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Smart Voting

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Not to be confused with Vote Smart.

Smart Voting
Умное голосование
Umnoye golosovaniye
Available inRussia
Founded28 November 2018; 5 years ago (2018-11-28)
Created byAlexei Navalny
Founder(s)Anti-Corruption Foundation
URLvotesmart.appspot.com

Smart Voting (Russian: Умное голосование, romanized: Umnoye golosovaniye) is a tactical voting strategy put forward by the team of Alexei Navalny with the aim of depriving the ruling United Russia party of votes in regional and federal elections. The goal of Smart Voting is to consolidate the votes of those who oppose the party which Navalny dubbed as the "party of crooks and thieves".[1][2]

History

[edit]

On 28 November 2018, Alexei Navalny launched the Smart Voting project. Initially, the system was mainly aimed at depriving the nominees from the politically dominant United Russia party of their victory in the elections to the post of Governor of St. Petersburg and the Moscow City Duma on 8 September 2019. Navalny explained the strategy as follows (translated from Russian): "The parties themselves cannot agree and nominate a single candidate against United Russia. But we can agree on this. We are different, but we have one policy — we are against the monopoly of United Russia. Everything else is mathematics. If we all act smartly and vote for the strongest candidate, he will win, and United Russia will lose."[3]

Reception

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According to a research paper by political analysts Ivan Bolshakov and Vladimir Perevalov, Navalny’s Smart Voting strategy, on average, improved the results of opposition candidates by 5.6% in the September 2019 Moscow City Duma election. While Smart Voting played a decisive role in the victory of several candidates, it took away votes from approximately the same number of opposition representatives.[4][5]

According to political scientist Abbas Gallyamov, the percentage of votes for United Russia in the Russian Public Opinion Research Center's forecast for the 2021 Russian legislative election is significantly overestimated and the percentage of votes for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is significantly underestimated. For Gallyamov, no more than 26–27% of those who stand at the polls would vote for United Russia, and Smart Voting is a tool that could deliver a significant blow to the ruling party, which in his view explains why the authorities attacked it.[6]

Censorship

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In September 2021, two weeks before the State Duma election, Moscow Arbitration Tribunal issued an injunction prohibiting Google and Yandex from creating a list of results for the search query Smart Voting. The lawsuit against both companies was brought by Woolintertrade, a company whose main activity is the wholesale of agricultural raw materials. Earlier in the summer, the company received approval from Rospatent, the Russian governmental agency in charge of intellectural property, to register the Smart Voting trademark and then sued for trademark protection. The court then approved the block as an interim measure.

At the same time, Roskomnadzor, the Russian federal executive agency responsible for monitoring, controlling and censoring Russian mass media, restricted access to the Smart Voting website insisting that the website was used to continue the activities of the "extremist" organization Anti-Corruption Foundation. Roskomnadzor also warned Apple and Google that they were risking fines by not removing the Smart Voting app from their app stores; the warning said that not blocking the app could be interpreted as "interference in Russian election".[7][8] On 17 September, Apple and Google complied with Roskomnadzor's demands and removed the app from their app stores.[9] Later that day, Telegram messenger blocked a Smart Voting chat bot.[10] On 15 September, regulators temporarily blocked Google Docs where the list of Smart Voting endorsements had been released. Navalny's team subsequently published the list to GitHub.[11] Google Docs and YouTube removed the Smart Voting lists following a Roskomnadzor demand on 18 September.[12]

References

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  1. ^ Mary Ilyushina. "Russia's regional elections pose serious test for pro-Kremlin party". CNN. Archived from the original on 27 September 2020. Retrieved 28 September 2020.
  2. ^ "With 'Smart Voting,' Russian Opposition Takes Aim At Putin's Party". RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. Archived from the original on 18 September 2020. Retrieved 28 September 2020.
  3. ^ "Навальный запустил проект 'Умное голосование'. Он должен объединить оппозицию, чтобы победить 'Единую Россию' в регионах". Новая газета. Archived from the original on 8 September 2021. Retrieved 24 December 2020.
  4. ^ Ivan Bol’shakov, Vladimir Perevalov (2020). "Consolidation or Protest? "Smart Voting" in Moscow Elections" (PDF). The Journal of Political Theory, Political Philosophy and Sociology of Politics Politeia (in Russian). 96: 50–73. doi:10.30570/2078-5089-2020-96-1-50-73. S2CID 216368218. Archived (PDF) from the original on 6 April 2021. Retrieved 20 December 2020.
  5. ^ Ivan Bolshakov, Vladimir Perevalov. "Assessing the Effectiveness of "Smart Voting" Strategy: A Discussion of Analytical Approaches". Electoral Politics. 2020, 3:1. Retrieved 22 December 2020.
  6. ^ "'Dlya vlastey zhiznenno vazhno razrushit' 'Umnoye golosovaniye': Abbas Gallyamov — o rasklade sil pered vyborami v Gosdumu" 'Для властей жизненно важно разрушить 'Умное голосование': Аббас Галлямов — о раскладе сил перед выборами в Госдуму ['It is vitally important for the authorities to destroy 'Smart Voting': Abbas Gallyamov on the balance of power before the elections to the State Duma] (in Russian). TV Rain. 10 September 2021. Archived from the original on 10 September 2021. Retrieved 21 September 2021.
  7. ^ "No 'smart voting': Court forbids Google and Yandex to display word combinations as search results". then24. Retrieved 7 September 2021.
  8. ^ "Russia: Google told to clamp down on Navalny's 'Smart Voting'". DW. Archived from the original on 6 September 2021. Retrieved 7 September 2021.
  9. ^ "Apple shut down a voting app in Russia. That should worry everyone". Vox. 17 September 2021. Retrieved 20 September 2021.
  10. ^ "Telegram Messenger Blocks Navalny's Bot During Vote". RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. 18 September 2021. Archived from the original on 18 September 2021. Retrieved 21 September 2021.
  11. ^ "Russia Starts Blocking Google Docs After Navalny Shares Anti-Kremlin Vote Strategy – Monitor". The Moscow Times. 16 September 2021. Archived from the original on 21 September 2021. Retrieved 21 September 2021.
  12. ^ "Google Docs has blocked the lists of "Smart Voting" published there". Perild. 19 September 2021. Archived from the original on 21 September 2021. Retrieved 21 September 2021.
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