Voices and points. Moscow authorities promise apartments and a million prizes for off-site elections

The Moscow-24 TV channel will broadcast the lottery live for three days.

This is not a retelling of a dystopian novel. The aforementioned leaflet was pulled out of his mailbox this morning by the Novye Izvestia special correspondent, and they stuck out of all the neighbors.

The QR code on the leaflet leads to a newly created website affiliated with the Moscow authorities.

From 17 to 19 September, Moscow will elect, as in all of Russia, the deputies of the State Duma of the eighth convocation, and in addition - the deputies of the Moscow City Duma in 19 and 37 constituencies and deputies of the Council of Deputies of the Shchukino municipal district.

Participate now and get a chance. 20 apartments, 100 cars and gift certificates for 10, 25, 50, 100 thousand points (1 point = 1 ruble). It is very easy to become the owner of the prize for virtual voting, just two or three, follows from the leaflet. Just: 1. register. 2. Vote online. 3. take the prize, says the resource. All that is missing is the postscript "There will be no losers".

The action itself is called "Million Prizes", the Moscow government promises 250 thousand (!) Guaranteed prizes - which, given the predicted turnout by political scientists and sociologists in the capital of about 2 million voters, sounds impressive - that is, every eighth should become the winner.

The Moscow mayor's office together with the Active Citizen project officially announced the action last week.

Prizes for distant voting are promised to be raffled off for three days - from 17 to 19 September on the air of the state TV channel "Moscow-24".

All adult Muscovites with active voting rights and a full mos.ru account, who have applied for participation and have become an "electronic voter", are invited to take part in the lottery.

The lucky ones will get super prizes - one-room apartments in Moscow and Renault cars, others - bonus points that can be exchanged for “incentives of program partners”, - the organizers of the “election fair” promise.

Many very famous trade brands could not refuse the mayor's office to stimulate the voter to vote on the couch. Among them are the leading grocery chains, cafes and restaurants, pharmacies, furniture hypermarkets, clothing, footwear, cosmetics, children's goods, household and animal goods. Half of the sponsors are charities.

According to information from the site, at least 130 companies have agreed to become partners of the September electronic elections in Moscow.

The preference given to electronic voting over a real trip to the site is explained, as you might guess, by the forced security measures in difficult covid times and unexpectedly ... served as a measure of business support.

“Remote voting will ensure the safety of voters and reduce the risks of the spread of COVID-19. Also, the action will help support the sectors of the economy affected by the pandemic, ”the website says.

Apparently, it means that the mayor's office helps well-known brands in this way to additionally advertise on the country's main advertising platform this fall. The costs of the companies on the prizes do not seem to be counted (or are they worth nothing?)

Sociologist, Candidate of Economic Sciences Sergei Belanovsky:

- Two things need to be discussed regarding the Million Prizes campaign. As you know, bribery of voters is prohibited in our country. Here we do not seem to see him, there is a politically neutral incentive to come to the elections, there are no calls to vote for a certain party or candidate. But if I were a judge, I would still regard it as bribery and here's why.

Depending on the voter turnout, this or that party gets priority. There are questionnaires, apparently born in election headquarters, with questions about the upcoming elections and a scale of answers. "Will you go to the polls on September 19?" Options like: "I will definitely go," "Probably, I will go," "Hard to say," "Probably not," "Definitely not going." Practice shows that the proportion of those voting for different parties in these lines is not the same. Let's take only the top ones - I can assume the following picture: those who will definitely go are supporters of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, those who are most likely to go are supporters of United Russia. Based on the results of such opinion polls, rather valuable conclusions can be drawn: for example, a high turnout is beneficial to us, because the vacillating voters, as a rule, vote for such and such a party, and the more vacillators we attract, the better. The preferences of people taking part in elections with different degrees of readiness differ, and when it comes to percentages, the turnout plays a decisive role. Stimulating turnout in cases where it is beneficial to someone - in my opinion, this is bribery.

This is one hypothesis.

The second hypothesis is that along with the official election results (where there will be some percentage of postscripts and fraud), authentic data on turnout and results will also be collected. I do not know how this is done, but I was informed about the collection of an objective picture of the vote. Governors and mayors of cities today are very intimidated, because in the current situation it is very easy to lose their place and get under a criminal case. They are given control figures - what percentage should be recruited by which party and how many deputies should be held. There is no certainty as to how reliable these "reliable" information is, the governors may distort them. But it is still safer to get a real turnout and real votes, if possible.

Thus, I have two explanations for the "Million Prizes." ", Since those who hesitate vote better for it and the entire administrative The first resource, including the mayor's office, was involved in this task - to stimulate turnout.

How effective such lotteries are is, of course, a question for separate study. The lottery has recently been used for vaccination, and it seems to me that it did not play a serious role, the statistically significant effect was insignificant, and the main effect was from the administrative th resource, when people were promised to be suspended from work for failing to get vaccinated, for example.

The elections are also used administratively. th resource. But in the capitals it is difficult to organize large falsifications, but they will try to stimulate you can. The scale of incentives is really high, maybe it will work. As a last resort, they organize a generous lottery. There are 12 million inhabitants in Moscow, about 8 million of the electorate. Let's say 2 million will vote. A quarter of a million prizes is a significant figure. But how effective this prize technology is is, again, not completely clear. Everyone would be led to get an apartment, but it is clear that there are few apartments, and everything else - small prizes that you need to go to get, exchange some points in stores - I'm not sure that this will work. However, I am sure that the effect of these stocks will be scrupulously studied behind closed doors.

Political scientist, political consultant Igor Mintusov:

- The term "moral" in relation to elections in the current conditions is meaningless and irrational. We can discuss whether it is legal or not to attract voters to vote. And the answer is the following: we do not observe anything illegal - the Moscow authorities do not call to vote for any particular party or candidate, they call to register, to cast their vote.

