[MUSIC] Ladies and gentlemen, let's begin our presentation. My name is Gregory Yarygin. I'm associate professor of the school of international relations, St. Petersburg State University. We are going to analyze digital electoral technologies. And the first focus will be done on evolution of the electoral process. Generally speaking, we're going to talk about voting process and we will start with the definition of voting process. Well do our best to get it right. So there are many definitions and we will be interested in political one and on the other hand on technological one. Politically, elections represent a collective decision making process by which qualified citizens select an individual to hold a public office. Technologically, this term refers to a method or any instrument by which the government communicates with voters with the purpose to determine most popular candidate. Elections, normally are formalized with the voting process. Technically, voting represents approaches of answering a specific question about eligible voters preferences concerning a specific position or a candidate. And this is formalized by casting a ballot and then by tabulating of the results of casting ballots by eligible voters. Qualified citizens, they are citizens of a country who meet certain criteria to exercise active political right. That means to elect. Voting can be compulsory or voluntary. Compulsory voting is still a democratic process because it does not enforce a specific decision it encourages a person to vote. And this compulsory voting practice exists in more than 32 nations, 32 jurisdictions around the world. Now we will concentrate our attention on stages of electoral process. So they're generally very general. It could be divided into 4 main steps and the first one refers to registering to cast a ballot. It can be done automatically, or it can be done by individual in person. The second step is identifying a voter at the polling place. When the voter comes and comes for a specific purpose to cast a ballot, and he should be verified if the person who is coming is that exact person who is registered automatically or individually. Then the process of casting a ballot itself and finally, after the ballot is cast, there is the fourth step, this is very important and this relates to tabulation. There are key principles and variations of voting process,, so called voting formula, and it apply differently to different nations, to different jurisdictions. And this voting formula, this formula of elections could be generally universally characterized by four characteristics. The first one is universal, the second one is secret, the third one is direct, and the fourth one is equal. Universal means that every citizen who is eligible voter has the right to vote. Secret, that means that casting a ballot is done secretly in a privacy. Direct voting, this one may vary between nations, direct voting stipulates that the individual votes, especially for a specific candidate. Indirect voting, on the other hand, could stipulate the process when the voter cast a ballot and then Electoral College, so called Intermediary, will finally vote the second time and will determine who the winner of the elections will be. Equal means equal component of this formula means that all voters have the same rights, and one voter has the same right as another one. The first set of principles, those four, could be applied in Russia, and the other applied in Russia. The second set of principles, when the voting is not direct, refers to federal elections, for example, in the United States of America, where the Electoral College represents such an Institute of intermediary. What are the key challenges to a voting process? The first one is registration. Registration is a complex mechanism which finally allows the electoral authorities to form a list of eligible voters. Registration can lead to a positive and to negative consequences and affects to the outcomes of elections, to the outcomes of voting process. And we'll analyze briefly how the registration may play negative role. If it is general or automatic. That is done automatically, usually based on the place of residence of a voter. And if the voter does not permanently reside in a specific district, precint, and if he relocates because of different reasons, because of work, because of education, because of other factors. The automatic registration for voting may prevent appearance of such a person in the final list of voters in a specific precinct. On the other hand, there is another practice of manual individual registration of a voter for voting for specific elections. It takes time of an individual, it stipulates that an individual does certain steps before elections. Usually within a specific period of days, weeks or months. And it requires a person to take additional steps to spend time to make sure that he or she will be present at a specific district, at a specific precint on a given day of elections. Both of those types of registration may lead to lower turn out because voters may relocate, may not find themselves in a voters lists. Verification is another problem which relates to voting process. How eligible electoral judges know who is in front of them, who comes to vote. In different jurisdictions this practice is realized differently. And in some cases, the picture ID is required to be present and this is how the eligible voter is verified. In other jurisdictions, other documents are required from a person for identifying himself and to make sure that the person who is voting, who is receiving a ballot, is the person who is in the list of registered voters. In some situations, this process can be done electronically and we will talk about it a little bit later. Casting a ballot. There are many methods of casting a ballot and they from place to place, from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, beginning from application of paper, ballots and coming finally to online voting. All of those probably might take challenges to voting process. May finally be seen all of those consequences of challenges may reflect and affect the turn out of the elections of the voting process. How the electoral process may be organized? What are the traditional forms and methods of voting? Fundamentally, there are two types of voting. Secret and non-secret. Secret secret means casting a ballot, non secret means verbal or voice voting. Still practiced in legislative institutions. Secret voting can be done and can be divided into 2 + 1 general types of casting a ballot. The first one is manual, applying paper ballot and dropping it to the voting box, or application of voting machines. + 1 would stipulate application of online technologies which would not refer it to paper ballot application, and using of voting machines. To cast a ballot, how would technically works? First, action should be done on paper ballot voting. Voting at polling place is organized manually, the person comes, the eligible voter, after verification, receives a paper ballot. Then marks this paper ballot, and then there could be variations. Either this paper ballot is dropped to the voting box, or is fed to the voting machine. Which then somehow scans, reads, understands how the voter marked a specific ballot. The next stage after casting a ballot, which is very important and which is why it'll for the voting process, is tabulation of the results, and afterwards publication of the results. What is the problem with tabulation publication, tabulation of paper ballot is a long process, it takes time. Why its negative, this time could be used by interested parties for manipulation with the results, for manipulation with tabulation. And the quicker properties is the safer approach, this is transit and automatisation of voting process. Voting process evolved and had been adopted to facilitate voting process, how? By implementing voting machines, and there's a question, why voting machines have been implemented into the approaches? To provide for accuracy by excluding human factor. And what is the ultimate process of introduction uploading machines? What does this mean to exclude human factor? That means that, the machines facilitate not the voting process itself. Machines facilitate tabulation of the results, and this is the major idea of implementation of voting machines. It doesn't help a voter to vote, it helps the Electoral Judges, Electoral Commission to tabulate results, calculate the final amount of votes for a specific person, or a policy. To what extent voting machines are newcomers to voting approaches there or not? In this context, it should be noted that the first patient for his invention, Thomas Edison update in 1869 for electronic vote recorder, for legislative bodies in the United States. Afterwards, in 1892 and another mechanical machine, another mechanical device was introduced into electoral process. And that one lived for a long time in the American practice. And since 1892, the United States for almost a century was the only country which applied voting machines for voting approaches. What kind of voting machines water used an could be used? Now, there are many types of voting machines. There are many types of mechanisms, for example, in the United States, the mechanical or electronic machines are applied now. And many modifications of those continue to be in used, some already are outdated. And step by step with the errors, they are leaving the application in different jurisdictions in the United States. What I mean is lever machines for example, or punch current technologies, which are not in use anymore but which were very popular years ago.
