Conference “Electoral Law and Electoral Process in Russian Federation” Takes Place in Moscow

The conference “Electoral law and electoral process in the Russian Federation (Elections. Education. Perspectives)” was held at the conference hall of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation. An event was focused on discussion of training qualified staff for election commissions, raising legal awareness of public observers and other participants of the electoral process, perspectives for various educational forms and methods.

The event brought together the leadership and members of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation (CEC), chairs of elections commissions of the regions Russian Federation, experts in electoral law and electoral process. The IPA CIS was represented by IIMDD IPA CIS Acting Director Ekaterina Goloulina mandated by Secretary General of the IPA CIS Council.

Secretary of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation Maya Grishina focused on continuous education for polling stations staff due to their ongoing rotation. She also stressed the importance of experience exchange via shared resource library and highlighted the establishment of interactive and distance educational programs as a perspective way of learning.

The participants were especially interested in a report by Head of the Department of Constitutional and Municipal Law of Lomonosov Moscow State University, professor Suren Avakiyan. He told that the renewal of a parliament as an outcome of the elections was closely associated with the need to train new MPs in constitutional and electoral legislation.

Director of the Fund for Democracy Studies, Member of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation Maxim Grigoriev and Head of the Department for North Caucasian and South Federal Districts of the Secretariat of the All-Russian Non‑Governmental Organisation “Association of Lawyers of Russia” Anton Lukash told the participants of the conference about psychological aspects of electoral staff education, special skills for addressing conflicts and approaches to deal with falsifications and fake news during electoral campaigns. They also highlighted uniqueness of the CEC platforms and the affiliated Russian Center of Training in Electoral Technologies for advanced practices distribution and developing openness and transparency of electoral process.

The report of Director of Russian Center of Training in Electoral Technologies Natalia Artykaeva informed the heads of regional election commissions on the platform for distance learning developed in 2019 and other projects in online education area. During the discussion on using and developing the platform Natalia Artykaeva positively evaluated cooperation with the IPA CIS and particularly the IIMDD IPA CIS. She also outlined the perspectives for joint projects in youth legal culture and development of educational standards for electoral process participants.

Coordinator of the Federal Coordinating Council of the Centers of Electoral Law and Processes, Head of the North Caucasus Center of Electoral Law and Processes, Deputy Director on Research of the Faculty of Law of Pyatigorsk State University professor Lyudmila Tkhabisimova raised an issue of professional training for elections officials. She also drew the attention to the important issue of creating unified higher education platform for specialists in constitutional and electoral law. Lyudmila Tkhabisimova has also encouraged the other participants to develop cooperation with election officials and educational establishments across the CIS to address the common challenges in electoral field.