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5. Nomination and Registration of Candidates
Generally speaking, the law provides a reasonable frame work for the nomination of candidates and their access to the ballot based on principles which would generally meet commonly accepted international standards. Where the process will continue to be vulnerable will be those areas where the law lacks sufficient procedural detail to ensure consistent interpretation, equal application and uniform enforcement.
Under the Law on Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights of Citizens and under Article 3 of the Law on the Election of President, any eligible voter who has reached the age of 35 and who has permanently resided on the territory of the Russian Federation is eligible to be elected to the presidency. As provided in Articles 6, 32 and 33 not only may candidates be nominated by electoral associations and blocs (comprised of temporary coalitions of electoral associations,) but also by unaffiliated citizens.
In a strict sense, the law does not contemplate a candidate proposing himself independently. Rather, an individual must be nominated by an officially registered organization, even if the organization is temporary. Even the rights of citizens to propose candidates is contingent on their organizing and registering as an initiative voters' group of at least 100 persons. Whereas electoral associations are registered by the Ministry of Justice, blocs and voter's initiative groups are registered by the Central Election Commission.
In order to be eligible to participate in the election, an electoral association must have been registered by the Ministry of Justice no later than six months prior to the announcement of the date of the election. Under Article 29, electoral associations joining in a bloc may not appear individually under their own legal status during «the period of the conduct of the election.» Nor may a member electoral association of one bloc join another bloc. Each nominating group may promote only one candidate. Electoral associations and blocs are entitled to nominate individuals who are not from their membership. In relation to voter's initiative groups, there are no limits to the number of separate groups that can nominate the same individual.
The process of proposing candidates involves the nomination of individuals through meetings of the nominating organizations, subsequently supported by the circulation of petitions to which at least 1,000,000 eligible voters must affix their signatures. No more than 7% of the required number of signatures may come from any one Subject. There is no difference between the requirements for electoral associations and blocs than for citizens' groups who have no «political» identity or legal status.
Preliminary Requirements of Nominating Associations, Blocs and Groups
Under provisions of Articles 30 and 32, each political or citizen nominating group must appoint representatives who will be authorized to represent them on all issues related to their participation in the election, including those related to financial matters. Once an electoral association has held its congress during which a candidate has been nominated by secret vote, its authorized representatives make a formal submission to the CEC to present its candidate. The submission must include the minutes of the association's meeting and formal decision identifying the candidate by full name, place of work, occupation and place of residence. In addition, the electoral association must include a copy of the certificate of its registration by the Ministry of Justice, its registered charter and its list of authorized representatives. The data on authorized representatives must be accompanied by their powers of attorney. If the nomination is forthcoming from a bloc, the submission must also include the minutes of the congresses of the separate associations at which the decisions were made to join the bloc.
Similar requirements are imposed by Article 33 on voter's initiative groups. These groups apply to the Central Election Committee for registration. They, too, must include the minutes of the meetings at which they selected their candidate, data on the candidate, as well as on their authorized representatives and their powers of attorney.
According to Article 34, the Central Election Committee is responsible for checking the documents included in the submissions to confirm their compliance with the law. Paragraph 2 states that the CEC «must adopt a decision on the registration of the authorized representatives» of the nominating groups and «issue registration certificates to them within five days after receipt of the documents.»
If the CEC determines that it must refuse to register the authorized representatives, it must issue a decision to that affect which may be appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is required under the law to adjudicate the case within 3 days. It is not clear whether it must merely take up the case, or must complete its review and render a decision in that time.
For Consideration
7.1. Article 28 dictates that in order for an electoral association to be eligible to participate in the election, it must have been registered by the Ministry of Justice not later than 6 months prior to the «announcement of the day of election.» In spite of the fact that Article 4 specifies the date of the presidential election as «the first Sunday after expiration of the constitutional term» the deadline for the registration of electoral associations is left uncertain since it cannot be anticipated when «the announcement» of the election date will take place. Since the regular election day is a «date certain» it is recommended that the deadline for registration of an electoral association be tied directly to that date instead. This change would also make more sense in terms of making the deadline clear under special circumstances when elections must be called earlier than normally scheduled.
7.2. Article 34 establishes the deadline by which signature sheets and other nominating documents must be submitted to the Central Election Commission at 6 p.m. no later than 60 days prior to the election. However, the law provides no guidance as to when electoral associations may first convene their conferences to select their authorized representatives and nominate their candidates. There is no official beginning to the nomination period.
