State Duma adopted laws subject to postponement of election and abolishment of absentee voting

The 2018 Presidential Election will be held on March 18 and absentee ballot will be abolished. In the third reading the State Duma passed two bills introduced by the senators Andrei Klishas and Anatoly Shirokov. It is the turn of the Federation Council and the President to endorse the law. The experts have no doubts that the bills will be approved and signed shortly.

Most of the amendments are rather technical in nature, says Arkady Lyubarev, the member of ‘Golos’ Movement Board:

‘Some of the amendments introduced to the Federal Law ‘On Elections of the President of the Russian Federation’ are rather extensive: they affect 54 articles and 4 annexes. However, most of the amendments are introduced simply due to the necessity to bring into line this law with the Federal Law ‘On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights ...’, since the latter has been regularly amended for five years. However, these amendments have not been embodied in the Law on Presidential Elections.’

According to Arkady Lyubarev, the major novelty introduced by both bills is the replacement of absentee voting by another procedure for enrolment of voters, subject to his/her location on the polling day:

‘The idea itself is reasonable, but its realization leaves much to be desired. At once it should be also mentioned that these new regulations embedded in those two bills are rather generalized, therefore, the CEC of Russia is authorized to pass respective major subordinate acts. This is such a failure from a legal perspective and in practice quite dangerous move. Moreover, we are aware of the CEC concept proposing two different mechanisms. The first mechanism provides the submission of application by a voter not earlier than 45 days and no later than 5 days prior to the polling day - this mechanism works sufficiently enough and in general determines appropriate conditions for monitoring. Concerning the second mechanism, an application can be submitted not earlier than four days before the polling day and not later than 2 p.m. of the day preceding the Election day. Therefore, it implicates much greater chances for abuse. The mechanisms are not differentiated in the bills, indicating that the application can be submitted not earlier than 45 days before the election day and no later than 2 p.m. of the day preceding the polling day.’

According to the draft law, the amendments will affect regional election campaigns as well:

‘Having established such regulations for the Presidential Elections in the Russian Federation, the federal legislator pretty much imposes them herewith on regional elections. The amendments to the Federal Law ‘On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights ...’ provide that the new procedure must be applied by default. If any regional legislator would consider rejecting the procedure, it would have to submit its dissent in written form. Regional legislators yet have almost no time to amend local regulations and most likely 20 regions will have to apply the new rules for the September 10 Regional Elections (Gubernatorial Elections in 16 regions and Elections to Regional Parliament in 6 regions), though the regional legislation will not be in conformity with the federal one, what might cause confusion.’

The new regulations will not be applied for municipal elections, as well as for by-election - absentee voting and early voting will remain in force.

Despite the above-mentioned criticism, the bill stipulates a few positive changes, as Arkady Lyubarev explains:

‘The bills also embody several other important novelties; the initiative is a step in the right direction, but timid and incomprehensive. Thus, the restrictions imposed on observers one year ago will not be applied for the Presidential Election (such as the requirement to submit in advance the lists of observers to TECs, the same person being prohibited to observe election in several PECs), but they remain in force in case of regional and municipal elections. The restrictions on the media as well will be sustained. One of the requirements was removed that allowed to massively invalidate voters' signatures and thus reject applications of candidates and party-lists, as currently it is no more required to provide detailed address, if it is unambiguously understood. However, no other measures were taken to de-bureaucratize the process of registration of candidates and party-lists, despite the novelties aimed at implementing the recent decision of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation.’