Golos proposes publication of registers of all heads of local administrations and deputies who provide notarized support to the candidates for governor

Text of the statement

In connection with the unfolding discussion on the problems of “municipal filter” implementation, Golos believes it necessary to point out the following.

PROBLEM: while the election commissions do publish the registers of deputies and heads of local administrations who provided support to the candidate for governor, submitted by the said candidate, the signatures of deputies and heads of local administrations that have been notarized, but haven’t been submitted to the election commission by these candidates, remain unpublicized.

In the meantime, paragraph 15, item 3, article 18 of the Federal Law from October 5, 1999, No. 184-FZ On the common principles of organization of legislative (representative) and executive bodies of the regions and republics of the Russian Federation specifies: “The registers of municipal deputies and elected heads of local administrations, who support the candidates for the position of the highest official of the Russian Federation region or republic (head of the top executive body of the said region or republic), have to be published in the regional government printed periodicals in accordance with the regional/republican laws, or have to be uploaded to the websites of the election commissions of the said regions or republics.”

Consequently, the current practice of such registers’ publication fails to meet the requirements of this legislative norm, doesn’t reflect reality, and prevents the observers from making any conclusions as to whether the process of signature collection corresponds to the constitutionally legal implications, revealed by the Constitutional Court ruling from December 24, 2012 No. 32-P, item 3.3: “… in determining the number of people, necessary for support of the candidate’s nomination, the regions of the Russian Federation, following the constitutional principles of democracy, political diversity, plurality and parity of voting power (article 1,part 1; article 13, parts 1 and 3; article 19, parts 1 and 2 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation), have to proceed from the need to assure that the highest official of the Russian Federation region or republic (head of the top executive body of the said region or republic) is elected on alternative basis and in the course of real political competition…

… At the same time the mandate of item 20 article 37 of the Federal Law On the principal guarantees of the Russian Federation citizens’ electoral rights and the right to partake in referenda dictates that the number of signatures of municipal deputies and (or) heads of local administrations, submitted to the regional election commission, may exceed the number of signatures, necessary for the registration of the candidate, but by no more than 5 percent — in accordance with article 17 (part 3) of the Russian Constitution, which says that “the exercise of the rights and freedoms of man and citizen shall not violate the rights and freedoms of other people.” This includes, among other things, prohibition against abuse of rights, and considering that each elected official can only support one candidate for the relevant position, the principles of the Constitution prohibit the creation of artificial hurdles to nomination of other candidates through the collection of signatures of local elected officials in quantities greater than the necessary number of signatures, required for the candidate’s registration, in excess of 5 percent.”

Based upon the aforementioned provision of the federal law and the ruling of the Constitutional Court, it follows that the REGISTERS OF ALL municipal deputies and elected heads of local administrations, WHO PROVIDED NOTARIZED SUPPORT to the candidates for the position of the highest regional official, have to be published. The publication of such registers should be based both on the information submitted by the candidates to the election commission and on the basis of information received from the Integrated Notariate Information System (articles 34.1, 34.2 of the Fundamentals of Notaryship Legislation of the Russian Federation (approved by the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation on February 11, 1993, No. 4462-1), which have to be filed in such a way that any candidate could verify their completeness and authenticity. (See the attached Analytical report to read in more details about abusive practices used in collecting the signatures of municipal deputies.)

We ask the Central Election Commission of Russia and the election commissions of the regions and republics of the Russian Federation, which are currently preparing for the elections of governors, to work in cooperation with the relevant executive government agencies (federal justice agency) and the Federal Notary Chamber to take the steps toward publication of complete registers of municipal deputies and heads of local administrations, whose SUPPORT for the candidates for governors has been notarized.

Appendix. Analytical report on the abusive practices associated with the “municipal filter” procedure

From the very start of its implementation, the procedure for collecting the signatures of municipal deputies in support of the candidates for the position of the highest official of the Russian Federation region or republic (the so-called “municipal filter”) has been raising waves of diverse and valid criticism. The election campaign of 2017 aggravated this problem further as the techniques of administrative and unlawful manipulation of the “municipal filter” were perfected. The common practice for implementation of this mechanism is accompanied by universal administrative pressure on the municipal deputies and the use of state and public resources (organizational, transportation, information, etc) to secure wide-scale collection of signatures in the interests of the current governors or those acting temporarily in this capacity, as well as the “technical” (spoiler) candidates. At the same time, the obvious abuse of this right, namely the collection of municipal deputies’ signatures in significant excess of the necessary amount in favour of some candidates, creates unsurmountable obstacles for the others. It makes their participation in the election campaign practically impossible regardless of the real support that these candidates may have from the voters and political parties.

Based on the candidates’ public statements and publications in mass media, there’s information that in the course of this year’s 16 gubernatorial elections, excessive number of municipal deputies’ signatures was collected in the interests of the current governors and their spoiler candidates in the Republic of Buryatiya, Republic of Karelia, the city of Sevastopol, Perm, Sverdlovsk, Ryazan, Novgorod and Kirov Regions. Specifically, this concerns the deputies’ signatures, which were collected and notarized by the “administrative candidates,” but which were not submitted by these candidates along with the registration documents. Current legislation sets no limits for the candidates in the scale of collecting and notarizing the deputies’ signatures, simply stating the admissable 5% limit on exceeding the minimal threshold in submitting the already collected signatures. In combination with the provision, which assigns validity to the deputy’s signature that was notarized prior to the other signatures given by him to other candidates, this makes the collection of the so called “secondary” signatures practically meaningless. The candidate who risks making such a step is completely dependent on the “good graces” of the other candidates who had already collected the “primary” deputy signatures — will they or won’t they reveal those signatures (from their huge troves) to the election commission? This is exactly what happened in the Perm Region, for example.        

