Remote electronic voting in elections in Russia: State, problems, prospects

Аннотация

The paper examines the Russian experience of introducing remote electronic voting into the electoral process. By referring to the experience of other countries, we highlight the positive and negative aspects of remote electronic voting. The interest of states therein is due to the capability of combating the electorate absenteeism at polling stations for voting. Along with
that, the results of surveying Russians on the use of remote electronic voting in elections show
that some voters do not trust the outcomes of such voting for fear of fraud. We accumulated preferential provisions that constitute the interest of states in remote electronic voting. Blockchain
technologies used in electronic voting are diverse and affect the public’s attitude to the voting results in different ways, many electoral process participants do not understand the technical component of the electronic program. Russia uses a closed blockchain, therefore
only the electoral process participants having a special key can view the data. It turned out that
blockchain-based voting does not solve fundamental security problems, but on the contrary
is technically more vulnerable than traditional paper ballot voting or postal voting. In Russia, legal regulation relates more to the technical aspects of organizing and implementing remote electronic voting in elections, but does not solve all the problems, leaving many gaps for the guarantees of citizens’ electoral rights. Currently, the optimal model will be the combination of both traditional (paper ballot) and remote voting forms in order to reduce the risks of the latter, i. e. to apply a hybrid voting format in elections. Russian electoral legislation needs to be
adapted to the hybrid format of elections with a paper ballot and an electronic ballot, providing voting rights of citizens and remote electronic voting.

Ключевые слова:

blockchain, ballot, elections, voting, remote voting, egislation, voters, secret ballot, electoral fraud, electronic voting