Open appeal of the 'Golos' Movement to the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin

Dear Mr. President,

We absolutely agree with the statement you made in 2011 that the ability to monitor elections at all polling stations using video cameras can significantly increase the credibility of our elections. At the same time, it is important not only to place video cameras at the polling stations but also to provide full access to citizens to the online live streams and video recordings made by these video cameras.

Video monitoring, introduced at your initiative in 2012, when every citizen could watch an online broadcast from any polling station and access to camera recordings were quite simple, generally played a positive role, increased confidence in the elections, and simultaneously uncovered violations.

However, over the past nine years, the situation with video monitoring has changed radically. If in 2011 you insisted that the broadcast from webcams be streamed online, 'so that the country can see what is happening at each polling place near each specific [ballot] box in order to exclude any falsification in this regard,' now the Chair of the Central Election Commission (CEC) of the Russian Federation citizens calls interested elections 'couch observers, ' 'satisfying [whose] curiosity' is not worth spending funds on. Therefore, recently, the CEC once again changed the rules for using video monitoring equipment, finally turning this powerful instrument of ensuring trust into a decorative element of our elections.

The procedure for using video monitoring adopted this year by the CEC of Russia does not allow direct observation for the vast majority of voters. During the last federal campaign – the presidential elections of 2018 – according to the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications, and Mass Media of Russia, 2 million citizens watched the video broadcast from polling stations per day, and at the peak, 331 thousand people simultaneously watched the live stream of voting.

Now, the Central Election Commission invites those wishing to watch the broadcast from the polling stations to come to the regional public chambers. It is difficult to imagine the consequences of such a concentration of citizens in confined spaces in the current epidemiological situation. In addition, the probability that the same number of citizens as before would be able to take advantage of this opportunity under such conditions seems extremely small. In addition, the opportunity to observe what is happening at the polling stations directly 'from home' would allow many people with disabilities to exercise their civil rights fully.

Election participants are now also deprived of full-fledged observation. The federal headquarters of the party will receive simultaneous access to view the broadcast from only 20 polling stations out of 45.8 thousand, from which the broadcast would be conducted. Plus, each regional branch of the party and each single-mandate member will have access to four more polling stations. In total, even if the party hypothetically collects access from all 85 branches and 225 candidates, it will be able to observe no more than 1,260 precinct election commissions out of 45.8 thousand.

The CEC's references to the high cost of organizing a full-fledged broadcast are so far unfounded – the public has not been presented with calculations for organizing the broadcast; taking into account the fact that the costs of installing and connecting cameras and storing video recordings have already been made in the past and should not increase. Moreover, the Central Election Commission actually prohibited the regions to independently make decisions on the allocation of their own additional funds in order to organize broadcasting of voting for citizens. In any case, we believe that the credibility of the elections is priceless, and undermining it cannot be justified in any way.

The fears voiced by the CEC Chair that public broadcasting from polling stations threatens Russia's national security are generally difficult to explain. Assuming that voting and ballot counting would be fair, such evidence would only strengthen the legitimacy of the elected parliament, both in the eyes of the public and the international community. As a last resort, you could provide access to broadcasts through the state public services portal to Russian citizens only. To increase confidence in the election results, we ask you:

• To reaffirm your 2011 position on the need for organization video monitoring so that every citizen of Russia has open access to the opportunity to verify the integrity of elections personally;
• Instruct the government to find the necessary funds to organize live online broadcasting from polling stations available to any citizen of Russia.

The original text may be found at https://www.golosinfo.org/articles/145385 (RU).