Voting machines and counting the votes during presidential elections

Voting machines that will count the votes during presidential elections of 2018 aren’t fully protected from possible falsifications. It will be best to recount the ballots from the boxes equipped with the voting machines. Golos experts explain why.

The number of voting machines

The recently held meeting of the Central Election Commission was dedicated to the distribution of new voting machines (KOIB-2017) to the constituents of the Russian Federation. Altogether, 4,570 voting machines will be delivered to 58 regions. Right now, the Central Election Commission also has approximately 5,600 «old» KOIB-2010 machines and approximately 1,000 electronic voting installations (EVI).

Deputy chairman of the Central Election Commission Nikolai Bulaev suggested that the Regional Election Commissions use the voting machines at large ballot stations to maximize voter coverage per one voting machine. His calculations show that in this way up to one quarter of all voters in presidential elections will be able to pass their ballots through the voting machines. Some of the regions are in the process of acquiring voting machines with their own funds. Moscow Region, for example, has signed a contract for 1,100 KOIBs with Avtomatika Concern.

In this way, the elections of March 18 will utilize three different types of voting machines: old ones from KROK, new ones from Baumanka, and new ones from Avtomatika Concern.

KOIB problems

Bulaev also spoke about levels of protection for the ballots prepared for presidential elections. These will include a special stamp, a microfont and watermarks, signatures of two members of the District Election Commission and the commission’s seal.

But the problem is that KOIBs are incapable of differentiating between all these levels of protection and are ready to «swallow» even a Xerox copy of the ballot, Golos’s experts discovered. Such conclusion can be made from reading the technical specifications that were used to select the voting machine vendor. The technical specifications say that the new KOIB should automatically process ballots with a stamp attached to the back side, as well as with microfont text and/or benday also on the back side. Golos’s expert Stanislav Rachinsky explains that this means that KOIBs should process such bulletins, but are not tasked with verifying the presence/absence of such tags. Rachinsky adds that theoretically it’s possible to «teach» the voting machines to discern the stamps, microfont and watermarks, but this is likely to increase the cost of the machines significantly.

The state procurements website also contains explanations from the Federal Center of Information Technologies under the Central Election Commission of Russia, which acted as the ordering customer for the new batch of KOIBs, that the voting machines are not required to check the ballot’s authenticity:

There are no requirements for the processing of the ballots’ back side, including the affixed special marks (stamps), as well as microfont texts and/or benday, specified in the description of the object of procurement.

The observers also reported that KOIBs can accept copies of the ballots. Information about this can be found on Golos’ Map of Violations. Although since then KOIBs’ software was changed from version 2.3 to version 3.0, there are still no requirements for verifying authenticity of the ballot. 

Nonetheless, a member of the Central Election Commission Anton Lopatin told Zakon Information Agency that KOIBs won’t take into account the ballots without special stamps, microfont or benday. At the same time, Commission’s official pointed out that the work of the voting machines should still be overseen, and this is one of the reasons why the presence of observers is required at the ballot stations.

Lopatin: KOIB will be able to discern the presence of stamp, microfont or benday, otherwise it won’t accept the ballot. The voting stations will also have observers

— Zakon Information Agency (@zakon_agency) October 20, 2017

Professor and Doctor of Sciences, employee of ZAO MTsST Yuri Ryabtsev said that no task to verify authenticity of ballots was ever set in production of for KOIB-2010. As it was reported earlier, this modification of voting machines accounts for approximately half of all the KOIBs. Ryabtsev added that there was never an opportunity to examine and evaluate the voting machines regarding acceptance of falsified ballots such as Xerox copies. In conclusion, Ryabtsev said that a lot depends on the machines’ reader element, and whether it will be capable of discerning colors with such resolution, but added that this question was never seriously discussed.