to Whom war and to whom mother is native. So now talking about the Scam, overprice for the protection of scarce and other emergency goods. But this saying perfectly describes the essence of the story we want to tell stories about how under cover of coronavirus in one day our government redrew the Russian electoral legislation. Under him a lot.
we will focus on the law, may 13 2020, adopted by the state Duma in the second, final and the third final reading the so-called “law about voting by mail”. Oh, if it was only about the letter in the envelope the postman “with the bag”!
a three-page initiative, introduced to Parliament in March on behalf of the deputies of “ER” and “CP”, allowed to allow the candidates on elections of all levels up to 50% is required for check signatures collected through the official portal of public services. It makes little difference, but nothing worse. In mid-April, the bill adopted in the first reading.
And then something happened.
the state Duma from 17 April to 12 may is not in session. Second reading of the bill about the signing was scheduled for 13 may. At 10.00 the same day began the meeting of the relevant Committee for control and regulation.
Journalists in the Duma is not yet allowed due to anti-limits — to see what happens at Committee meetings, only if they are broadcast on the Internet that is not always the case. This meeting was not broadcast.
Swollen to 21-page text of the bill posted in the electronic database of the lower house of Parliament only 11.24, one half hour before the plenary session. The content of the amendments made to it, signed by the United Russia deputies, but, according to sources in the presidential Administration, was bomber. Due to the fact that of time researching and meeting with experts virtually no, the bomb exploded silently, and in full “beauty” of the picture is appreciated yet not all.
the Opportunity to collect half of signatures through public services, the Kremlin is left only in the regional elections — if the subject of the Russian Federation wants. But the already stringent requirements for verifying signatures in support of candidates again tightened, further confirming that the wrench in the hands of our government only works for tightening. Now that you refused to register, only 10% of the signatures collected in areas prohibited or invalid, but will be quite 5%. Heartfelt greetings to all there citizens Sobol, citizens Yashin and other troublemakers!
But this stuff. The lion’s share of the amendments was unthinkable before the dramatic expansion of voting methods.
first, remote electronic voting is declared possible in elections at all levels. What and when? Solve TScentrizbircom. As an experiment last year to vote from your computer on Moscow city Duma elections. Despite a doubt of experts and criticism of the opposition, the experiment was considered successful, and its capital to renew for another two years. Now this kind of voting hastily legalized in the basic election law “On basic guarantees of electoral rights of citizens”, that is, hypothetically, can be used anywhere.
second, voting by mail, and now acceptable at the regional and municipal elections, but non-applicable, it is possible in any election. Again, if CEC (ie — Kremlin) so decides. How will the vote by mail? How can I control that? How will you ensure the secrecy of the ballot? The adopted law the answer is no.
in addition, “in order to create conditions for the protection of health of voters, referendum participants” and “creation of maximum convenience for the implementation of Russian citizens ‘electoral rights” significantly expands the capabilities of early voting — and its timing.
But this innovation? Awesome! Home-based voting, which now allowed only the sick and disabled and which are repeatedly criticized because of the impossibility to organize full-fledged observation, will be allowed and those who care for the sick and those who cannot come to the polling station at the “other good reasons”. What are these “other” reasons? Unknown.
But now, hold on: again, in order to protect the health of citizens and for the sake of convenience voting may take place OUTSIDE polling stations. Namely: “on the local area”, that is, in the courts, the “common areas”, that is, apparently, on squares and in parks, and in some more obscure “other places”. How it would look — also will come up with CEC.
Imagine that within the County can be arranged in addition to voting at polling stations and mass early, and many polling places in the yards and “other places”… More or less dense monitoring of voting process in these conditions will not be able to organize one, even the biggest party.
In the plenary hall MPs from the liberal democratic party, the Communist party and “WED” once even protested. “Legislative fraud” described it as Sergey Ivanov (LDPR) and proposed to first ask the Central election Commission “will look like vote by mail, so we then did not see the ejected envelopes with the ballots or from nowhere appeared the sheets.”
Usually, when we adopted the election laws, the CEC has always come to the relevant committees and to the plenary and answered the deputies ‘ questions, explained the details. But, according to the participants of the meeting of the Committee for control and mountain forestsentu 13 may, one of the CEC was not — “at least it’s not introduced”.
Spravorossy and Communists have offered at least in the third reading the law right not to accept, postpone until the next meeting — to “comprehend”. But one of the authors of the amendments Dmitry Vyatkin (“United Russia”) explained why it is impossible to hesitate: if you stretch until the beginning of June, “we can deal with the fact that in September we citizens won’t be able to come to the sites because they would be forced to comply with social distancing”.
the Link to the coronavirus as the cause for rough redrawing of the rules of the game on elections without preliminary discussion of the innovation at least with the Duma opposition does not hold water. The law allows the conditions of the epidemic to carry the elections of different levels at a later date — with the extension of the mandates of deputies and governors, there is no obstacle.
But apparently, the Kremlin decided to meet as scheduled on September 13, 2020 regional elections and by-elections of deputies of the state Duma, come what may. After all, the new ways of voting can be varied and match depending on conditions in each individual region. And dissatisfied with the registration procedure and election results can’t even Express their resentment out on the street! Events, as already stated by the government, will be allowed in last resort, when the threat of infection is minimized. So sitting at home, talking about the Internet, currently silent there… in a mask.
Politics is a dirty business, I say. But even in politics there is a concept of a “dirty game.”
