Collection of signatures for candidate registration

Under Russian law, the nomination of a candidate for election must be supported by voters. The collection of voters’ signatures has been established as the main way for a candidate to prove voter support to election commissions.

Candidates or party lists may be exempted from the need to collect signatures under certain conditions. It is when the election commission has other ways to verify voters’ support, e.g. if a party has been successful in previous elections and has elected members in the local, regional or national parliament.

In all other cases, candidates and parties are required to collect signatures in favor of their registration in an election. Depending on the election type, they are required to collect the number of signatures equivalent to 0.5% and 3% of the total number of voters in a particular constituency. After signature sheets are submitted to the respective election commission, some of the signatures are randomly checked and verified. The requirements for signature collection and processing are intentionally strict and meticulous, allowing election commissions to recognize signatures invalid quite easily. If a certain permitted limit of defective signatures is exceeded, the whole list gets invalidated.

Experts agree that the established procedure and requirements for the collection of voters’ signatures in Russia do not lead to the elimination of unpopular candidates but reduce the competition. The process of signature verification by election commissions is manipulative, non-transparent and biased. In the 2019 Moscow City Duma elections, many popular opposition candidates were rejected by the election commission because of the alleged defects in the collected signatures. In circumstances where it is not possible to make an electoral deposit for candidate registration, the requirement to collect signatures is a convenient means of denying registration to opposition candidates.