Press Release, 15.04.2025

Photo: The State Duma of the RF

Yabloko’s Analytical Centre sent its analysis paper to State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin and head of the State Construction Committee Pavel Krasheninnikov calling for the rejection of the bill that would abolish paper ballots.

“An analysis of the norms and wording of the draft law submitted to the State Duma for consideration without prior public and expert discussion shows that it is aimed at further limiting control over the voting process and vote counting,” runs the document signed by Ivan Bolshakov, the Centre’s head and the Yabloko representative to the Central Electoral Commission.

Yabloko experts state that the bill lays the foundation for further consolidation of non-transparent devices and systems for vote counting that participants in the electoral process can not verify, which creates grounds to doubt the legitimacy of the state and local government bodies formed as a result of such counting, and also radically limits control over voting and violates the basic principles of equality, transparency and openness of the electoral process.

The electronic voting complex (EVC) may be connected to the Internet during voting, which makes it vulnerable to cyber attacks, the party’s Analytical Centre notes. Unauthorised access to the system, software interference, and deliberate or accidental incorrect system configuration may lead to changes in voting data or even sabotage of the electoral process.

The practices of the introduction of completely electronic voting also contradicts international experience. In other countries, electronic voting is severely limited or completely abolished and is used mainly for voting by citizens abroad.

In Germany, the Constitutional Court recognised electronic voting as violating the constitutional principles of open voting and banned it due to the impossibility of full control over the voting process and vote counting.

In the United States, the use of voting machines at polling stations is often accompanied by loud accusations of election fraud. The opinion about the possibility of falsifications using voting terminals is also confirmed by the reports that participants in international cybersecurity conferences were able to hack voting machines three times – in 2017, 2019 and 2024.

The introduction of electronic voting is impossible without providing the guarantees of transparency and openness for participants in the electoral process, as well as detailing in the federal law the procedure for conducting such voting and counting of votes cast via the electronic voting system. The determination of the voting results and the drawing up of protocols on the results of voting with the use of the electronic voting system should take place in the premises of the precinct electoral commissions, with issuing a certified copy of the protocol on the results of electronic voting for observers at each polling station separately. The electronic voting system must be supplied with a paper control tape for a visible expression of voters’ will, and corresponding legislative provisions must be made.

It should be note that the bill introduced by Senator Andrei Klishas establishes electronic voting using the electronic voting system as the main method of voting, the use of paper ballots will be possible only by decision of the electoral commission organising the elections. At the same time, the results of electronic voting at the polling stations can be summarised in the overall results of the remote e-voting, and the procedure for such voting and vote counting will be established by a decision of the Central Electoral Commission. On 1 April, the bill was adopted in the first reading. The State Duma accepts amendments and comments to the bill until 15 April.