Modern Practices of Legitimizing Remote Electronic Voting in the Context of Ensuring the Electoral Sovereignty of the Russian Federation

The article examines modern practices of legitimizing the institution of remote electronic voting, implemented in recent years in the Russian Federation using digital and non-digital technologies in the context of ensuring the electoral sovereignty of the country. The author analyzes the development of online voting in the context of comprehensive digitalization of the state and society, emphasizing its compliance for the level of technological development of the country. Particular attention is paid to the advantages of Russian e-voting system including convenience and accessibility of e-voting, ensuring the security and confidentiality of data, transparency of the basic voting procedures. Digital technologies make it possible to automate the process, reduce time costs and minimize errors. Growing public interest in online voting creates prerequisites for expanding the practice of using this system in elections at various levels. The article also raises the problem of using modern digital communications to increase the legitimacy of e-voting. The author identifies three contours of ensuring the legitimacy of online voting: normative, infrastructural and communicative. Legitimizing practices and necessary procedures used by election commissions, government authorities, as well as civil society institutions are presented as part of a single political space. In the context of increasing public confidence in online voting, special attention is paid to the risks of delegitimization of the e-voting system in the context of increasing international tensions and intensification of external information pressure on Russian voters. The conclusion indicates that the effective use of digital communications is a tool for limiting the negative effects of information pressure and associated socio-political threats in the sphere of organizing and holding elections.

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