Photo: Arthur NOVOSILTSEV/Moscow City News Agency
BET ON “DIGITAL”
Three days of voting have been held successfully in Moscow. The voting lasted from 6 to 8 September. This year, deputies to the Moscow City Duma and municipal deputies from Kurkino and TiNAO districts were elected.
In total, more than 3.1 million people took part in the elections. There were different ways to vote. Just over 3 million people voted online and via electronic voting terminals at polling stations. 142 thousand Muscovites voted on paper (data based on the results as of 20:15 on September 8). According to preliminary data, the turnout was 40%.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, Kommunarka’s chief physician Denis Protsenko and People’s Artist of Russia Igor Butman voted electronically.
CONFLICT-FREE ENVIRONMENT
“Anyone who has tried the SDR at least once will not vote any other way,” says political scientist Konstantin Kostin. And yet, there are still people for whom it is important to have a piece of paper in their hands.
“We asked voters to write declarations in advance if they wanted to vote “traditionally,” but we prepared a sufficient number of ballot papers. And if a citizen wanted to vote this way, and not electronically, the election commissions agreed with him,” said Olga Kirillova, chairwoman of the Moscow City Election Commission.
Thanks to flexibility, an integrated approach and careful preparation, these elections took place smoothly and without incident. Individual complaints were registered by the public office, but were quickly resolved at the local level.
ELECTORAL TRANSPARENCY
More than 12,000 specially trained public observers, as well as volunteers and party representatives, followed the voting process, both in person at 1,440 polling stations and online 24 hours a day via cameras at the polling stations. The observers changed every two hours to ensure that the eyes did not become blurred.
There were no emergency situations. There were no problems with the voting system itself either. The system was prepared for any surprises, repelled hundreds of DDOOS attacks and worked without any failures.
Throughout the three days of voting, everyone was able to follow its progress online; the observer.mos.ru website recorded not only the number of ballots cast, but also peak loads on the system. And advanced users could download a file reflecting all operations with the electronic voting system (including DDoS attacks) to ensure that no one interfered with the voting process.
UNPRECEDENTED ACTIVITY
“Apart from the fact that voting electronically is easy and convenient (for example, I travel often), there is another small attraction that attracts voters: this way you can earn points thanks to “millions of prizes,” said the multiple world champion and European figure skater Irina Slutskaya.
Everyone who chose the electronic voting method took part in the drawing of prize points. One point is equal to one ruble. You can spend them in shops, restaurants or on transport. As a result, 1.3 million people earned 1,000 points, 180 thousand people earned 3,000 points, and 39 thousand people earned 5,000 points. 13,500 people will receive 15,000 discount points based on the results of an additional drawing. And another 1,000 “consolation” points will be awarded to 580 thousand people who voted for the first time and whose age “exceeded” the limit of 60 years. And these are only preliminary results: the drawings continue.
Winners will receive an SMS from DIT_MOS, after which they will have to activate their unique code on the Million Prizes program website and can spend it until December 15 this year. Then the points will expire. All participants of the program, among other things, have the opportunity to donate prize points to charity – thus, during these elections, Muscovites have already collected 32 million rubles.
