Press Release, 9.09.2020

The Yabloko party is challenging in the Supreme Court the resolution of the Central Electoral Commission  to hold a three-day voting. The plaintiffs are Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov and candidates for municipal deputies of two cities near Moscow – Elektrostal and Shatura – Alexander Gunko and Svetlana Smirnova, respectively.

The plaintiffs ask the Supreme Court to declare the Central Electoral Commission’s resolution unlawful and invalid, since it violates the rights, freedoms and legitimate interests of voters and candidates in elections and contradicts the federal law “On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights”.

The resolution on three-day voting violates three rights guaranteed by the law “On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights”:

– The right to elect and be elected on the basis of universal, equal and direct suffrage by secret ballot (Clause 1 of Article 3, and Article 7)

– The right to observe elections (Clause 28 of Article 2, and Clause 4 of Article 30)

– The right to participate in pre-election campaigning on equal terms (Clause 28 of Article 2, and Article 48).

According to the law, the Central Electoral Commission by its resolution had to define as clearly as possible how early voting should take place, including that outside precincts premises, so that it would not cause doubts and complaints from either candidates or voters.

Voting on the notorious tree stumps and car trunks or, according to the decree, “in the adjacent territories” and “in the settlements”, rules out the control by observers. The Central Electoral Commission’s resolution does not establish criteria for assigning certain places to these categories, or determine the procedure and timing of publication of information, where and when such a vote will take place. This means that voting will take place at the discretion of the lower electoral commissions – wherever and whenever they want. Such a vote violates the right to full-fledged observation and makes the elections non-transparent.

In addition, the resolution of the Central Electoral Commission does not contain clear rules establishing the maximum number of portable ballot boxes, which creates additional opportunities for manipulation and for replacing both ballots and entire boxes with ballots.

The resolution also does not envisage the use of opaque envelopes for ballots of voters who voted early. It also lacks other sufficient provisions for the storage of ballots, for example, at night, which would rule out distortion of the will of the voter. The use of security bags, which was invented by the Central Electoral Commission, represents “a cynical substitution of the guarantee of non-interference established by law,” since it does not rule out access to unsealed ballots. All of this violates the right to voting by secret ballot and to be elected honestly and openly, without manipulation.

Yabloko also states in the lawsuit that early voting should not replace voting on election day. A single voting day reduces the risks of forcing voters to participate in elections and creates opportunities to prevent fraud through public observation. The prolongation of the procedure in time grossly violates these guarantees.

First, at least one in three voting days turns out to be a working day, making it easier for employers to force their workers to vote for certain candidates.

Second, the three-day voting excludes public control over the inviolability of ballot boxes at night.

Thus, the entire text of the Central Electoral Commission’s resolution is drafted in such a way that it contains no guarantees provided by law for ensuring electoral rights, such as the right to observe elections, the right to campaign, and the secrecy of voting.

The plaintiffs from Yabloko emphasise that the introduction of new types of voting made it impossible for the candidates’ headquarters to control the elections, since the party has no information about where and when the voting will take place.

The right to participate in pre-election campaigning on equal basis is violated by the fact that in planning and conducting campaigns, it is normal to use most of the resources on the day preceding the “day of silence”. However, the new rules shorten the campaign period for a significant part of voters who voted early.