Press Release, 26.05.2018

The final of the debates of participants in Yabloko’s primaries for the party candidate on the post of Mayor of Moscow will take place in the Yabloko party. The final debate was preceded by qualifying rounds, the winners of which were determined by the voting of viewers on the Internet. For the first time in the Russian political history, the technology of blockchain was used in voting. It allowed to guarantee full transparency of the process and absolute honesty of the voting results.

Photo: The results of the evening round of the vote of the third day of the debate. From top to bottom: Andrei Morev, Yakov Yakubovich, Alexei Krapukhin, Yana Sokolova.

Voting with the use of a blockchain technology at the Yabloko debate has become the most technologically advanced vote in the short history of voting with the use of blockchain in the world, outstripping similar systems (for example, the “Active Citizen” used in Russia). It was one of the first voting in the world, where the submitted votes were recorded directly in the blockchain through smart contracts, says Yevgeny Barkov, representative of the start-up Polys.

Polys.me voting system is deployed on several nodes within the party IT infrastructure. Creation of a voting, recording of votes and calculation of results with the help of a blockchain technology allowed, on the one hand, to guarantee fairness of voting (as change of votes is impossible in the blockchain), and  to ensure full transparency of the results, on the other hand. Anyone has the opportunity to download the blockchain of the voting held, check its correctness and make sure of the accuracy of the results obtained.

When it comes to politics, security of voting even at local primaries is very important, because intruders may have a temptation to influence the results of the voting and, accordingly, nomination of a party candidate, Yevgeny Barkov said.

“The use of new technologies in the party life allows us not to stand still, but to develop and attract new supporters,” Nikolai Rybakov, head of the Primaries Organisational Committee and Deputy Chairman of Yabloko, noted. “At the same time, we do not ignore party members and supporters, for whom use of Internet voting can be difficult. For them we have provided special terminals for voting, located in the hall for the final stage of the debate.”

Four participants out of total 21 came out in the final of the debate. These are the heads of three Moscow municipal districts – Andrei Morev (Yakimanka), Yelena Rusakova (Gagarinsky) and Yakov Yakubovich (Tverskoy), as well architect Daria Besedina, 29, the youngest participant of the primaries. The debate between them will begin today at 7 p.m. Television channel Dozhd will broadcast the debate, broadcast will also be conducted on the website of the primaries.

It should be noted that voting for the participants of the debate will not directly influence the outcome of the primaries, as voting at Yabloko’s primaries will take place not on the Internet, as with other parties, but at a real polling station by ballots. Voters will be able to come to the office of Yabloko (at the address Pyatnitskaya 31 bldg 2) in one of the three days on their choice – on 27, 28 and 29 May – from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., present their passport and receive a ballot.