Selections before elections: Double standards in implementing election registration procedures in Russia?

Abstract

For a considerable part of the political opposition in Russia, elections have been something to be watched from the sidelines. While opposition candidates are formally blocked for legal-administrative reasons, they have repeatedly claimed that registration refusals are politically motivated and that election committees apply the law differently depending on the candidates’ political affiliation. By analyzing the perceptions of double standards as well as actual enforcement practice and structural incentives, this article identifies the core mechanics of this quasi-legal mechanism of political pre-election filtering in Russian elections.

Candidate Filtering: The Strategic Use of Electoral Fraud in Russia

“…5 Indeed, the use (and potential abuses) of candidate filtering may be familiar to many observers of Russian electoral politics. A particularly illuminating study by Baekken (2015) drew on interviews with local analysts and politicians to claim that vocal, critical, and serious challengers often find themselves on the wrong side of registration rulings. Other work has analyzed rejections at the regional level, finding stark differences in successful registration rates between candidates from different parties (Ross, 2018).…”

“…To measure whether or not a municipal candidate was rejected by an election commission, I code a binary indicator for each candidacy based on a field in the data that denotes registration status. 17 Baekken (2015) gives anecdotal evidence of the official reasons often handed down in Russia, noting that most violations appear to fall in one of three categories: signatures found invalid, registration incorrectly filled out, or violations of electoral law occurring during the campaign. 18 As acknowledged above, some part 16 Since the mid-2000s, many regions have used a 'manager' model where municipality chief executives are appointed by a local commission, rather than being popularly election.…”

“…Selectively rejecting challengers also encourages and supports regime loyalists, akin to how the Russian government regulates NGO activity(Plantan, 2019).3 Differences in rejection rates between parties could stem from variation in organizational capacity, and not efforts by the regime to block certain candidates(Baekken, 2015).…”

Regional elections in Russia: instruments of authoritarian legitimacy or instability?

“…A key factor in the Kremlin's ability to manipulate elections and deny opposition parties and candidates from participation in the elections is its control over electoral commissions which in many regions are far from neutral (see Popova 2006;Baekken (2015) ;Harvey 2016;Jarabinský, 2015;Bader, 2017). According to Article 23.6 of the Federal Law No.…”

correction

“…Ряд исследований посвящен регистрации кандидатов в депутаты на муниципальном уровне. Обнаружено, в частности, что в 2011 г. на выборах представительных органов Владимира и Перми избирательные комиссии руководствовались двойными стандартами: «по умолчанию» регистрируя кандидатов, связанных с действующей властью, они препятствовали регистрации «нежелательных» кандидатур [Baekken, 2015].…”