But why is not the Central Election Commission engaged in this, but the Moscow government? This is really a question. It's like a doctor, not even my doctor, will start agitating me, a political scientist, to take part in the Moscow Autumn marathon. It is not very clear how one has to do with the other.

The questions that remain behind the scenes are questions about technology, of course. We do not have enough data to, for example, evaluate this marketing move. We do not know how much - by 1.5%, by 5% or by 10%, the number of registered for electronic voting will increase, who initially did not want to do this, but prizes from the Moscow authorities contributed to this. We can only say for sure that this will not reduce the number of people willing to vote online.

The next important question is about confidence in the regional authorities, in this case, the Moscow government. Do people believe that online vote counting, where observation is impossible, will be fair? We have a situation today where faith in the actions of the authorities is absolutely equal to faith in their active calls to register and vote online. The latest sociology shows that confidence in the electoral system in Russia is low and it certainly does not increase from year to year. Against this background, the fact that the Moscow government is attracting so much attention to the elections may have the opposite effect - people may begin to suspect the authorities of all mortal sins, and this will in no way yield to control.

The fact that a huge number of brands have supported the initiative of the mayor's office does not surprise me at all. My pure fantasies in this regard are as follows: “Dear friends! The Moscow government in my person - the person of the deputy mayor, head of the department for entrepreneurship, asks you to support our initiative. Our vote is very important. In order for the largest possible number of voters to take part in it, it is necessary that retail chains give gifts, discounts, points to those who register in the system. How do you look at this and to what extent are you ready to support? Ivan Ivanovich from Pyaterochka, are you ready? " And everything that follows is a matter of technique, as the hero of the "Diamond Hand" says. Administrative technique. It is very easy to convince a retailer with an ending lease or tax check that comes to the retailer a month after the meeting and, of course, has nothing to do with that meeting.

Political consultant, founder of the Petersburg Politics Foundation and the telegram channel Davydov. Index "Leonid Davydov:

- The Moscow authorities are thus promoting electronic voting. Slightly resembles a marketplace, but, fortunately, it is difficult to accuse the authorities of bribery, because we are talking about voting, and not about calling to vote for a particular candidate. Will work such an advertisement or some other to promote this form of voting, we will find out in a month. Electronic voting will be used for the first time in federal elections. Objectively, the future belongs to this form, no matter how we treat it, but so far there is little data on whether voters like this form of voting or not.

New technologies are accepted by society gradually, in the process overcoming the inertia of thinking, phobias and prejudices. The question of confidence in the Russian electoral system is not a question of technology development. That there are no violations in living areas or what? Unfortunately, our civic position requires warming up. In some countries, there are deadlines for failing to appear at the polls, in our country they are appeasing. Why placate? Because the habit of such appeasement, unfortunately, has been developed in the majority of society since Soviet times.

Political scientist, head of the Center for the Development of Regional Policy Ilya Grashchenkov:

- Technology mobilizes voters for elections, this is not bribery, but definitely help the CEC to improve turnout. Personally, I do not assess the lottery system itself as a method to attract people to the elections very positively. Elections are the right of citizens, and to stimulate them with jokes and other things is to reduce the great right to the level of a booth. On the other hand, it is clear why this is being done. In general, uncontested and dishonest elections have long demotivated Russians to go to polling stations, all means are good to tighten the turnout, as they say.

Separately, it should be noted that in this case we are talking about electronic voting. Now people here do not trust him, so they are trying to increase the turnout via the Internet. If the results of the electronic voting are too “for power” (in the previous electronic elections, on the contrary, there was mainly opposition voting), this approach will only reduce its legitimacy. After all, everyone understands that since people are being lured somewhere, it means that there are problems with this. There is no need to advertise a good thing, but an expired and spoiled product should be sold with lotteries and playing the button accordion.

Grigory Melkonyants, co-chairman of the Golos movement *:

- The action is needed to draw attention to electronic voting, in order to increase the turnout in electronic voting. This is not the first time such stimulating measures have been used in elections in Russia. There are examples when prizes were raffled off in Moscow and in the regions, or they were only promised for participation in elections, without linking it to the victory of a party or candidates.

The goal is to increase turnout in general conditions of apathy.

There are two sides to this story. One is legal. The other is moral and ethical. It is difficult to talk about bribery of voters; the law “On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights and the Right to Participate in the Referendum of Citizens of the Russian Federation” states that lotteries and risk-based games cannot be held. The current organizers will say that there is no risk in this situation, the voter does not buy tickets, does not give his money for anything, and there is no goal of campaigning for certain parties or candidates. The legal prospects for those who will appeal this are not high. Yes, even if it turns out to be attracted, for the punished the measure of responsibility is not significant - an administrative matter, a fine - from 30-40 thousand rubles to an official, 300-500 thousand rubles - to a legal entity.

Of course, we need to talk about the moral and ethical side of this action.

Participation in elections is a civil act of the voter, which should not be associated with material incentives, such as promises to increase pensions, distribute social benefits or give prizes. It is necessary that the citizen understands why he is participating in the elections, and does not come to put a tick in exchange for a prize. Unfortunately, among the electoral participants in society, this is perceived as the norm. Material wealth pours down on voters from all sides. Moscow especially loves to amaze with the scale of its projects, and business is interested in participating in government initiatives. But I would like the state to spend its enormous resources not on the development of conditioned reflexes among voters, not on the distribution of buns, but on education. To convey to the consciousness of people that they are the people, which is the main power, and in elections each voter exercises his power, transfers his part of power to form the governing bodies of the country...

* included in the register of unregistered public associations performing the functions of a foreign agent