Voter is right to expect new proposals from us

On 5 March 2019, Deputy Chairperson of the CEC of Russia Nikolay Bulaev took part in the round table “Electronic voting 2019 in Moscow. Challenges and threats” which was held in the framework of the IX Moscow Civil Forum.

The discussion was initiated by the Civic Chamber of Moscow Commission on the Development of Civil Society. “The 21st century brought the following question: how to empower people who are physically unable to come to the polling station. From our point of view, it is necessary to look in the direction of remote electronic voting,” said Chairperson of the Commission Alexey Venediktov.

Nikolay Bulaev in his speech told the audience about the implementation and results of the “Mobile Voter” mechanism, having stressed that the procedure for preventing possible violations, including attempts to organize repeated voting, is strictly regulated and fine-tuned.

He noted that every Russian should have an opportunity to vote: “I believe that the voter is right to expect today our new proposals that would allow us to create an adequate technology that allows a person to use their active suffrage.”

As a part of the discussion on the prospects for the implementation of the electronic voting project, Nikolay Bulaev said that in the archives of the CEC of Russia 10 years ago there were a lot of documents on electronic voting, the conclusions of various institutions on this issue, describing the existing risks that no one managed to overcome at that moment. In his opinion, today Moscow is intellectually, financially and administratively ready to experiment with electronic voting. “Based on the results of this experiment, we will decide together: can it be used on a national scale, can the results be treated as reliable, without questioning the entire electoral system of Russia. Moscow has created a unique opportunity to conduct an experiment that will answer the question: does e-voting have the right to live or should we return to this topic after some time,” he stressed.

Nikolay Bulaev also said that the CEC of Russia in 2019 will conduct R&D on electronic voting: “As a part of this work, we will get the results, simulate all the processes live.”

Chairperson of the Moscow City Election Commission Valentin Gorbunov, members of political parties, lawyers, representatives of public and expert communities also took part in the discussion of the implementation of the experiment on electronic voting.

Photo: Press Office of the CEC of Russia