University of Helsinki
This eventful Spring also had several important changes for the Russian state. After in late March, Vladimir Putin had to postpone the “referendum” on the new constitutional amendments, on the 13th of May State Duma passed a fastly drafted bill, which allows conducting elections and referendums of all levels by post or through the Internet. ElMaRB project leader Margarita Zavadskaya was asked to comment on this situation by the Vot-tak.tv.
There are countries in the world, where voting by post is an established practice. For example, on the 7th of May, Sejm of Poland passed the Law on postal voting at the presidential elections 2020, on which insisted the party of power “Law and Justice” (PiS) and with which did not agree the opposition and the senators. Margarita Zavadskaya also mentions Switzerland, Estonia, and some other states as an example. “However, under the conditions of undemocratic, nontransperent regime, a normal democratic norm may work out badly. Unfortunarely, researchers of electoral politics know, that a share of votes casted for the president of Russia correlates well with the share of at-home voting. And this issue with post or Internet voting will serve as a kind of remote ballot box.
Read the full version of the article at Vot-tak.tv