No public video broadcast from the polling stations during the September elections
28.07.2021
Following the 2011 post-election protests, in an effort to increase the transparency and restore public confidence in the electoral processes, in 2012 polling stations in Russia have been equipped with video cameras to record election day proceedings and to broadcast footage online. The broadcasts have become an important feature of election observation, with observers developing tools and tactics reliant on this mechanism. The latest decision of the Russian Central Election Commission (CEC) to scrap open video broadcasts from the polls is yet another step towards limiting the ability of citizens to independently monitor elections.
Now, only election commissions and the representatives of parties and candidates will be able to follow what is happening at the polling stations in real-time on the designated service portal. In addition, observation centers will be set up in the regions. However, the procedure for accessing the latter remains unclear. 1
Online video broadcasting from the polling stations in Russia – "video observation" – was first introduced during the 2012 Presidential elections, when Vladimir Churov was the Chair of the Central Election Commission. Since its introduction, the broadcasts on election day have been open to everyone on the internet.
Traditionally, the CEC's Regulations on Video Observation provided for two portals with closed and open access:
- Service portal (for election commissions, parties, and candidates) – an online platform with a corresponding domain name, which is in private access, designed to monitor equipment performance in preparation for elections, on voting day - to view video recordings in real-time, as well as working with video recordings in storage;
- Public broadcasting portal (for all voters) – an online platform with a corresponding domain name, which is openly accessible to anyone and is intended for viewing video broadcasts in real-time on election day.
Video observation was a big step for observers: they managed to catch so-called 'carousels'2, ballot stuffing, falsification during the vote count, and other violations. Video evidence now remained on hand.
For instance, as a result of video observation in 2012, hundreds of videos appeared online, with recordings of ballot stuffing and other direct falsifications. Somewhat stunned, election management "froze" the experiment of video broadcasting for four years.
In 2016, Ella Pamfilova3 was nominated for the CEC Chair position. She intended to expand the openness and transparency of the elections and found video observation appealing in this regard.
It is necessary to clarify that equipping polling stations with video cameras provides a real opportunity to monitor the process online and receive video recordings of this process. Tracking violations online is brutal; moreover, such observation in real-time requires too many eyes. But video recordings provide an excellent opportunity to study the process carefully. Therefore, most findings of violations and falsifications result from reviewing the recordings and not live broadcasts. Thus, focusing only on the citizens' ability to watch an online broadcast is inaccurate.
Simultaneously with the return of broadcasts in 2016, and despite Pamfilova's statements about expanding the possibilities for video observation, a process of limiting the possibilities to receive video recordings was started. The infamous findings of 2012 video observation were made possible due to the possibility to request video recordings from the archives of the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications, and Mass Media. Before the 2016 State Duma elections, the CEC allowed regional commissions to independently regulate the procedure for providing video recordings. Before the 2018 Presidential elections, it generally decided to release video recordings only after appealing to the respective regional election commission with an indication of the alleged violation. More often than not, the commissions did not find any violations, and therefore, the recordings were provided only in exceptional cases.
Independent observers, however, came up with a way of automatically recording online broadcasts, thanks to which the society ended up with videos from more than 8,000 polling stations (albeit unevenly distributed across Russia) during the 2018 Presidential election. The analysis of these videos showed both ballot stuffing and, most importantly, a considerable discrepancy between the official turnout and the one recorded by video cameras.4
In 2019, authorities added "captcha" on the public broadcasting portal – a barrier for automated access of broadcasts. In addition, citizens were no longer allowed to request any recording they wished, but only those pertaining to the polling station were registered to vote. However, activists came up with ways to bypass the 'captcha' and the observers continued to record online broadcasts for further analysis.
For the 2021 State Duma elections, the CEC of Russia abolished the public broadcasting portal altogether. The decision of the Commission suggests that the commissions have something to hide from society, says Grigory Melkonyants5, co-Chair of the Golos movement.
On July 20, the Yabloko party announced that it had begun an appeal procedure against the CEC's decision to restrict citizens' access to video broadcasts from polling stations in the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation.
While the CEC's move is unlikely to stop election observers from attempting to monitor elections via the video cameras, this decision complicates their task significantly.
References:
1 According to CEC's presentation
2 Organized cases of multiple voting
3 For background on Pamfilova and other CEC members, see: The new-old Central Election Commission: an authentic renewal or a superficial touch-up? - REM
4 In half of the precinct election commissions where observers were able to review the recordings, the actual turnout is artificially inflated by more than 20%, and the vote-counting procedures were fully implemented only in 11% of precinct commissions (see Golos' 2018 report https://www.golosinfo.org/ - RU).