Furthermore, the wide-scale collection of deputies’ signatures in the interests of certain candidates, especially when it comes to the deputies of municipal districts (the so called “upper level” deputies), creates unsurmountable conditions to fulfill the so called “territorial quota.” This quota requires the candidates to submit signatures of the deputies from no less than 3/4 of all upper level municipal districts. For all intents and purposes, it’s enough to quickly collect the signatures of all or almost all deputies in slightly more than 1/4 of the region’s territories in order to block registration of the remaining candidates — and this is precisely what seems to have transpired in several of the aforementioned regions. This can potentially create a stalemate situation when none of the candidates are able to fulfill the territorial quota.

Recent events in the Perm Region can be seen as a typical example of using such techniques in order to create artificial obstacles to signature collection by the opposition candidates. June 10 marked the start of the nomination and signature collecting process. On June 14, the acting governor M. Reshetnikov (United Russia) and candidate A. Stepanov (Patriots of Russia) announced their candidacies, and on June 15 and 16 wide-scale collection of deputy signatures in their favour was carried out simultaneously in all of the region’s districts. According to the preliminary estimates of the other candidates’ campaigns, this sweep collected the signatures of approximately 600 upper level deputies out of 800 total. The time it took these candidates to collect all the signatures in their support wasn’t enough for four out of the seven candidates to even announce their nominations. Such simultaneous wide-scale collection of municipal deputies’ signatures is impossible without the use of administrative, transportation, information and other resources of the regional and local administrations — and there is numerous oral and some documentary evidence of this (see the incident in the Gainsky district of the Perm Region). It often happened that the signature collection was organized by the heads and staff of the local administrations in accordance with a set timetable, and deputies from remote settlements were delivered to the notary offices using local administration’s cars. The main objective of such actions is to leave your competitors behind, creating for some of them unsurmountable obstacles to exercising their electoral rights. Statements such as the ones claiming that the candidates could hurry up in order to outrun their competitors corrupt the very essence of the “municipal filter.” Collection of the deputies’ signatures is not a speed contest, but an attempt to identify among the local deputies those who believe that this candidate is worthy of contending for the top regional position. This is a contest for the extent of political support, meant to elicit its presence or, perhaps, absence.  

That being said, in collecting the signatures the candidate has no way of verifying the deputies’ claims regarding their previous signatures for his competitors. The candidates are forced “to take [the deputies] at their word.” Moreover, following the inspection and publication of the registers of deputies’ signatures, some of those deputies came out with statements that they didn’t sign in favour of this or that candidate, or that they were duped in the process and were putting their signature for supposedly a different candidate or even on a “blank undated paper.” On top of that, when the signature sheets were examined, officials discovered a number of mistakes made by the notaries or the heads of local administrations in the process of notarizing the deputies’ personal information. (Examples of mistakes included the wrong date of notarization, mistakes in the spelling of names and dates of birth, etc.) There’s also information that in some regions collection of signatures began before the official authorization was granted. Just like in previous years, there have been instances of personal threats against some of the deputies (dismissal, unwarranted business inspections, loss of municipal orders, etc.) to counter their refusal to sign in favour of a certain candidate. Furthermore, there is a strong reason to believe that the information about the deputies, who had signed in favour of this or that candidate, quickly becomes available to the administration and the campaign staff of some of these candidates.

Unfortunately, current legislation makes it impossible to either confirm or refute these statements and the information on the presence or absence of wide-scale signature collection in favour of one or several candidates. We have no way to ascertain the deputies’ sincerity and the absence of notary mistakes or forgeries.

Election commissions do publish the registers of deputies who put down their signatures for a certain candidate, but those only contain the deputy’s name, date of birth, and the name of the local representative body. The registers do not contain the date, on which the deputy signed the signature sheet, although that date is contained in the sheet itself, and is a very important parameter of this signature’s registration.

The full public disclosure and entirety of notary documentation remain the key link that could confirm or refute the fact of wide-scale signature collection as well as the veracity of the procedure itself. The notaries keep a register and a journal where all of their actions are written down, notarization of deputies’ signatures included. Each entry is given a certain registration number. Unfortunately, such information is closed to the public. The receipts provided by the notaries in return for the payment contain the name of the deputy who used the notary services, the date that the service was provided and the number from the notary register. They do not contain, however, the name of the candidate in whose favour the signature was made.  

Nonetheless, only the public comparison of the information contained in the notary registers, journals and receipts and in the signature sheets themselves can shine the light on the true scale of signature collection in favour of this or that candidate, verify authenticity of this procedure, confirm the accuracy of notary’s actions, confirm the deputies’ assurances, and, finaly, verify the truthfulness of the candidates’ claims regarding the impossibility of collecting the signatures. Only such mechanisms in conjunction with publication of registers of all of the deputies who offered their support (i.e. those whose support signatures were notarized), and not just the registers of signatures submitted to the election commissions, can put a stop to the aforementioned abuses and violations of candidates’ rights.  

We believe that in its current form, without additional instruments of transparency and control, the municipal filter should be abolished.