Right now, you are holding a powerful weapon against United Russia.
And if you’re not yet, pick up your phone.
Got it? Now United Russia fears you more than Georgy Alburov’s drone. There’s just one small detail left.
Don’t worry, today we’re not going to learn how to assemble a Kalashnikov rifle or choose the best base for a Molotov cocktail. This is a review. A review of the app we’ve just updated, improved, and redesigned specifically so everyone can use it easily in September: the Smart Voting app.
It’s simple: follow the link to the App Store or Google Play. Then download the app with the top-secret name “Navalny.” And while it’s downloading, let’s talk about why we need it in the first place.
In September, Russia will hold elections to the State Duma (the lower house of parliament). Right now, the Duma is completely occupied by United Russia members: they hold 334 of the 450 seats, and they like it that way. They can come up with any law and pass it immediately.
And do we like that? Not really.
Even if you’re not a Navalny supporter and don’t follow politics at all, this still isn’t right, is it? One party holds 74% of parliament. Do 74% of Russians support United Russia? Even the polls say no!
Has the app finished downloading? Open it. There’s a simple set of instructions there, though you can skip it.
We want to get back at United Russia and make sure there are as few of these crooks and thieves in the State Duma as possible. Our plan is super simple and easy to understand. This is how many votes the United Russia candidate gets, and this is how many his various opponents get. But if you add together the votes for those opponents—in other words, if everyone votes not randomly but for the single strongest challenger to the United Russia candidate—then that’s it, game over for the United Russia candidate. He’ll have fewer votes. A perfect, very logical plan. If not for one thing: how do you know which opponent of the United Russia candidate to vote for?
With this app! Lucky us. Let’s see how it works.
Enter your address, choose one of the dropdown options, and you’ll get all the information you need to vote. You’ll see the candidate, the address of your polling station, and your district number.
As you might guess, the candidates shown for now are just placeholders. We’ll reveal the real ones right before voting day so the authorities don’t have time to remove them.
By the way, you can also subscribe to the mailing list right in the app, so you can receive the candidate’s name by email—the old-fashioned way. We’ll send you various updates too, of course only the most important ones and not too often.
But there’s still some button on the right in the app—let’s press it. Oh, what’s this! Alexei Navalny’s blog, banned by Roskomnadzor (Russia’s state media and internet regulator). With investigations, livestreams, and lots of other interesting things. Safe and sound, right inside our app. You can stop reading this post in your browser right now and switch over to the app instead.
As you can see, we’ve looked through the entire app from top to bottom, and nowhere does it ask you to provide your name, phone number, email, or anything like that. We did that on purpose too. We want to keep you—fighters against United Russia—safe. There’s no embedded supporter database here, your personal data isn’t stored here, and there’s simply nothing for Kremlin crooks or the security services to look for. All the app contains is a huge list of 1,207 candidates across 1,201 electoral districts throughout the country. Feel free to browse.
We forgot to mention something important: make sure to turn on notifications. We know how tired you are of them, so we promise to use them only when it really matters. We’ll send a push notification when the elections begin, and then one more reminder to vote on the last day.
That’s it. We’re offering you an app that will help drive United Russia out of the State Duma. It’s simple, easy to use, doesn’t collect or store your personal data, and as a bonus, it humiliates Roskomnadzor. Download it right now (for iOS and Android). And we’re also asking you very strongly to help us tell absolutely EVERYONE about this app. Over the next month, together we need to make sure that hundreds of thousands of people across the country download it. All other Smart Voting websites will be blocked, but the app cannot be blocked.
It may seem like such a simple, harmless little thing—small enough to fit in your phone and your pocket. But this app is your weapon in the fight against United Russia. Arm yourselves.