‘I am even ready to go for non-competitive elections!’ - The story of professional election observer

by Alexander Grezev, ‘Golos’ Coordinator in Sverdlovsk region, expert on elections 

In recent years, a trend of electoral tourism has been flourishing. Despite the fact that civic organizations are banned to observe elections, civic activists - enthusiasts observe elections in cities and villages.

‘Golos’ invited Alexander Grezev, the movement coordinator in Sverdlovsk region and the enthusiastic election observer, to tell why he spends his weekends observing elections in remote villages and who pays for all this.

Why do I observe elections? I can see the bottom line

I have been interested in elections since 8 years ago, since 1995, when the Gubernatorial Elections were held in Sverdlovsk region. Although I knew very little by that time, I was already interested in elections.

I remember very well the 1996 Presidential Elections, already then I tried to figure out who is who among the candidates, to monitor their performance. I can say that already that time my political views came to take a shape.

At the same time, I accidentally started studying a small atlas, yet the Soviet one. I just simply was looking over maps of various countries, playing a travel on them. As young as 10-years-old I had memorized forever the world map with all of the capitals, cities, country borders and statistics. Since then I have hardly met a person knowing geography better than me.

In 1997, I was lucky enough to visit Australia, with transit in the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam. This journey aroused my interest in international politics, systems of government in different countries.

When I plan an election observation mission without any financial assistance, even when my colleagues join me, I choose to spend my own money, knowing that this is a kind of investment in my future.

A few years ago, a permanent Internet network connection was installed at my place, enabling me to be constantly engaged in activities I am interested, get almost any information and analyse it. I have started monitoring elections in Europe, USA, Canada, Australia and other countries. I paid particular attention to opinion polls and electoral geography.

In fact, in my case, it was predestined to join political and civic projects related to the opposition activities (currently it cannot be otherwise in Russia) and elections. In 2009, my career started with the movement ‘Solidarity’ and in a year ‘Golos’ branch was established in our region, which I joined since the first day of its establishment. In 2012, I became a coordinator of the region, as I was the only one in town ready to spend a lot of time for the work.

Observers from Yekaterinburg observed the recent elections in Vladimir region. The distance between Yekaterinburg and Vladimir region is more than 1.5 thousand kilometres

Election observation in Russia – unpleasant work. It is impossible to make good money doing this job, moreover, it is rather stressful, facing lawlessness, the general apathy of society or no knowledge at all about who they are electing and why. Despite all this I find a stimulus to continue this work and moreover constantly expand the geography of observation, while investing my own money.

I like travelling, discovering new cities, towns and even the smallest villages with a population of a hundred people. An ordinary person would not find anything interesting out there, but I find benefits everywhere if I have an opportunity to talk to people. Each time, I get more and more experience, gain knowledge about the life of people and their problems.

Even if my beliefs and values concerning the most important issues are shared by less than 1% of Russia's population, this is not a reason to isolate myself in my own world.

Besides, I see the results of election observation carried out by us. In recent years, in the regions where the elections at least could be perceived as elections, as the work of many precinct election commissions actually is improving and even they are trying to comply with the law. In Yekaterinburg, 5-6 years ago, the situation was much worse and civic election observation played an important role.

I am ready to go for even non-competitive elections in a rural settlement of another region or a local referendum on self-taxation for the construction of a water supply system in a village.

It is important to mention Elections to the State Duma or Presidential Elections are held across the country, and even a precinct election commission in villages of completely different region will also conduct vote count, what will be reflected in the overall statistics.

Personally, I am very pleased to see the regional commissions being informed about our election observation visits, carry out respective training for PECs in order to get prepared for meeting ‘Golos’ observers and therefore working in an open manner and complying with the law (though almost never it works without any discrepancies). Even though during the next elections we are not going to visit that particular rural polling station, but I want to believe that our previous cooperation with that PEC has brought at least some benefit looking to the future.

One more motivation, which gradually became the main one, is the career development, networking and engaging in new projects. When for several years you are sincerely engaged in something, there is a chance that are you noticed and invited to get involved in some other activities related to the elections. Every year I have more and more exciting projects, working in the election headquarters, trips abroad, and much more.

Accreditation cards of international observer (Lithuania, Moldova, Ukraine, Romania, Kazakhstan). Photo is taken from the personal archive

I am glad to devote all my time to my favourite work and to feel quite well financially self-sufficient, facing no distraction as some ordinary and banal job.

When I plan an election observation mission without any financial assistance, even when my colleagues join me, I spend my own money understanding that this is a kind of investment in my future. And my colleagues notice that, moreover the investment pays off with something very interesting.

In 2007, I observed elections for the first time and it was Elections to the State Duma 8 years ago. It was very funny. The very last moment I thrusted myself upon being nominated as an observer by one of political parties. Of course I had no training and I did not know the law, therefore I was not competent to identify any violations (except obvious ballot stuffing), but in our region it is not common. The funniest part was vote count when the ballots from the ballot boxes were emptied onto the table and the sorting started. Seeing that other observers got involved into the process, I decided to help them too, not even knowing that this was a gross violation of the law.

