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12. Determining the Winner and Repeat Voting
The Law on the Election of President establishes a double threshold for any candidate to be declared the winner of the election. Under Article 55 at least 50% of the voters on the voters list have to have taken part in the election for the election to have been considered valid. To be declared the winner of the election a candidate must have received more than 50% of the votes cast on official ballot papers. Ballot papers found in the ballot box of non-standard form are excluded from the calculations.
During the 16 June 1996 first round there were 10 candidates remaining in the race as of election day. One candidate had withdrawn. None of the candidates was successful in achieving the threshold of votes required to be declared a winner. The two candidates with the highest number of votes were incumbent President Boris Yeltsin with 35.05% of the votes and Communist Party candidate Zyuganov with 32.35% of the votes cast. They were slated to run against each other in the repeat voting. Article 56 requires that the second round or repeat voting occur with 15 days of the «estimation» of the results from the general election. The date selected for the repeat voting was 3 July 1996. The ballot for the repeat voting also included an option which allowed voters to vote «against both candidates.» In addition to the two candidate choices, the ballot for the repeat voting retained the option which allowed voters to vote «against both candidates.»
The law dictates that repeat voting is to be conducted under the same laws that applied to the general election. The only provision which is waived during the repeat voting is the 50% threshold for voter turnout requirement. The procedures followed at the polling places in the processing of voters and during the counting and summarization of vote were the same as those employed in the first round. The special services such as absentee voting, mobile ballot voting by voters outside the polling station, early voting on vessels and remote sites were also available during the second round.
The eligibility requirements for voting in the repeat voting were exactly the same as they were for the regular election. Any citizen who had reached the age of 18 by election day was eligible to vote, unless they had been found incompetent by a court or were imprisoned by a decision of the courts. When the voter lists were compiled for the first round election two copies were prepared. One copy was used for the general election; the second copy which had been retained by the Territorial Election Commissions were subsequently distributed for use in the second round. Upon receipt of the second copy, the Polling Station Election Commissions were responsible to update the list based on the final list resulting from modifications and additions made to the first list during the general election. The modifications included:
- all the additions to the list during the voting on election day;
- additions of voters who had moved to the to the area after the original list was compiled;
- additions of voters who had been omitted from the original list in error but presented identification documents proving their residency or temporary accommodation in the area served by the polling site;
- changes in basic information about the voter; and,
- information about voters who applied to the station for an Absentee Certificate which would allow them to vote elsewhere.
For the repeat voting the updated lists were to be made available for public scrutiny not later than 5 days before the date of the second round election.
The Central Election Commission provided liberal access to the polls by the same groups of observers as those who had been eligible for the general election. These included the deliberative members of the commissions and observers representing candidates who had not advanced to the second round. With regard to the deliberative voting members of losing candidates, their terms are defined in the Law on Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights as lasting until 30 days after the announcement of the results of the election. Therefore, even the deliberative voting members representing candidates who failed to advance to the second round retained their posts. The same privileges were retained for observers representing political associations who had nominated losing candidates.
Under Article 56 of the Law on the Election of President, the person who receives the greatest number of votes is declared the winner as long as the number of votes cast for this person is greater than the number of votes cast «against both candidates.» The results of the second round gave Yeltsin the victory with 53.83% of the votes over Zyuganov who received 40.30%.
Mid-Week Voting
Under the laws of the Russian Federation elections must be held on a non-work day. Most commonly elections are scheduled on Sundays. The selection of the 3 July date was subject to controversy because it meant that the election would fall mid-week, on a Wednesday. Choosing a mid-week day was perceived as an attempt to increase participation. Concern was expressed that there could be a drop in turnout for the second round which is relatively common when elections are held very close together. There was also concern that a decline in voter participation would be aggravated further by the likelihood that voters would leave town over a weekend for recreation at their dachas, especially since the weather had warmed significantly. Some controversy was expected over the decision to hold the repeat voting mid-week because it would require a presidential decree to make the voting day a holiday to comply with the law requiring non-work day voting. In addition it was expected that the Communist Party would resist the mid-week choice because pundits had universally agreed that a high turnout was essential to a Yeltsin victory. Ultimately, however, the mid-week election day was supported on all fronts.
Although mid-week voting was expected to reduce the number of voters who would be voting with an absentee certificate, in areas where IFES observers were present, absentee voting was widespread. In Moscow the use of absentee certificates was extensive, demonstrated not only by the high number of certificates issued at the urban sites, but in the number of certificates actually used in the rural areas in large concentrations. Voters who had applied for absentee certificates in the general election were allowed to retain them for use in the second round as well. During the second round new applications were processed so that the overall number of voters in possession of absentee certificates rose. At rural precincts outside the city of Moscow numbers of absentee voters presenting themselves to vote were as high as 125. In Leninsky Territory of Rostov Oblast where IFES observers were present for the summarization of votes, the number of voters who applied for absentee certificates virtually doubled from 1.1% in the first round to 2.1% in the second round. Likewise, the number of voters who used absentee certificates to vote in the territory rose form approximately .8% to 1.3%. In the general election, only .5% of the voters of the Subject at large used absentee certificates, and only .6% had applied for certificates to vote elsewhere.
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