MOSCOW (Realist English). A monitoring group on countering foreign interference in elections has started its work in the State Duma. The Chairman of the Parliamentary commission on countering foreign interference in elections, Deputy from “United Russia” Vasily Piskaryov met with the Deputy Chairman of the Central Election Commission (CEC) of the Russian Federation Nikolai Bulaev on July 5.
“Under unprecedented external pressure on Russia, it is important to organize operational monitoring and analysis of the facts of interference in elections at various levels: gubernatorial, regional and municipal representative bodies,” the press service of the lower house of Parliament quotes him as saying.
The Chairman of the Commission on countering foreign interference in elections warned that “attempts are expected to undermine public confidence in the institution of remote electronic voting, organize cyber attacks on the resources of the CEC and election commissions that have already become traditional, conduct biased attacks by foreign pseudo-experts motivated by foreign handouts, bring down a flurry of fakes and other provocations on voters.”
Following the meeting, Piskaryov said that all attempts to interfere in the election campaign of this year will be studied in detail and, based on the analysis, the members of the Commission will propose legislative response measures adequate to threats.
Ilya Grashchenkov, President of the Center for Regional Policy Development, noted in a comment to the Realist English that the remote electronic voting system is quite vulnerable.
“On the one hand, there is not yet sufficient credibility of the instrument on the part of the voters themselves. On the other hand, servers are still subject to hacker attacks. Moreover, the discussion about the intervention can be beneficial to both sides. In the sense that sometimes it is easier to blame system problems on abstract hackers than on errors of the administrators.
In general, the new commission is likely to take even more control of the already super-administered elections. Of course, the goal is clear for regions with remote electronic voting, but in other regions it is more about avoiding any unpredictable results.
Now election control is most relevant in Moscow, where there is electronic voting and there is still a large presence of opposition candidates, even at municipal level elections,” the political scientist believes.
On July 4, the election campaign for the elections scheduled for a Single Voting Day on September 11 of this year started. The elections will embrace about 45 million voters. In total, about 4 thousand election campaigns will be held, the CEC noted earlier.
On the Single voting day, elections of 15 senior officials of the regions will be held (14 direct elections; in the Republic of Adyghea, the head of the subject is elected by deputies of the State Council), as well deputies of six legislative assemblies, 12 councils of deputies of administrative centers of the subjects, as well as elections to local self-government bodies of various levels.