7.3. Provisions specified in Article 29 concerning formation of electoral blocs only provides cursory information about their status and formation and leaves a number of issues unaddressed. For example, the law provides no deadline for the formation of blocs. Under such circumstances the CEC is forced to establish one in regulation. However, without a legal reference or specific regulatory authority, any date they choose could be subject to challenge in the event their decision were to have an adverse affect on an applicant. The law also fails to provide any guidance as to how blocs are to be identified or named. Except for indicating that electoral blocs are created for the period of the election, no other guidance is given about the status of a bloc. Nor does the law preclude or otherwise suggest what happens in the event an electoral association participating in a bloc chooses to leave the bloc during the circulation of a petition, or after a candidate has been registered. The issue can become significant in terms of development of any platform or campaign strategy if dissention arises. Although it may not be particularly relevant in the immediate term, as stronger political parties emerge the identification of the successful presidential candidate with the association or bloc that nominated him may become more significant as an influence throughout the course of his term in office. Ultimately, blocs may emerge as a particularly relevant force within the Duma. Therefore, it is recommended that lawmakers consider laws that more clearly define the status of blocs as legal entities.
7.4. Article 30 dictates that each nominating association, bloc or initiative voters' group appoint its own authorized representatives. Under Article 34 the Central Election Commission adopts decisions on the «registration of authorized representatives.» The law does not specify a minimum number of authorized representatives who must be appointed. The law is silent as to whether new authorized representatives can be added, or whether they can be withdrawn and replaced. Since the law does not impose any qualifications whatsoever on authorized representatives, it is not clear on what basis they would be denied registration, except on technicalities. Even if some had to be rejected on this basis, would it cause denial of the group as a whole? In contrast, there are specific requirements related to the eligibility of the various types of nominating groups on which decisions could reasonably be based to grant or deny registration. It is suggested that it would be more appropriate if the CEC's decision related to the registration of the association, bloc or voters' initiative group rather than individuals who represent them. This approach would not necessarily preclude the issuance of certificates to the group's authorized representatives.
Gathering Signatures on Candidate Petitions
Key to Article 34 is the mandate that from the moment the registration certificates are issued, the authorized representatives of the various nominating groups are entitled to collect signatures of voters in support of their candidate's nomination. Prior to issuance of the certificates, solicitation of signatures is prohibited.
Article 34 also dictates the contents of petitions and establishes some ground rules as to how the signature gathering process is to be carried out. Under its provisions complete information regarding the candidate is to included on each signature sheet as is the information about the electoral association or bloc soliciting the signatures. In addition, the specific Subject in which the signatures are being collected must be identified. Voters signing the petition are required to enter their full names, date of birth, permanent residence address, passport or other identification number and date on which they affixed their signatures. Under the law, a voter is entitled any petition he chooses as long as he does not sign more than once for the same candidate.
The law grants liberal opportunities to solicit signatures at places of employment or service as well as in academic settings, residences, and pre-election events. Administration and work groups of enterprises, agencies and organizations are required to provide assistance in providing equal conditions to petitioners. In addition, nominating groups may gather signature from eligible citizens outside the Russian Federation. The law makes it clear that forcing or bribing of voters «in any manner» by a person collecting signatures is prohibited.
Article 34 also sets the rules for the manner in which petitions are to be submitted. After collection, authorized representatives are to count the number of signatures collected in each Subject and from outside the Federation and are to calculate the total number gathered on the petition as a whole. The signature sheets bound in groupings by Subject and numbered are submitted with the final protocol and document acknowledging the candidate's consent to be nominated. In addition, the candidate must provide declarations of income for the 2 preceding years. Upon submission, the CEC issues a written confirmation of receipt of the documents.
For Consideration
7.5. The law allows for the collection of signatures at places of employment. While Article 34 states that forcing and bribing of voters is not allowed, subtle forms of undue pressure may not be easy to recognize or to prove. There have been allegations that signatures have been solicited at places where workers were receiving their pay. It has been suggested that this circumstance may have caused employees to feel real or perceived pressure to sign a petition whether or not they would have chosen to do so on their own. Political activity can easily become a sensitive issue at places of employment, especially if employers are in a position to apply overt or implied pressure on the workers under their supervision. In order to minimize opportunities for abuse, if signatures will continue to be gathered at work places, perhaps the law could restrict such activities on pay days or at places where employees receive their pay. Such a restriction should also be considered regarding the collection of signatures at locations and at times where citizens apply for or receive entitlements, pensions, services or other subsidies.
7.6. As written, Article 34 seems to contain language that may result in some confusion as to the status of signature collectors. Under Paragraph 4, authorized representatives of electoral associations, blocs and voter's initiative groups are entitled to collect signatures, «from the moment registration certificates are issued.» However, under Paragraph 9, the law requires that each signature sheet is to be confirmed by the person collecting the signatures, «and by an authorized representative.» This language suggests that the person collecting signatures may not necessarily be an authorized representative. It seems inconsistent with the wording of the earlier paragraph. If, indeed, associations, blocs and voter's initiative groups can solicit help from persons who are not among the authorized representatives, the law should make that clear and provide adequate guidance as to any qualifications or requirements applicable to their recruitment. The law should also provide clearer guidance as to whether collectors can be paid for their services.
