How and where to get an absentee certificate. Voting by absentee ballots

What does this document look like?

There is no single absentee ballot form for all election events. In accordance with the law, the type and text of this document, the form of the register, etc. are approved 60 days before the official voting day by order of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation.

However, for all absentee ballots, a single form is legally established, which is followed when issuing this document. Thus, an absentee ballot must contain some information. Namely:

The name of the event being held (referendum or elections), for participation in which absentee ballots are issued.
Document name and number (to be specified additionally).
Lines to be filled out by a citizen applying for an absentee certificate. Full names are entered in this section. election participant, information about the passport (a document replacing a passport).
Lines for entering information about the polling station (precinct commission) where the citizen is registered.
Model text certifying that a citizen has received an absentee ballot and his right to take part in election events at any precinct that will be available to him on election day.
Lines to be filled out by the chairman or member of the election commission, space for the EC’s seal.
Lines for the signature of the election participant, the date of receipt of the OU.

Particular attention is paid to protecting this type of document from possible forgery. When producing a printed form of a certificate, watermarks, a protective mesh coating, microfont and other special protection elements are applied to the surface.

How to vote in another city in Russia in the presidential elections on March 18, 2021

A few days before the date for which the elections are scheduled, come to the polling station and provide: a passport, an absentee certificate, an application, certificates confirming the impossibility of being present at the polling station where you are registered (certificates from work, hospital, etc.). Members of the commission entered the voter's name into the additional list of voters.
On election day, go to the same polling station and cast your vote for the candidate.

students studying in another city or region;
people whose schedule does not allow for shorter work hours or a day off to go to their polling station;
military personnel sent on business trips or serving at a distance from their hometown or village;
people undergoing treatment in hospitals, sanatoriums, boarding houses, etc.;
people serving sentences in prisons.

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For what reason can a citizen use the OU?

Voters who are unable to come to vote for the following reasons can receive the OU:

The voter is away (vacation, work trip, training, etc.), including abroad of the Russian Federation. In the latter case, an absentee ballot gives the right to vote on the territory of the Russian Embassy.
The voter is in a place of temporary stay - receiving treatment in a medical organization, under arrest, etc.
Voters are military personnel who, due to their duty on election day, are located in units outside their permanent place of duty.
Voters employed in jobs requiring continuous working conditions.

The law provides special conditions to students who have temporary registration in an educational dormitory. They have the right to participate in elections in the electoral district to which their place of temporary residence belongs. There is no need to obtain an OU. Similar conditions for temporary attachment to election polling stations apply to some other categories of voters, for example, conscript soldiers.

It is necessary to remember the following: the fact of issuing a OU to a citizen is the basis for excluding an election participant from the list of voters at his territorial polling station. However, it is this document that gives the right to vote at any polling station, including your own territorial one. In practice, this means that if the reason for receiving the OU is no longer relevant, and the election participant arrived on voting day at the polling station at his place of residence, the previously issued absentee certificate must be carried with him.

TEC began issuing absentee ballots

Russia has begun issuing absentee ballots.
Citizens who will not be able to vote at their place of registration on September 18 will be able to receive an absentee ballot and cast their vote in the elections where they will be. Voters in Russia from August 3 to September 6 can receive absentee ballots from territorial election commissions (TECs) for voting in the elections of deputies to the State Duma of the seventh convocation, which will take place on a single voting day on September 18. From September 7 to 17, it will be possible to receive an absentee ballot at precinct commissions. Earlier, the head of the CEC, Ella Pamfilova, recalled that an absentee certificate will be issued only on the basis of a written application with a mandatory indication of the reason why it is required.

A voter who, on election day, will not be able to arrive at the polling station where he is included in the voter list has the right to receive an absentee certificate, and will therefore be forced to vote at another precinct. Such a certificate is issued by the relevant election commission based on a written application from the voter indicating the reason. The Central Election Commission promised to very strictly monitor the process of issuing absentee certificates to avoid abuse, reports MIA Rossiya Segodnya.

