Legal Status of Voters and Observers in the Remote Electronic Voting System in Russia

Abstract

The article discusses some elements in the Remote Electronic Voting system. Software used in Remote Electronic voting had significant impact on activities of traditional participants in the electoral process: voters and observers. A number of risks of interference with the electronic voting system have been identified.The author made an attempt to consider guarantees that ensure the secrecy of voting and prevent the distortion of the will of voters, which are implemented in the federal platform for Remote Electronic Voting. Moreover, additional guarantees have been identified that are not available in traditional forms of voting. One of them is the ability of the voter to check the account and invariability of his ballot in the system. It was concluded that there are technical solutions that ensure voting in accordance with the basic principles of elections. It is proposed to develop a mechanism for recounting ballots by election commissions when conducting Remote Electronic Voting.Due to the digital nature of electronic voting, the institution of observation requires additional protection mechanisms. It was concluded that electronic voting transformed the activities of the observer. The presence of a “digital trace” provides the observer with the ability to track changes in the blockchain system. The author proposed a new definition of “observer of Remote Electronic Voting”, because the definition of the observer set out in the legislation does not fully take into account the specifics of observation in Remote Electronic Voting. The new model of observation of electronic voting involves the adoption of relevant guarantees to achieve the goals of the observation.