At that time the commissions in our own city were not really familiar with the law and despite the fact that there was no deliberate fraud, the vote count was a nightmare. It was the same in the 2008 Presidential Elections and 2010 Elections to Regional Duma.

The situation started to dramatically improve in 2011, when more than one hundred of observers got trained; they insisted on strict compliance with the law.

In 8 years I have observed Election Day processes 41 times, 11 of them - abroad. In Russia, I have observed different elections in 10 regions.

The list of candidates on a ballot paper is not important when I am up to the election observation. I am ready to go for even non-competitive elections in a rural settlement in another region or a local referendum on self-taxation for the construction of a water supply system in a village, which was the case in May 2015 in Perm region. I am interested in the process, therefore everywhere I find something new.

In the coming years I am ready to keep on observing elections in almost all geographically and logistically accessible locations. Moreover, I have observed elections as an international observer in six countries, what was particularly valuable to me.

Every election in some or another way is unique, therefore each case is interesting.

Of course, from a practical point of view, elections held in a large or medium-sized city (or district) are more interesting, when observers have an opportunity to visit several polling stations and gather more information. However, this is not a reason to ignore the elections held in a polling station with 100 voters in a remote village.

Firstly, it often happens that in the province while interacting with local people I learn a lot, it has its own atmosphere.

Secondly, the work of all precinct election commissions is important in the federal elections, so it is significant to monitor their skills and try to improve their work.

Local referendum in the village Lom on May 24, 2015 (Perm region)

During the elections there is always a risk to get into a conflict, but I have been avoiding any dangerous situations. Perhaps this is due to the fact that I was not visiting any really hot spots. These are the southern regions of Russia, as well as other regions, for example, the Moscow region and Tatarstan.

While staying at polling stations, I always try to avoid any particularly harsh conflict situations, though not kotowing to a commission, which is acting not in compliance with the law. Reference to a particular law provision often helps.

If it is, however, impossible to preclude a violation, it must be recorded and reported.

Preparation for election observation starts 3 months ahead

While planning election observation mission several aspects must be taken into account: the number and location of polling stations, logistical accessibility of polling stations, accommodation in the election observation area or nearby, the price of travel and accommodation.

There were some situations when elections were held not so far away, even in my region, but it is impossible to get there without a car and there is no hotel over there. In such a case, you definitely need your own transport and a hotel or apartment as close as possible to the observation area.

In other cases, it was quite easy to get to the observation area and to find accommodation, but the total price was very high. Therefore, the budget must be drafted in advance in order to avoid high unforeseen expenses. In addition, there are regions where elections are held in a rural district or a village with lots of polling stations scattered in different localities. In this case, it is necessary to very carefully think through logistical arrangements in terms of observers being able to access polling stations in time for the opening of PECs and arrange their return after the vote count. You cannot loose contact with anybody and turn your back after the closure of polling stations.

I try to observe all the accessible elections, if that day I have nothing more important to do: no urgent work or international trip. At the moment, the potential locations for election observation, which I am ready to visit, roughly speaking are limited to the western Moscow and eastern Novosibirsk.

Prior to the Mayor Elections in Obi on February 8, 2015 (Novosibirsk region). On that day, observers were present at all the polling stations. At that time the civic observers reported that voters were bribed with sausage

I start considering my next trip once I find election schedule displayed on CEC website, about 3 months ahead. I start getting acquainted with the polling stations and drawing a map.

If you go for election observation with your colleagues, they need to get necessary documents - Media accreditation [NGOs are banned to observe elections, observers nominated by political parties or candidates are entitled to observe voting, media representatives are as well entitled to be present at polling stations - Ed.].  Thanks to friendly staff of couple editorial offices in Yekaterinburg, who is always ready to provide assistance. I am very grateful for what they do, we could do nothing without their support.

The issue of funding can be solved in different ways: using your own assets, fundraising, local sponsorship or other resources. For sure it does not affect the work itself. Lately I have been travelling almost exclusively at my own expense: I can afford myself to observe elections investing 10-15 thousand rubles a month and maybe take with me 2-3 colleagues.

Advice of novice observer

If someone wants to become an election observer, the most important thing is to thoroughly study the law and attend the specific training. Without it, all the work will be meaningless and not interesting.

It often happens that a novice observer comes to a lecture, listens attentively, though leaves the training room for a phone call or having a smoke several times and eventually in total he gets no more than 10% of the required knowledge. Therefore, when observing he is simply not competent to spot a violation, because he does not understand what is happening just next to him, because he is not familiar with the law. Typically, the dropout among such ‘observers’ is rather rapid, as the work simply appears to be not interesting to them.

The actual election observation is very interesting work, but it requires a thorough knowledge of the law, understanding of absolutely everything what happens at a polling station. Then, such an observer would notice very many violations and he would have a real passion and a desire to observe elections as often as possible.