This fall, we will give you a weapon.
And no, we’re not talking about Molotov cocktails that Putin made up at his press conference.
Something even better!
In your hands will be the most effective weapon against Russia’s enemies. And it is not banned by any law.
Russia’s enemies are Putin and the United Russia deputies. And the weapon against them is Smart Voting.
Right now, United Russia deputies in the State Duma (the lower house of Russia’s parliament) can do whatever they want. They can pass absolutely any law. And no matter how much the other parties resist, they have too few deputies to stop United Russia. It was United Russia that raised the retirement age — and now many of our fellow citizens simply will not live long enough to receive a pension. It was also they who raised VAT, which of course immediately drove prices up.
This party is literally stealing Russia’s future. The hundreds of billions they have spent over the years on their palaces and yachts could have been invested in developing the country. But instead, before every election, some well-groomed United Russia politician goes to pensioners, for example, and says: yes, your pensions are small, and yes, we’ve been in power for 20 years, but vote for us one more time and now we’ll DEFINITELY start living well.
At every election, United Russia politicians use lies and manipulation to keep their comfortable seats and go on enriching themselves while ordinary people grow poorer.
But now we have a chance to strike back at these occupiers who have latched onto our country’s budget.
We can do it in the State Duma elections on September 19.
How do you defeat United Russia? If a genuine majority of people honestly voted for it, that would be impossible. But that’s not the case. United Russia wins only because everyone who disagrees with its policies cannot unite. Their votes are simply spread across a dozen other candidates. But we can stop that with Smart Voting.
The idea is very simple: everyone who is against United Russia should unite and cast their votes not for ten different candidates, but for one single candidate — the one with the best chance of defeating the United Russia nominee. If those votes are not scattered but combined, they will outnumber the votes for the United Russia candidate, and that candidate will lose badly. And if people vote this way in every district, then every United Russia candidate will lose.
So, in September, when you go to your polling station, you will receive two ballots. The first ballot will list parties. That part is simple: vote for any party except United Russia — no Smart Voting is needed there. The second ballot will list the candidates running specifically in your district. That choice is harder — and that is where Smart Voting will help.
To find out the name of the strongest candidate in your district, register on the Smart Voting website, and the recommendation will be sent to your email. Or download the app (for iOS or Android), and you will receive a push notification.
In each district, it may be a candidate from a different party, but always the strongest opponent of United Russia. It will be the person who won the most votes in the last election, the one who campaigned the hardest and met with the most voters. To identify that person, we will analyze every candidate in every district. The United Russia candidate will still get their 30 percent, but we will unite the rest of the votes against them and win in the end. Because after that, it is just simple math.
If all voters who dislike United Russia vote for one opposition candidate, then not even Pamfilova (Ella Pamfilova, head of Russia’s Central Election Commission) with all her “miracles” will be able to change the result.
Smart Voting has already worked in regional elections. For example, the Moscow City Duma used to have only seven non–United Russia members, but thanks to Smart Voting, 20 opposition deputies were elected. It used to have as vice speaker Metelsky, United Russia’s top figure in Moscow, who owns four hotels in Austria — and not only in Austria — but now he has simply been kicked out of the Moscow City Duma.
The story was similar in Novosibirsk and Tomsk, and in Tambov only one out of 18 United Russia deputies was left. In all these cities, deputies appeared who are not afraid to raise difficult issues. They are not afraid to criticize the authorities from the podium, submit useful parliamentary inquiries, and help ordinary people.
The candidate you are asked to vote for may not share your views and may frankly be unpleasant to you — yes, that happens. But first, even such an unpleasant candidate will be many times better than any United Russia politician. And second, in a situation where the country does not have fair elections, our main task is to destroy United Russia’s monopoly. The more non–United Russia politicians there are in power, the worse and more painful it will be for this party of crooks and thieves; they have no idea what competition is, so they will make even more mistakes and drive their already low ratings down even further. The more Smart Voting candidates make it into the State Duma, the bolder those candidates will behave there. It is much easier to criticize a United Russia politician and expose their corruption when you know that real voters’ support is behind you and they expect action from you.
Everyone benefits from this. Well, except United Russia, of course.
Smart Voting was created in 2018 by Alexei Navalny. Since then, Navalny’s campaign offices have been banned, and Alexei himself was first nearly killed and then imprisoned. Because the Kremlin understands: if we manage to reach everyone who opposes the authorities, it will mean the end of United Russia and of Putin.
So we are asking you to do two things:
Put aside all doubts and skepticism, and in September go vote smart. We understand perfectly well that it is hard to even call this an election when people are jailed for wanting to take part in it. But right now there is a historic chance to unite against a common enemy.
Register yourself and invite your friends to the Smart Voting website to find out whom to vote for in your district in order to defeat the United Russia candidate. The more people vote smart, the fewer chances United Russia will have. In the Moscow elections, there were cases where defeating a United Russia candidate in a couple of districts came down to literally just a few hundred votes. The more of us there are, the better.
We can win. So let’s do it. Smart Voting. Together against United Russia!