United Russia is bringing back the “against all” option and hopes this will help it look less weak in nominally competitive elections. It is telling that for presidential elections—which Putin cannot afford to make even nominally competitive—the decision was made not to restore the “against all” option.
The State Duma has approved a bill that would restore the “against all” line on election ballots at elections of all levels except presidential ones. The relevant Duma committee on constitutional legislation and state-building recommended that the document be passed in its first reading on January 17. http://lenta.ru/news/2014/01/13/protiv/ As we all remember, the United Russia crowd decided to bring back “against all” right after the election results in Moscow turned out extremely unpleasant for them. The public-facing version goes like this: “this will increase voter turnout and attract protest-minded citizens. We must give those who are unhappy with everyone a chance to vote.” The truthful explanation goes like this: “we are lying, thieving United Russia hacks. Everyone hates us. Candidates are emerging (upstart Navalny and others) who capitalize on the public’s dislike of us, the thieving United Russia people, and get an unexpectedly large share of the vote. Our pollsters tell us that if we bring back ‘against all,’ it will take 5–10% of the vote away from such candidates.” Here is what I personally think about bringing back “against all”: It is, of course, stupid. Previously, if “against all” won, that meant repeat elections. But they are not restoring that rule now. “Against all” will become an empty vote, benefiting United Russia or the pro-government candidate. Even so, I*** mostly support this measure,*** because I think United Russia, as usual, will outsmart itself. This should, of course, be tested with proper sociological research, but my personal feeling is that “against all” will hurt Putin, United Russia, and their candidates more than it will hurt the opposition. Look at all the government’s recent election campaigns. They are not run under slogans like “Putin is good” or “Sobyanin knows how to run a city.” The real refrain is: “Putin isn’t great, of course, but everyone else is even worse”, “Well, if not Putin, then who? There’s nobody else”, or “Yeah, Sobyanin is a crook, but the others would run the city even worse”, or “Yeah, United Russia is a party of crooks and thieves, but the others are just as crooked”. In other words, the real message of the campaign is always: unfortunately, this is the only choice, there is no alternative. Under such conditions, the government voter will easily find “against all” appealing: well, if everyone is bad, then everyone is bad. “Our voter” means people who vote consciously. I think we will be able to explain to them that voting “against all” when there is a real opposition candidate is a vote for United Russia. We should remember that the main “election technology” of Putin’s crooks has been, and remains, keeping candidates off the ballot. So if our candidate is removed, “against all” may also be useful to us. The biggest damage from “against all” will, of course, be done to the “systemic opposition” (the officially tolerated opposition parties). The Communist Party and A Just Russia will lose a serious number of votes. For the LDPR, this is a real problem altogether. For the “small systemic opposition,” introducing “against all” will wipe out any chance of getting more than 1.5%. That is the real problem. And ours too: yet another trampling of the political landscape. But it is also a problem for the authorities: they are destroying their own controlled political system. Summary: Putin and United Russia are looking for a “magic pill” that would help them in elections. Once again they are lurching around and making a decision that, in the medium term, will bring them more problems than benefits. The authorities will support media-friendly concepts of voting against all that are visually appealing (and outwardly resemble the opposition):
But it will not be able to fool anyone. - We will need to do more explanatory outreach.