In the upcoming elections, for the first time, voters who do not have permanent registration in the region, but are registered at their place of residence at least three months before voting day, will be able to vote. This possibility is provided for in Part 11 of Article 17 of the law on elections of State Duma deputies, but, in fact, has not yet been widely used, CEC Secretary Maya Grishina previously noted. A citizen with temporary registration can submit an application to the relevant TEC for inclusion in the voter list from July 19 to August 27.

Elections of deputies to the State Duma of the seventh convocation will take place on a single voting day, September 18, using a mixed system: 225 deputies will be elected from party lists (proportional system) and 225 from single-mandate constituencies (majoritarian system).

On August 3, the Central Election Commission (CEC) of the Russian Federation will finish accepting documents from parties for registering their federal lists for the upcoming elections of State Duma deputies; district election commissions across the country are also finishing accepting documents for registering candidates nominated in these elections in single-mandate electoral districts.

In total, over 111.7 million voters are registered in Russia to date. There are 98 thousand election commissions of different levels in the country: these are precinct election commissions (PECs), territorial election commissions (TECs), and commissions of federal subjects. During the election campaign, a total of over 880 thousand people were involved - members of election commissions at various levels.

Author: Ivan Paliy
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Do you need a temporary residence permit when moving for permanent residence?

You can often come across the following question: if a citizen, shortly before voting, changes his permanent place of residence, moving to a territory included in the lists of another electoral commission, does he need to take care of obtaining an absentee certificate in advance?

By registering at a new permanent place of residence, the future voter will be included in the lists of the EC precinct at the new place of residence automatically. If a voter has doubts, he can personally verify that his data is on the list at his new place of residence. To do this, it is enough to go with your passport (other identification document) to the precinct election commission no more than 20 days before voting day and find out whether the citizen is included in the electoral lists at the new precinct.

How to find out the address and contacts of a territorial or district EC?

Election participants can find out the addresses and contact information of precinct and territorial election commissions from several sources:

Lists of IC sites, after their approval by the head of the city (municipal region), are published in the press along with regulations and laws of local government.
On the official website of the regional election commission or the website of the city (municipal district) administration.
From information leaflets (invitations to elections), which are sent to all voters’ homes.

Deadlines for obtaining OU

Receiving an absentee ballot is limited only by time limits. A citizen must inform about his desire to participate in elections at another polling station and receive a document in advance. What are the deadlines for obtaining OU?

From 45 to 20 days before the announced voting day, the document can be obtained from the territorial election commission. Precinct ICs begin to be issued to citizens from 19 days before the start of elections and end 24 hours before voting.

Why is it so important to receive the OU within this time frame? Immediately before the start of voting, absentee ballots are officially canceled at all polling stations. That is, the destruction of all unclaimed forms of this document.

Where to get

During elections, a voter may be away from his or her polling station.
The reason may be a business trip, a trip to another city for another valid reason. And then the voter has a question: “How to vote?”

In order to vote in another electoral district, you must obtain an absentee ballot. Such a certificate will give you the right to vote in any electoral district. But remember that it is only used once.

Documents for obtaining OU

To receive an OU, a citizen will need to appear at the territorial or precinct election commission with a passport (another document replacing it) and write an application to receive an absentee certificate. No other documents, including those confirming the reason for receiving the OU, are required.

A citizen can submit an application by filling out a special form or writing an application on a standard sheet by hand, but in compliance with all the requirements of the application form.

If a citizen cannot personally apply for receipt of the OU, a trusted person, for example, one of his relatives, can do this for him. To do this, you will need to issue a notarized power of attorney for the representative. Instead of a notary, in the case when the voter is in a place of temporary stay, the power of attorney can be certified by the head (administration) of the given organization of stay - the chief doctor, the head of the pre-trial detention center, etc.

In the application, the voter (proxy representative) will be required to indicate the following:

In the upper right corner is the name and number of the election commission to which the citizen (his representative) applied with a request to issue an OU.
FULL NAME. and the place of registration of the applicant.
Regardless of whether the application is written by hand or filled out on a template, the reason why the citizen will not be able to arrive at the polling station on election day must be indicated.
Please personally issue an absentee certificate to the applicant (his authorized representative) to participate in voting.
Signature and date of preparation and submission of the application.

