Active citizen

The Active Citizen electronic survey system was launched on May 21, 2014. The initiator of its creation is considered to be Deputy Mayor of Moscow Sergei Sobyanin Anastasia Rakova. According to official statements, the applications and the website of the "Active Citizen" were developed by the Moscow Department of Information Technology , and the costs amounted to about 20 million rubles. Journalists also found information on tenders for an information and advertising campaign, the development of a logo, corporate identity and prize concept in the amount of about 30 million rubles on the Electronic Moscow Internet portal. “Active Citizen” was presented as an instrument of direct democracy , which allows citizens to participate in voting and polls to influence the development of Moscow ^{[4] [5] [6]} .

Less than a year later, on March 6, 2015, the number of registered Active Citizen users exceeded 1 million. A total of 500 polls and polls were conducted in the first year, in which users left 25 million opinions, based on which more than 250 management decisions were made. On the first anniversary of the project, Moscow authorities announced the creation of a volunteer association designed to monitor the city’s fulfillment of the commitments made as a result of discussions in the Active Citizen. By November 2015, the Active Citizen website became the third most visited city portal in Moscow, excluding mobile device users. In December 2016, the number of polls conducted was close to 2000, and the number of registered users in February 2017 exceeded 1.5 million ^{[4] [7] [8] [9] [10]} .

According to various estimates, by the end of 2015, from 20 million to 185 million rubles were spent on the project ^[11] .

Issues related to the competence of the executive authorities of Moscow are put up for voting in the Active Citizen. The technical side of the vote is provided by the Department of Information Technology, and the Public Services Committee is responsible for conducting surveys and using the platform. Surveys are not conducted on matters of little importance, and departments do not have the right to discuss issues in which they have a conflict of interest. Citizens cannot directly offer polls, but they can send them to the website of the Russian Public Initiative at the municipality or subject level. If the question gains at least 5% of the votes of the residents of the municipality or at least 100 thousand people, when voting at the subject level, it will be considered by the authorities and can be represented in the "Active Citizen". In some polls, users can leave their own answer ^{[4] [6]} .

Registration in the system is possible from any Russian SIM card , indicating personal data is optional. According to Rakova, the circle of subjects discussed in the Active Citizen is interesting only to the townspeople, and because of the large number of users, a huge number of cards will be required to manipulate the voting, and the introduction of the verification procedure will lead to a decrease in the number of voters. She also reported that the mayor’s office is developing a new format for holding public hearings in which “Active Citizen” can be used. The voting process on the platform is not displayed in real time, and the results are published processed - as a percentage of the number of voters ^[4] .

In “Active Citizen” gamification is used: filling out a profile, connecting an account of a city services portal, voting and other activity is encouraged by points that the user can exchange for tangible and intangible prizes. At the time of launch, the basis of the “internal store” was branded paraphernalia, but because of its unpopularity (only 10% of the earned points were spent), the emphasis was shifted to tickets to museums, theaters, attending other city events or traveling by public transport. Also, users received points and tickets for the check-in at the polling station on election day of the State Duma of the VII convocation ^{[4] [6] [12]} .

In September 2014, the collaboration between the Active Citizen and the voluntary search and rescue squad Lisa Alert began , within the framework of which photos and signs of the missing in Moscow were broadcast to the application’s feed. The program started at the beginning of the “mushroom season”, when many people are lost in the forests of New Moscow . Information about adults was broadcast only by indicating the area of ​​the person’s disappearance as of interest to them, information about the missing children was transmitted to all users. Feedback provided the opportunity to indicate whether the user saw the missing person, contact interested parties and participate in the search and rescue operation. Also in 2014, as part of the Active Citizen program, the My Street program was launched, in which citizens expressed their views on urban problems and future changes, and which was subsequently singled out as an independent project dedicated to urban improvement ^{[7] [13] [ 14] [15]} .

According to participants in the training of vice governors held by Sberbank Corporate University in December 2016, “Active Citizen” helped the Moscow City Hall win over the creative class , which is considered to be the electorate of Alexei Navalny , a rival to Sergei Sobyanin in the 2013 mayoral election ^[8] .

According to the head of the Agency for Political and Economic Communications Dmitry Orlov, “Active Citizen” helps the mayor's office to gather an audience preoccupied with general urban problems, understand the needs of the population and actually manage the agenda ^[8] .

There is an opinion that the “Active Citizen” is called upon to create the appearance of legitimacy of the decisions of the City Hall and the Moscow City Duma ^[8] .

According to Robert Argenbright, author of the book Moscow Citizens in a Changing Context , it would be an exaggeration to call Active Citizen e-democracy , as citizens are limited in their ability to submit topics for discussion. He does not consider the system a revolutionary breakthrough, but considers it a useful tool, as well as public hearings: Muscovites can ignore it, accept it “as is” or put pressure on the city authorities, forcing them to bring up more important issues for discussion ^[7] .

In a message from Vladimir Putin to the Federal Assembly dated December 1, 2016, the President noted Active Citizen as a useful, worth spreading experience ^[16] .

The wording of some questions did not offer a fundamental alternative: for example, in discussions related to new construction, users could vote for the type of building (for example, a store or a household), but they could not oppose the construction on the site. Some polls were published in the Active Citizen when a decision on them had already been taken (or should have been made). Examples include polls on expanding the network of bike paths , the format of the Sosenki ’s People’s Park in Kotlovka (a beautification project was already under development), the location of the Nagorny recreation center (one of the answer options, the Angara cinema building, was put up at that time bargaining). Voting results for a project to improve the streets of Bolshaya and Malaya Bronnaya were published on the day the state contract was concluded, according to the requirements of which the design decisions had to undergo a state examination 2 months earlier ^{[4] [5]} .

The deputy of the Moscow City Duma of the sixth convocation from the Communist Party faction, Elena Shuvalova, stated that the Internet voting format creates a “property, age and educational qualification”, making it impossible for people to participate without smartphones and Internet access ^[5] .

Critics noted that the federal law “On the General Principles of the Organization of Local Self-Government in the Russian Federation” does not provide a way to vote through the site, therefore, the results of the polls cannot serve as a formal basis for making a decision, only for informing. Journalist Ilya Rozhdestvensky in an article on the website of the Anti-Corruption Fund also pointed out that issues that citizens obviously had no right to decide were put up for discussion in the Active Citizen. For example, in November – December 2014, a survey was held on the construction of the DreamWorks entertainment park in the specially protected area of ​​the Nagatinsky floodplain ^{[4] [5]} .

Critics pointed to the non-transparency of the voting process due to the lack of intermediate results and information on the total number of voters ^[4] .

The attention of opposition politicians was drawn to a survey on the renaming of the Voykovskaya metro station, conducted in November 2015, following which the majority of the votes received the same name. Both supporters and opponents of the renaming made assumptions about possible cheating: the distribution of votes was linear most of the time, the influx of voters was stable at any time of the day. In response to criticism, the Moscow Department of Information Technology published a schedule for new votes, and after Leonid Volkov sent a statement to law enforcement, he announced a tender for an external audit of the Active Citizen ^{[11] [17]}

• Best M-Govt Service Awards 2015 in the Social Sector category in the international category, established by the Government of Saudi Arabia ^[18]
• 2015 SABER Award (Superior Achievement in Branding, Reputation & Engagement) Award in the category of government institutions in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, established by the specialized publication on public relations The Holmes Report ^[7] .
• Runet Prize 2015 in the nomination "State and society" ^[19] .

• Official site