the President of the Russian Federation on March 4, 2012, the authorized members of election commissions had made a total of 10 protocols on administrative offenses, having considered which, the Justices of the Peace had adopted 2 decisions on bringing to administrative responsibility.