In Moscow, not all voters are being allowed to vote with paper ballots. Is that even legal?

In Moscow, not all voters are being allowed to vote with paper ballots. Is that even legal?

Communist Party candidate Matvey Zotov told Ostorozhno, Novosti that in Moscow, not all voters are being allowed to vote with paper ballots. In particular, at one polling station, election commission members said that all voters had been automatically registered for electronic voting, and no ballots were provided for them.

At the same time, refusing to issue ballots is illegal. An OVD-Info lawyer explains why and what to do about it:

Voting through a terminal is a voter’s right, not an obligation. Exactly the same as online electronic voting, or DEG. A person cannot be “automatically” registered to vote this way; there is simply no such mechanism.

If a voter is being forced to vote through a terminal and is refused a paper ballot, they can demand an explanation for the refusal and appeal to the chair of the election commission. If the commission chair also refuses to issue a ballot, a complaint can be filed — where exactly can be found here.

We wrote in more detail about rights at polling stations in this guide. Still have questions? Write to our hotline in the Telegram bot — on voting days it works around the clock.

Photo: REUTERS/Tatiana Meel

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