It became known that video cameras will be installed at Moscow polling stations in September. This was announced by Sergei Sobyanin in June at a government meeting. He justified this decision by the fact that in the presidential elections this system showed high efficiency, which means that it will not be superfluous to apply it in the upcoming elections. Although regional elections are usually not video-monitored due to their smaller scale compared to presidential elections, Sobyanin argues that installing cameras will increase citizen confidence and ensure fair, fair vote counting. There are 3,400 polling stations in Moscow. Most of them are schools and preschool educational institutions (87%). Plots at cultural and sports facilities occupy 8% of the total, 5% are on the territory of private, federal and city property.
Cameras are selected according to their characteristics to achieve the highest video quality. In the September elections in Moscow, even the most remote polling stations will be targeted by CCTV cameras, reducing the possibility of scuffling the results. The acting head of the information technology department, Ermolaev, claims that as a result of the analysis of Moscow polling stations, 95% of them were found to have city-wide video surveillance. He also said that in order to save the budget, the authorities are planning to combine two existing video surveillance systems: the presidential elections and the citywide one. This will make it possible to monitor the conduct of elections without spending much of material resources. By the way, at the moment the citywide video surveillance system has about 120 thousand cameras. Currently, only 30% of polling stations are fully equipped with cameras. They are located mainly at the tables of election commissions and ballot boxes. In order for citizens to have the opportunity to follow the election process online, the design of the portal is being developed, as well as communication channels are being set up. By the 25th of the current month, the work on the installation of the video surveillance system is planned to be completed, and by the end of the month, on the 30th, it will already be possible to register on the portal. After registering, visitors to the portal will be asked to choose the cameras that intern from the most. Then they will be able to freely follow what is happening at the selected polling stations..
