Three days in 12 regions: The CEC gave details about the Elections of Russia 2022

On June 29, the Central Election Commission discussed how the elections scheduled for the single day of voting in September 2022 will be held. Correspondents of the news agency " Zakon" cover the major points.

On the single day of voting in 2022, elections will be held in 81 regions of Russia, and 43 million voters will be able to take part in them.

“Elections will be held in 81 regions in the fall, affecting a total of 43 million voters – CEC presentation” — Twitter @zakon_agency  June 29, 2022  

Despite the fact that the Covid-19 pandemic is declining, most regions have decided that the vote will be multi-day.

“Election of governors and regional parliaments will take place over the course of three days in 12 out of 18 regions,” Pamfilova said. “Two days of elections will be held in three regions and one day in three regions.” Twitter @zakon_agency  June 29, 2022 

Collecting signatures through "State Services"

In 15 regions, candidates will be able to collect signatures in support of their candidacy through the "State Services" portal.

“Voters signatures collection through the State Services portal is available in 15 regions – a presentation by a representative of the State Services.” Twitter @zakon_agency  June 29, 2022 

Notably, Moscow is not on this list. Municipal elections will be held in the capital in September.

There are problems with the ballot processing system in Ryazan

Ballot processing complexes of the 2010 sample are working at full stretch, said Dmitry Bokov, head of the Ryazan Oblast Election Commission.

The problem with them was indeed very critical in Ryazan, as confirmed by Sofia Ivanova, a regional Golos coordinator:

"The models are old and have been in use for a long time. Malfunctions have become more frequent lately. I myself observed how the scanner of one of these ballot scanning machines could not read ballots that got caught in the rain during early voting. The commission members had to show wonders of creativity to make the ballot ‘readable.’ Alas, this aspect of the work of the machines does not affect the results of the election.”

Perhaps in order to solve this problem, the Federal Informatization Center at the CEC requested additional funding.

“The Federal Informatization Center under the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation requested an additional almost 650 million rubles for 2023. Initially the budget was planned to be slightly less than 1 billion rubles, but the Federal Informatization Center believes that they will need more than 1.5 billion rubles in 2023. The situation with 2024-2025 is similar: an additional 700 and an additional 730 million rubles.” Twitter @zakon_agency  June 29, 2022  

St. Petersburg will have a new head of the Electoral Commission

The CEC recommended Maksim Meixin for the post of the head of St. Petersburg election commission.

“Vice-Governor of St. Petersburg Maksim Meixin has been recommended by the CEC to the city election commission. Nikolai Bulayev, deputy chair of the CEC, hinted that Meixin would most likely be recommended to head the commission as well. "Consultations were going on for two years," said Bulayev.” Twitter @zakon_agency  May 25, 2022 

Who Maxim Meiskin is and why St. Petersburg has become almost the main problem for the CEC, is covered by the "Golos" coordinator in St. Petersburg, Polina Kostyleva, in this article.

Enemies do not sleep

The CEC is not prepared to discuss everything publicly. For example, the question of whether natives of Donbass with Russian citizenship would be able to work on precinct election commissions was left unanswered.

“Ella Pamfilova did not directly answer the question from the chairman of the Saratov election commission: Would refugees from Donbass with Russian citizenship be able to become members of precinct commissions. Pamfilova promised to discuss this question later via VCS, apparently non-publicly and without the participation of the media.” Twitter @zakon_agency  June 29, 2022 

In addition, the head of the CEC expressed fear that the "enemies" would again rear their heads closer to the elections.

“Ella Pamfilova asked the head of the Ryazan election commission whether he pays attention to the stress resistance of election commission members. Pamfilova also said that those who want to disrupt the elections have now fallen silent, but closer to the elections they will get money from abroad and continue again.” Twitter @zakon_agency  June 29, 2022

"Golos" continues to stand for the rule of law, disregarding the changing attitudes and trends in the Central Election Commission.