2020og.ru (portal of electronic elections)

Electronic elections

Main article: Electronic elections (remote vote)

2020

There was a leakage of passport data of participants vote online under amendments in the Constitution

On July 9, 2020 it became known of leakage of passport data of participants vote online under amendments in the Constitution.

The base contained only a series and the passport number on which it is impossible to identify the owner directly.

Not only the serious organizational miscalculation is revealed: the acquired information allowed to estimate quantity voting repeatedly and by invalid passports.

It was initially supposed that members of UIK will be able to use this information to check whether the specific voter registered in remote vote and whether it came to it during the period from June 25 to June 30.

For this purpose territorial electoral commissions downloaded the ciphered degvoter.zip archive and the password from it from one of the state websites. According to a source, on July 1 at least from 9 to 12 o'clock on MSK anyone freely could download archive. For July 9, 2020 the link to the state website does not work any more, but it still allows to find and download archive.

The program for check is presented in the form of the executable file of degvoter.exe which works with a series and the passport number of the citizen of the Russian Federation. At the same time data on passports lay in the db.sqlite database which is not password-protected.

The series/passport number without any other data (a full name, year of birth, the address, phone, etc.) is not anything, except a simple set of digits created on known 'formula'. However these data can be used in different scenarios, for example having compared with other leaks it is possible to identify citizens who took part in vote^[1].

The police of Moscow found sellers of SIM cards for vote under the Constitution

The Moscow police carried out an inspection of messages about attempts of falsifications during the all-Russian vote under amendments to the Constitution of Russia and defined suspects of these illegal acts. On June 22, 2020 the press service of the capital Ministry of Internal Affairs reported about it.

There specified that the location of suspects is established.

The Moscow police carried out an inspection of messages about attempts of falsifications during the all-Russian vote under amendments to the Constitution of Russia and defined suspects of these illegal acts

Based on check the proceeding decision according to the legislation will be made what the Moscow City Elections Commission (MCEC) will be informed at the scheduled time on — reported in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Moscow.

The police began check after the address MSUC. There asked to check messages about the scheme allowing to register someone else's accounts for participation in vote under amendments in the Constitution.

In MSUC at the same time referred to material of Dozhd TV channel with heading "The Moscow pensioners in large quantities register on online vote under the Constitution without their permission".

According to Rain, there is a scheme of registration for online vote: several people distribute SIM cards and send personal information of the Moscow pensioners. Using this information of people it can be registered on the portal of the Moscow mayor's office and use the SIM card for verification.

Journalists of TV channel in one of chats of WhatsApp managed to receive 25 SIM cards for remote vote together with the database: with passport numbers, the Insurance Number of Individual Ledger Account, the addresses, age and the Full Name for creation of accounts on mos.ru. Organizers of the scheme pay 75 rubles for registration of the false account.

The president's press secretary Dmitry Peskov called a plot of Rain "absolute nonsense". The journalist of Rain Anton Bayev was called in the center for counteraction to extremism of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Moscow (center "E") concerning information of TV channel.^[2]

The system of online vote under the Constitution underwent testing

On June 18, 2020 system testing of electronic elections which will be used during the vote to amendments to the Constitution of Russia began. In the first 12 hours more than 52.2 thousand residents of Moscow and the Nizhny Novgorod Region took part in tests of technology

A system works regularly, without failures — TASS  the head of department on improvement of Territorial Department and development of smart projects of the Government of Moscow Artem Kostyrko reported.

More than 52.2 thousand people took part in the test of a system of online vote in 12 hours

According to him, more than 830 thousand people who already registered in electronic vote under the amendment to the Constitution, including nearly 775 thousand Muscovites and more than 55.7 thousand residents of the Nizhny Novgorod Region can take part in test vote.

Within test vote in Moscow citizens answer a question that today it is more important for the capital — to create occasional parking spaces in the yards or to increase the areas of green plantings.

Specialists paid much attention to protection of a system against encroachments of hackers, the head of the public headquarters for observation of the Moscow vote, the former Deputy Minister of Telecom and Mass Communications Ilya Massukh told the Vzglyad newspaper.