Where to get an absentee ballot in Moscow

“This way I’ll collect more than a thousand signatures and as a result I’ll be left alone in the elections for the mayor of Moscow.” I still believe that even those deputies who support me should pay attention to the fact that these elections should be alternative, and I ask them, if possible, to sign for other candidates who are closer to their spirit. Let me draw your attention once again to the fact that the municipal filter is not prohibitive. It will be very bad if we make some kind of blocking mechanism out of it that will not allow anyone to run for mayor. This will be really bad.

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— I believe that the number of absentee ballots should be reduced tenfold so that they cannot influence the election results. Moreover, the remaining single coupons must be strictly regulated by the election commission

“, concluded Sergei Sobyanin.

What information is required to be included in the OU?

What information should I provide and how to fill out an absentee ballot correctly? (A sample is presented in the article.) The absentee ballot form must be filled out in person by hand. The following information should be indicated in the lines of the OS:

Full last name, first name and patronymic of the election participant.
Information about your passport (other identity document).
The number and address of your territorial polling station.

Next, the absentee ballot is filled out by the chairman or member of the EC, who certifies the document with his signature and seal of the EC.

How to vote on the OU?

How is an absentee certificate received by a citizen used in elections? The voting procedure for this type of document is as follows:

On the election day designated by law, a citizen must appear at the polling station of his choice, having with him a passport (a document that replaces it) and an absentee certificate.
The OU is presented to the responsible member of the election commission; on the basis of this document, the election participant is additionally included in the voter list.
A note is made that the citizen is taking part in election events using an absentee certificate.
The absentee certificate (or a tear-off coupon, if it is included in this form) is confiscated from the election participant by a member of the commission.
Next, voting is carried out by the citizen in the usual manner.

Alternative to the OU - voting outside the precinct

Voting using absentee ballots is often confused with another procedure provided for by election legislation, which allows you to take part in voting without personal presence at your polling station. We are talking about voting outside the precinct, that is, about delivering a ballot box to a citizen’s home or other place of residence. Legislators emphasize: it is impossible to simultaneously submit an application for voting outside the precinct and the issuance of a OU - in fact, these methods of expression of will are mutually exclusive. Delivery of a ballot box to a citizen is possible only from electoral commissions, on whose lists the citizen is included as a voter at the place of registration, while the electoral office excludes the citizen from these lists.

They don't issue an absentee certificate - what to do?

A voter cannot be refused to receive an absentee certificate from the election commission or prohibited from taking part in voting in the electoral district on the appointed election day.

As a rule, violations in the area of issuing this document occur relatively infrequently. But if a voter’s right to receive an absentee ballot is violated, what can be done in this case?

Write a complaint addressed to the head of the territorial election commission of the city (municipal district). It is necessary to indicate in detail the circumstances of the violation of electoral rights, the data (name and position) of the member of the EC who refused to issue the voter an OU. The complaint can be submitted to the secretary of the EC against signature on the second copy, or sent to the territorial EC by registered mail. Also on the official website of the election commission there is an opportunity to leave a complaint online.
If the complaint has not been properly responded to, you can contact the regional (regional) EC. Additionally, it makes sense to visit the website of “Voice,” a social movement that monitors violations during elections.
File a lawsuit for violation of voting rights and inaction of government authorities.

How to vote without an absentee ballot

— The law allows for the possibility of voting at someone else’s polling station without an absentee ballot. In accordance with paragraph 8 of Art. 16 and paragraph 7 of Art. 27 of the Federal Law “On the Election of Deputies of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation”, this right is enjoyed by citizens in places of temporary stay, the latter including hospitals, sanatoriums, rest homes, train stations and airports, and places of detention. The number of people who have the opportunity to vote at someone else's polling station without an absentee certificate includes voters living in hard-to-reach or remote areas, as well as those staying on ships set sail and polar stations.

In addition, this opportunity is available to employees of enterprises with a continuous cycle of work or those employed in certain types of production, the specifics of which do not provide for the possibility of reducing the duration of the shift. Finally, military personnel located outside the location of a military unit, internally displaced persons and persons without a fixed place of residence who do not have registration have the right to vote without an absentee ballot.

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