7.7. As a technical matter, in requiring that each signature page be «confirmed» by the person collecting signatures as well as by an authorized representative, in neither case is it clear that «confirmation» requires the signature of the individual.
Registering Candidates
If there is a single element in the election process that is vulnerable to misunderstandings and ultimately to controversy and legal challenge, it is the process by which petitions are evaluated to determine whether candidates are to be granted or denied registration. Once electoral associations, blocs or voter's initiative groups submit their petitions and nomination documents, the CEC has ten days in which to decide whether they meet the requirements of law and whether or not the candidates should be registered. Authorized representatives, candidates an their attorneys are entitled to be present at the review of the signature sheets, although it is not clear as to how they will be notified as to when the review will take place. If the candidate is granted registration the CEC must issue a dated certificate to the candidate. Information about the registration of a candidate must be given to the mass media within 2 days of the registration.
If registration is denied the candidate is to be advised. A refusal of registration may be appealed to the Supreme Court where the case must be adjudicated within three days.
According to the law, if «doubts about the accuracy of the data contained in the signature sheets, or in the validity of the voters' signatures should occur,» the CEC may organize a presumably more in depth review of the petitions. Unfortunately, the law provides very little guidance as to how the process of evaluation is to be carried out. The degree of scrutiny with which each petition can be evaluated is not likely to be very scientific in view of the practical limitations. It is unlikely that each and every signature can be verified individually, especially due to the time constraints, and the sheer number of candidates each submitting over one million signatures. The difficulty posed for election officials is how to manage a meaningful evaluation under these circumstances while at the same time trying to apply uniform standards without sufficient guidance from law.
The law does not identify the specific grounds on which registration must be denied. Rather, Article 35 provides only a vague statement that a candidate may be refused registration «only in the event of a violation of the Constitution of the Russian Federation and this Federal Law.» Obviously the law provides a number of requirements which are mandatory on nominating organizations. However, this language offers no distinction between technical deficiencies and true violations. Therefore, it is left for administrators to make judgement calls which can be subject to arbitrary and subjective interpretation.
One of the key decisions to be made is how to deal with petitions in which signatures are not accompanied by complete information required, or in which a series of signatures appear to be written in the same hand, or when a verification is attempted it there seems to be no record or documentation of the person's existence. In these latter instances the question arises as to whether they represent a «violation» which should cause the petition to be denied or whether it is possible to create rules to disqualify questionable signatures without rejecting the entire petition. The issue is particularly complex if, in spite of the signatures believed to be invalid, the number of remaining signatures is sufficient to meet the 1,000,000 signatures threshold. The law is inadequate in setting reasonable parameters for making these kinds of determinations. Without legal clarifications the system will remain vulnerable to the controversies and challenges which are likely to result from potentially inconsistent and subjective application.
In most democratic contexts, denial of registration based on conclusions that some signatures on a petition may be invalid does not usually pass court scrutiny if the required threshold of valid signatures has been met. First of all, errors or infractions of this type are usually beyond the immediate control of the candidate. In addition, a very restrictive approach not only disenfranchises the candidate, but also the 1,000,000 legitimate voters who signed the petition in good faith.
For Consideration
7.8. Provisions of law should be developed to clarify the procedures which will be followed in evaluating petitions, and to identify the specific grounds on which they are to be rejected. Of key importance would be the development of rational and fair standards that accommodate human error short of automatic disqualification of the candidate. One option that might be worthy of consideration is to create a threshold for error. Such a threshold could be stated as a percentage or as a specific number. Under such a scenario, the law would state a double threshold: 1) that the petition must contain at least 1,000,000 «valid» signatures; and, 2) that errors or invalid signatures in excess of an established threshold will cause the petition to be declared null and void. Augmented by a statement of grounds on which a signature could be declared invalid, officials would have a clear direction as to how to proceed in their evaluation and would know precisely when a petition would have to be rejected on the basis of invalid signatures.
7.9. Officials and lawmakers may want to investigate the possibility of having signature lists compiled within a specific Subject verified by Subject Electoral Commissions with the support of local administrative authorities. Their access to relevant records and the fact that they would be dealing with smaller numbers of signatures could enhance the effectiveness of petition verification. An amendment to that affect should be very clear that the Subject Commissions is directly and specifically responsible to supervise and oversee the verification work done by local government agencies. The Subject Election Commission could prepare a protocol of their findings to be forwarded with the bound petition packets to the CEC where cumulative summaries could be compiled for the submissions of each nominating organization. Based on the cumulative totals and its own review of the documents and protocols, the CEC could render its decisions as to whether the nominating groups had fulfilled the requirements of law. If such an alternative would prove feasible, attention would have to be given to details related to how submissions of petitions and related documents would be coordinated, and the restructuring of deadlines to accommodate the intermediary processing by Subject Commissions. Such an amendment would have to make clear that the Central Election Commission would retain its authority to reverify petitions and to overrule recommendations of the Subjects.
