What is the official reason for the low error rate of the 100k signature requirement for presidential candidates in Russia

Question

In Russia, you need 100.000 signatures to be allowed to run for presidency. However, if I understood the article below correctly, only 105.000 signatures may be turned in. While the minimal support is reasonable (100k possible supporters) and variants thereof can be found in other systems, the upper limit seems strange. The error rate appears especially low as the law seems to be rather complicated about, for example, which region of Russia the signatures are from. The most recent result of the low error rate is that the only candidate opposing the war against Ukraine, Boris Nadezhdin is not allowed to be on the ballot. I would like to know what the official reason for this law is and if there is any democratic body controlling it? Are Russian electoral bodies too busy to be occupied with incorrectly submitted signatures?

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-anti-war-candidate-says-election-commission-finds-15-invalid-signatures-2024-02-05/

Answer 1

Official reason for the existence of this rule is pretty straightforward - independent candidates have to demonstrate they have support in many regions of the Federation. Since the limit is 2500 signatures per region, it is assumed that the people responsible for the campaign should be able to verify the validity of signatures on location - the citizens' passports hold all the necessary information. Basically - since RF has 89 regions, they are expected to get over the required number of signatures (so on average ~1180 signatures per region), and then select the needed number of valid ones.

These signatures are then submitted to the Central Election Commission. It consists of 15 members. The President of Russia, State Duma and Federation Council (for those unfamiliar with Russian government system - lower and upper houses of parliament) each appoint five members. In turn, these members elect the Chairman, Deputy Chairman and Secretary. The Commission is in power for a four-year term. With both houses of parliament dominated by the Putin-supporting United Russia party, the resulting commission is, obviously, biased against other candidates; I am unsure if this body constitutes a democratic body or not for the purpose of your question, since you didn't provide a definition.

Of course, this body isn't too busy to be checking the signatures, it's their job to do it. The commission randomly selects 60000 signatures from the total provided by the candidate. If there's more than 5% of invalid signatures, a further 30000 are also checked. The candidate is rejected if the margin of error is more than 5% after the second check. Nadezhdin challenged the commission's decision in court and lost. Accoding to the TASS release on the court decision, out of the 60000 from the first check, ~9000 were declared invalid; BBC later reported that only 95987 were approved in the end.

This is not the first time this happens, too. Every election sees some independent candidates bounced by the CEC. Why does this happen? Well, the obvious problem in this system is that only independent candidates are required to go through this process. On the other hand, the forces that appoint the Commission's members are members of parliamentary parties that are assumed to have their support already proven by parliamentary elections, and so their presidential election candidates are exempt from this ordeal. Obviously, the groups who will also be competing in the elections are in no way motivated to allow competitors on the ballot; even if parliament houses weren't in support of the current President - they still wouldn't be likely to view independents favourably. So there's little chance of regulations being relaxed. There was a statement by Nadezhdin that he intends to go through all available options of appeal; this wouldn't likely allow him to participate in 2024 elections, but it might attract public attention to the faulted system and inspire changes, that could affect further elections.

P.S. Following the rejection there was a torrent of statements - accusing the commission of (purposely or by mistake) rejecting valid signatures, signature collectors - of unprofessionalism, fraud and/or sabotage, and both - of not doing their job. Every person involved, obviously, denies any wrongdoing by their side. In my opinion - that's irrelevant; the system in place makes it all but impossible for independent candidates to participate in presidential elections, unless they manage to gather enough volunteers to double- and triple-check their submissions until they are perfect. And if they can manage that - they probably could also win enough seats in the parliamentary elections to bypass the whole process (and also lose their motivation to reform the system to a more functional state).