In 2017, major CEC task - Election Officials Training

by Natalya Tikhonova

The chairwoman of Central Election Commission (CEC) Ella Pamfilova announced during the final CEC session, that this year one of the main CEC tasks is to run election officials training, as the news agency 'Zakon' informed.

According to her, the vast majority of irregularities took place due to the poor training of election officials.

Pamfilova emphasized that in 2016, 20 criminal cases were initiated by CEC or election commissions of territorial entities.

Preparation for Presidential Election will start in January 2017

The Presidential Election is scheduled for March 2018, though the preparation for election campaign will start in January 2017, as the CEC chairperson Ella Pamfilova informed.

The deputy head of Central Election Commission Nikolai Bulaev stated that 14.8 billion rubles were allocated for the Presidential Election, but these funds will be spent just for the launch of election campaign.

He added that additional 5.5 billion rubles will be allocated. In addition, nearly a billion – for the Parliamentary by-election in single-member constituencies. The funds will be available only after the announcement of by-election.

Major CEC task – launch of national voter database

The chairperson of Central Election Commission, Ella Pamfilova, announced that the data on the SAS-Elections database should be amalgamated with the information of Federal Migration Service.

She emphasized that the ultimate goal would be the new voter database providing an opportunity to each and every citizen to cast a vote at any polling stations without a document authorizing absentee ballot.

The chairperson of Federal Center of Information Technologies under the auspices of CEC Mikhail Popov added that the Center plans to digitize all their communication channels before the Presidential Election.

Security cameras must operate on the Election Day

At the final CEC session, the deputy chairman of CEC Nikolay Bulaev expressed his opinion on video surveillance, saying the main goal of security cameras - prevention of violations on the Election Day.

The CEC official Yevgeniy Kolyushin pointed out that the Federal Center of Information Technologies under the auspices of Central Election Commission is not engaged in decision-making process concerning the video surveillance issues. He proposed to entrust him the development of types of engagement.

In turn, the CEC chairperson Ella Pamfilova has highlighted that the CEC calls for free and fair elections and expressed her gratitude to the President for his support to video surveillance.