Absentee ballots at Russian Presidential elections will be replaced by voting at location

UFA, 16 May 2017. /Bashinform News Agency, Galiya Nabieva/. Absentee ballots at the elections of the President of Russia will be replaced by voting at the location. On Friday, May 19, the State Duma, will consider a package of bills involving abolition of absentee ballots. This is reported by "RIA Novosti" referring to the head of the Duma Committee Pavel Krasheninnikov.

The bill proposes to exclude the use of absentee ballots at elections, making it easier for citizens to vote at the place of their actual stay. A voter who will be outside his place of residence on the election day has the right to file an application with the election commission to include him in the voter list at his location in accordance with the procedure established by the CEC of the Russian Federation. The deadline for submitting an application starts not earlier than 45 days and ends at 14 o'clock local time of the day preceding the voting day.

The CEC of Russia presented groups of citizens who will be able to vote at their location. Firstly, they are people who for a long time actually reside outside the place of registration. According to the estimates of the election commissions of the subjects of the Russian Federation, the number of this group exceeds 5 million people. Earlier they were actually deprived of the right to participate in the elections due to the need to receive absentee ballots at the place of registration.

Secondly, it is people who leave their place of residence 45-5 days before voting day, citizens who know exactly a polling station where they will be on the election day. According to the CEC of Russia, the number of this group is about one million people.

The third group includes citizens who either decide to leave their place of residence on the eve of the voting day, or until the last day they do not know which polling station they can vote at. It is assumed that the number of such voters is not too large: between 100 and 500 thousand people.