In addition to security from DDoS attacks, from selections of encryption keys, we rather seriously treated resistance of a system to loadings. Distributed a system on three geographically separated data processing centers. We hope that so it will run smoothly, – the head of the headquarters emphasized.

According to  the director of the Russian Association for Electronic Communications (RAEC) Sergey Plugotarenko, falsification of results of vote in such system is excluded. Electronic methods of identification, authentication, registration, confirmation of the personality are a priori much more protected, effective, safe, than their paper analogs, he said.^[3]

The vice-chairman of Public chamber of the capital  Alexey Venediktov announced journalists lack of attempts to crack an electronic voting system in Moscow.

Use of a blockchain in electronic vote

On June 5, 2020 it became known that electronic vote under amendments in the Constitution of Russia will take place using a blockchain. Thanks to this technology of a voice of Russians will be ciphered.

As reported on the official site the Mayor of Moscow, the system of the distributed register will ensure safety and transparency of vote due to decentralization and impossibility of change of information regarding bulletins.

Vote under amendments in the Constitution of Russia will be taken on a blockchain

Such network has no uniform server: to change information regarding bulletins, it is necessary to get approval of most of participants of network therefore it is impracticable to crack a chain of a blockchain. The voice is anonymized and ciphered. At the same time encryption keys two: one is at the user, and the second is separated into several parts and until the end of vote is stored at different participants, explained on the portal.

The electronic bulletin differs in nothing from a paper analog. If the participant of vote approves amendments in the Constitution of the Russian Federation, it needs to check opposite to the column "Yes". If against amendments, it is necessary to select No option.

Moscow and the Nizhny Novgorod Region are so far the only regions to whom by June 5, 2020 the CEC permitted to take electronic vote via the portal of state services. According to the head of the Central Election Commission Ella Pamfilova, other regions have no technical capabilities for carrying out vote by a new method. Requests from St. Petersburg, Karelia and Krasnoyarsk Krai also came to committee, but refused to these subjects. Pamfilova also doubted capability of the authorities of St. Petersburg to organize electronic vote properly, "that results of vote caused trust of society".

Electronic vote for Muscovites will open at 10 a.m. on June 25, 2020 and will come to the end 8 p.m. on June 30. It is possible to receive electronic bulletins till 7:59 p.m. on June 30.^[4]

Declaration of start of the portal

On June 4, 2020 the Russian Central Electoral Commission (CEC) approved an order of remote electronic vote when carrying out the all-Russian vote under the law on the amendment to the constitution.

The CEC  permitted  Moscow and the Nizhny Novgorod Region to hold a referendum on amendments in the Constitution in electronic form. Vote will take place in such format from June 25 to June 30.

The CEC told about the procedure of electronic vote

Electronic vote under amendments in the Constitution will take place on  the 2020og.ru portal.  Use the right and vote remotely, those Russians who have a confirmed record on the Gosuslugi portal will be able. There will be a special block devoted to vote.

Also Russians with the registered record on the official site of the mayor and the government of the capital will be able to take part in electronic vote.

If the participant could not vote remotely these days, he will be able to vote in the voting day  on July 1  on the section at the place of residence using the paper bulletin, but only after check of the fact by the commission that he did not vote remotely, - provides the text of the document  of TASS.

The chairman of the CEC Ella Pamfilova during the meeting added that for carrying out remote electronic vote the special territorial commission will be created". According to her, during vote and at determination of results of vote there can be observers and members of the media.^[5]

The member of the Civic chamber of the Russian Federation, the director of the Center of regional development of Kursk region Konstantin Komkov believes that electronic vote will be able significantly to raise an appearance. 


Such format solves a vote problem for those who  cannot  visit for one reason or another the polling precinct at  the place of residence. At the same time, I want to emphasize, nobody  cancels traditional vote. So the remote format  is only one more method of declaration of will. Public  — to make so that the trust to  the procedure  in general remained. Therefore civil society should monitor  the course of remote vote and  calculation of electronic voices, certainly  — the expert explained.

Notes