7.10. Under the current law there are no limits as to the number of separate voter's initiative groups that can nominate the same candidate. Rather, each group works separately to gather the 1,000,000 signatures. As a result, many millions of signatures could be gathered in support of the same candidate when only 1 million are actually required. In an extreme case, it could be possible that a candidate was supported by several million signatures but could still fail to get on the ballot because no individual group gathered enough signatures on its own. The feasibility of merging voters' groups petitions under a single umbrella should be considered, even if their initial applications were submitted separately.
7.11. According to the law, if a candidate is denied registration and files and appeal to the Supreme Court, the decision of the Court is final. Interestingly, in at least one recent appeal when the ruling of the court overturned a decision of the CEC to deny registration, the Commission filed its own subsequent appeal. The court's initial decision was upheld, however, it raises a legitimate question as to how this event was allowed to occur. If the court's ruling is not final, and there is an avenue for appeal of the Supreme Court's decision by either side then it should be described in law. Participants should be able to understand when they can expect final closure of their case. The event also points to another issue that deserves review. It would be helpful if the law required that the grounds on which the CEC denies registration be described fully and inclusively in the advisory notice given to the rejected candidate. A legal question should also be addressed to foreclose on opportunities whereby new grounds can be brought up related to the evaluation of petitions once the initial appeal is filed and a decision is rendered by the court.
General Comments
As the election process continues to evolve, revisions in the construct of law may be warranted regarding the organization, registration and rights of electoral association. Changes may be necessary if a stronger and more dynamic multi-party system is to develop. As yet candidates are more likely to run on the basis of nominations by voter's initiative groups than by electoral associations. This situation may be reflective of the relatively weak state of most political parties. In addition, there seem to be few institutionalized and legislated incentives for forming strong, cohesive electoral associations.
7.12. One important consideration should be to create a separate law to cover electoral associations (and blocs) separate from the law governing public associations and organizations in general. The new law should more definitively reflect their unique role in political and legislative affairs. Political parties have a very specific agenda and an explicit purpose as players in the political and legislative arenas. A separate and specific law regarding political parties would allow lawmakers to cover issues related to their participation in the election process more thoroughly.
In actual practice the current system of nomination has posed a number of complex and difficult problems as participants and officials have tried to carry out its mandates. The system has proved burdensome and difficult to enforce uniformly. There are legitimate questions as to whether the law, as written, has been successful in establishing fair, meaningful and enforceable thresholds that provide sufficient access to a broad spectrum of viable and serious candidates, while at the same time discouraging frivolous or less serious candidates . As lawmakers and officials review the current law and its effectiveness in actual practice they may want to consider alternative mechanisms for qualifying candidates for the ballot.
Under the current law qualifications and the procedures for the nomination of candidates by political parties and blocs are not significantly different than those for independent candidates nominated by citizens. Associations which have already qualified as «electoral associations» for the purposes of engaging in the nomination of candidates still have to re-qualify their nominations by gathering 1,000,000 signatures. One option might be to redirect the emphasis to establish substantive criteria by which a group qualifies as a political party. In many established democracies the system of registration of a political party is established through the petition process whereby the number of qualifying signatures is sufficiently high to demonstrate a broad base of support. Once a party has been officially recognized it is not usually required that candidates nominated by the party would have to submit a petition like those candidates who file as independents or who are nominated by citizens.
Usually the purpose of a petition requirement for candidates is to show that the candidate can demonstrate a modicum of support. Solicitation of signatures on a petition is intended to show that the candidate is serious about the obligations of competing for elected office. In the case of candidates put forth and sponsored by a registered political party, the fact that the party has an established membership and a proven degree of popular support through its initial petition is sufficient to show that its candidate will more than likely be viable. Once qualified, the party maintains its official status as long as its candidate receives a threshold percentage of the votes cast in the election. Typically such a threshold is established at 1% - 5% of the votes cast. If the party's percentage of the vote falls below the threshold it loses its official status as a political party and would be required to resubmit a new petition to be reinstated. This type of streamlined access to the ballot is one of the intended purposes and incentives for going through an extended and formal organization process to achieve official political party status. Augmented by a requirement that the candidate nominated by the party acknowledge affiliation with the party can help to promote the development of meaningful and identifiable party platforms to which voters can relate, strengthening the overall effectiveness of a multi-party system.
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