Izvestia: “Not everyone to see broadcasts from webcams”
Minister of Communications Igor Shchegolev reported to Vladimir Putin on how the video equipment will be installed inside the polling stations.
Presidential candidate Vladimir Putin gathered his campaign staff and the Russian Popular Front's Coordination Council to discuss the issue of how the polling stations are to be equipped with the webcams. Minister of Communications and Mass Media Igor Shchegolev attended the meeting.
Opening the meeting, Putin explained once again why the cameras are needed at the polling stations. He said that during the presidential election people will be choosing the development strategy for the country rather than individuals. That is why citizens must be in no doubt that their votes will be properly counted.
"There are forces in this country that don't need a development perspective but Brownian motion. Do you remember the Trotskyite slogan, 'The movement is everything, the ultimate goal nothing'? I repeat once again, there are and will always be such people. They have a right to exist and I actually believe they deserve respect," Putin said about the opposition leaders. "The problem here is that there is no single programme (there are many programmes but no single one), no clear and understandable ways to attain goals that are unclear. There aren't any people who are able to accomplish specific tasks."
Shchegolev concentrated on the technical details. He said that eventually only party representatives and non-governmental organisations monitoring the elections will have the opportunity to watch the broadcasts from the polling stations. The minister maintained that the communication channels will not be able to withstand the load if everyone has access to the broadcasts.
The Ministry of Communications and Mass Media is planning to install two cameras in each polling station. The main problem is that some 30,000 stations simply have no access to the Internet, meaning the Communications Ministry will have to provide brand new communication channels. The stations are divided into three groups: half of the stations will have high-quality broadcasts (512 kb/s), for 33% the speed will be 265 kb/s; and for the remaining 17%, the most remote sites that can only be reached via satellite, the speed will be 128 kb/s. But even such resolution and speed will allow the observers to watch how the voting is progressing. The communications minister said that, for security reasons, it will not be possible to broadcast from some 1,500 polling stations, such as military units and hospitals, but added that the ministry will still establish a connection with these polling stations and record the proceedings.
On the same day the working group of the Central Election Commission established where the web cameras will be installed.
"The first camera will cover the general area and the tables where the ballots are given out. The second will be directed at the box where the ballots are dropped in. After 8 p.m. the tables for counting the votes will replace the boxes, since the contents of the boxes will be emptied out onto them. We plan to have a monitor at each station, to establish that the tables are standing the right way or if they need to be moved so that they are right in the center," said Valery Kryukov, a member of the Central Election Commission.
How long will the videos be stored?
"We wrote that the video tapes will be stored for 90 days after the official publication of the election results. Why 90 days? This is the number of days allowed to submit a final report to the parliament. All issues and complaints must be resolved within 90 days," the member of the Central Election Commission said.
The video records will have no legal status, despite the fact that this is what the opposition party members were demanding. But they can be used in court as evidence.
"The court has the right to accept as evidence whatever it deems acceptable. It can recognize an item as evidence or not – that is the court's decision," Valery Kryukov said.
Another innovation which will appear prior to the presidential elections should be highlighted as well.
"There was a proposal to make transparent ballot boxes. Let's allocate money for transparent ballot boxes. And everything will be transparent," the prime minister offered.
Shchegolev, in turn, expressed other innovative proposals for the broadcasts, which were made by participants in an online discussion. One idea to save money was to use smartphones instead of webcams, which do not have storage. The Communications Ministry took all the citizens' ideas seriously and even tested such a system.
"The batteries run out in two hours of continuous operation," Shchegolev said.
A company which the state has a share in, employing 180,000 people, will be providing and installing the webcams, though the minister refused to name the company. As an example, according to the 2009 data of holding company Svyazinvest, they employ about 185,000 people.
Stanislav Govorukhin, head of Putin's election staff, put a dampener on Shchegolev's enthusiasm. He stated that the presence of cameras inside the polling stations would not make the elections fair.
"But the elections will be fair, if they are held within the framework of the moral law," Govorukhin said.
He referred to the behaviour of deputy candidates during election debates and said that they had no qualms about using whatever means at their disposal, from outright slander to insults. Govorukhin proposed setting up an ethics commission by the Public Chamber, whose members will be able to admonish politicians whose actions fall outside the scope of the moral law.
This theme was actively taken up by the other meeting participants. For instance, Valery Yakushev, a member of the campaign team and merited metallurgist, was extremely insulted that the Uralvagonzavod employees had been called "bulls that had come to the square to moo".
"I attended the meeting in Nizhny Tagil. Does that make me a bull too?" Valery Trapeznikov, a turner from Perm and a member of the campaign team, was indignant. "Should I call them goats then?"
If you continue in this vein, the bulls always defeat the goats, as it happens, said Mikhail Shmakov, leader of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia.
"We used to say in the neighbourhood: 'I'm rubber you're glue, your words bounce off me and stick to you,'" Putin tried to calm down the excited campaign staff members. "If someone resorts to referring to a working man in terms of cattle, his political career is effectively doomed."
Anastasia Novikova, Pyotr Kozlov
