Golos: Moscow election commissions prevent voters from casting their absentee ballots

Epigraph

The discussion of early voting brings to mind an episode from Voinovich’s novel about soldier Chonkin.

When people at the collective farm learned that the war began, they started gathering near the adminsitration building. The chairman got a phone call from the district Party committee, telling him to gather people for a rally. He tells them: “People are already here.” And the Party bosses reply: “You mean they gathered on their own?! You are going to lose your Party membership for this!” After the phone call, the people were forcefully disbanded at first, and then forcefully brought back for the rally.

Our authorities find it hard to come to terms with the fact that somebody is doing something on their own. Those who don’t want to vote should be forced to (like at Barnaul), and those who want to vote should be prevented from doing so (like in Moscow).

A. Lyubarev

Statemenet of the Council of the Golos movement on absentee ballot voting in Moscow

It’s a known fact that voting by absentee ballot has previously been subject to legitimate criticism. As a result, it was long been omitted from the federal and regional elections, and between 2010 and 2014 it was forbidden at municipal elections as well, altough later such option was reinstated by the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation. One of the grievances against absentee ballot voting was the fact that it was regularly employed by unscrupulous political strategists who used this practice to organize large-scale early voting by certain categories of citizens, whose electoral preferences were biased by their social status or other reasons. At times, the large-scale use of early voting was simply aimed at increasing election turnout. Typically, early voting was organized among federal and municipal employees and staff of the budgetary enterprises, all of whom to a certain extent depended on current administrations that had their own political interest in the election results.

Voting by absentee ballot is one of the ways that the citizens of Russia can exercise their constitutional rights to elect candidates to the bodies of state power and local self-governance. It is a necessary option in absence of other effective methods for exercising the voting power of those citizens who will be far from the ballot stations on the day of the election. This is why the absentee ballot voting is legislatively regulated, and the election commissions organizing and conducting this process have to adhere to such regulations strictly. Artificial recruiting to partake in early voting is a violation of the legislation. 

But in current municipal elections in Moscow, we observe a different kind of deviance from the early voting rules. Some election commissions refuse to provide opportunity for absentee ballot voting to those citizens who fail to provide documentary proof of the reason that forces them to vote early. Such conduct of the election commissions engaged in early voting (in this case, it’s the territorial election commissions) is caused by instructions that came from Moscow City Election Commission. The Commission published its recommendations on early voting procedures on its official website, and recommendations in particular state: “We recommend that the voter is asked to provide a document that confirms the presence of acceptable excuse, envisioned in clause 1 of article 69.1 of the Code. The copy of the said document is attached to the voter’s request. If the reason specified by the voter in his request does not conform to clause 1 article 69.1 of the Code, members of the election commission are obligated to inform the voter that his request will be reviewed by the commission. The Election Commission of the Moscow Region has to review the voter’s request within 24 hrs of receiving it, and if the request is received on the day prior to the voting day, the review should be completed before the end of the early voting period. The Commission’s decision has to be immediately documented in written form and the voter should be notified of the decision.” Our sources say that this recommendation is based on the letter of Moscow City Election Commission’s chairman V. Gorbunov, which was distributed to the territorial commissions, but which is guarded closesly from the commissions’ members and outside observers.

The said recommendations have been taken by certain commissions to heart. At Butyrsky, Levoberezhny, Koptevo, Meshchansky,Timiryazevsky, and Severnoye Butovo districts, voters were told to bring documents confirming their absence, and if such documents are unavailable, the voters are precluded from voting immediately after submitting their request, delaying the issue until the election commission’s meeting scheduled for the next day. That being said, even voters, whose absentee ballot requests directly specify legal reasons for absence, such as a vacation or work in a different election commission, have been refused the right to vote. At Koptevo district, the territorial commission even ruled that submission of confirming documents is obligatory.

It should be noted that the offices of most territorial election commissions lack the reminders for voters with extracts from the early voting rules. Meanwhile, clause 2 article 65 of the Federal Law “On the Principal Guarantees of Voting Rights of the Russian Federation Citizens” specifies the list of “acceptable” reasons, on the basis of which the commission is obligated to provide the voter with an opportunity to cast his absentee ballot. These include vacations and business trips, working and studying regimes, performance of state and public obligations, state of health and other acceptable reasons. The law does not specify the necessity of submitting confirming documents, and does not state that the election commissions have the authority to examine the reasons for early voting.

Consequently, the individual initiatives of certain territorial election commissions of Moscow, and of Moscow City Election Commission regarding organization of absentee ballot voting lead to violation of citizen’s voting rights.

It’s obvious that the perpetrators of the aforementioned violations will cite the grievancees against early voting connected with mass-scale recruitment for absentee voting, which was previously observed in some districts of Moscow (especially at municipal by-elections). Nonetheless, we believe that such excuses are full of deceit and provocation. Instead of preventing administrative pressure on voters, election organizers have gone to the opposite extreme, which also violates the law and citizens’ election rights.

It should also be noted that organization of absentee ballot voting in Russia and many other regions of Russia suffers from another systemic weakness — the absence of transparency. According to the information received by the Golos movement, territorial commissions engaged in early voting, collect information about absentee ballot voters on a daily basis, transmitting it to the Vybory state automated system. However, this information isn’t published anywhere, and it’s not even made available to the commission members in advisory capacity and to election observers. In contempt of subclause g of clause 23 article 29 of the Federal Law “On the Principal Guarantees of Voting Rights of the Russian Federation Citizens,” the aforementioned persons are unable to familiarize themselves with this information, provoking additional distrust in early voting. It should be noted that the Ruling of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation No 233/1480-6, dated June 4, 2014, “Concerning the Procedure and Deadline for Providing Information on the Number of Early Voters, and Guidelines for Procedures of Early Voting at Election Commission Offices,” which regulates absentee ballot voting, also contains no instructions in this regard, just like it has no instructions on the necessity of confirming documents for early voters.

We believe that the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation should presently point out to the Moscow City Election Commission the unlawful restrictions and violation of voting rights in the course of absentee ballot voting in Moscow.