Unified Election Day

 

Unified Election Day (UED) refers to the practice of holding all elections of state authorities - such as the State Duma of the Russian Federation, regional parliaments, local self-government bodies - and state power positions - such as governors of Russian regions and mayors of municipalities - on a single day.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, voting in Russia has been conducted over several consecutive days, known as "multi-day election". The only exception to this practice is presidential election, which is held separately from other elections. The UED in Russia is usually scheduled for the second Sunday of September.

Experts and opposition have outlined several problems associated with the introduction of the Unified Election Day. Firstly, due to the large number of simultaneous elections, the UED creates a high workload for the Central Election Commission (CEC), the Supreme Court, and law enforcement agencies[1], which impedes the timely and effective resolution of emerging complaints.

Secondly, the dates chosen for the UED (the second Sunday of September) are supposedly not optimal for holding elections. In this case, the electoral campaign has to be conducted during summer - when most voters are on vacation. For the same reason, the chosen timeslot reduces voter turnout. There is scientific evidence of the positive correlation between holding elections in summer/September and a low voter turnout.

The practice of Unified Election Day implies multiple election overlaps. This increases the burden on voters who need to follow several election campaigns at once and adds to the workload of the election commissions [2]. For example, if State Duma, regional parliamentary and municipal council elections are held on the same days, each voter receives 6 ballots, while the election commission must summarize 6 different election results in a very short amount of time.

 

[1] Lyubarev, A. (2019). On the way to electoral legislation reform. Expert position. Litres., p. 100

[2] Ibid. P. 107-108.