Experience Of Remote E-Voting in Political Elections in Russia

Abstract

In 2019, for the first time in Russia, an experiment was conducted on remote electronic voting (REV), the results of which had legal significance. Seven Russian constituent entities received the opportunity to vote remotely in elections at various levels from 2019 to 2021. The paper contains an analysis of the electoral behaviour of the population in the Russian regions where remote electronic voting was organized. The study is aimed at identifying electoral interest in the opportunity to vote remotely. The category of interest is expressed in the registration of the electorate to participate in remote voting. The paper also provides a comparative analysis of the results obtained for the expression of the voters’ will in the traditional and remote form. It is necessary to determine whether the percentages of support for certain political forces in traditional and remote voting coincide; or there is no correlation between the two forms, therefore, it is possible advancement of sociological hypotheses associated with various social groups that have differences in the preference for one of the two forms of voting. Based on the results of the study, conclusions were drawn about the turnout of voters for remote voting, as well as quantitative data demonstrating differences in the results of voting for certain political forces in the traditional and remote ways. For the implementation of future research, the author's hypotheses are presented that explain the differences in the results of remote and traditional voting. Confirmation or refutation of hypotheses can serve as an object of potential research.