12,981 journalists to cover Russian presidential election

A total of 12,981 local and foreign journalists from 2,416 media outlets will cover the Russian presidential election schedule for Sunday, the Russian Central Election Commission’s (CEC) data showed.

However, 5,560 journalists from television stations and 117 journalists from Internet media will also participate, according to the CEC Information Centre.

It noted that a total of 367 journalists from 80 foreign media would also be following the election.

In another development, the Chairwoman of the CEC, Ella Pamfilova, said the state automated system election to be used for the election was fully protected against any form of hacking.

She said “the state’s automated system election is not connected to the Internet and does not allow for any external administration, including from the Russian Central Election Commission (CEC).

“It is independent of the CEC, we cannot be administrators … It is so well-protected that it is hack-proof. It is independent, does not depend on global network, besides, it is independent from being managed by anybody else.’’

Mrs. Pamfilova noted that a special department, the Federal Informatisation Centre, was responsible for the technical issues related to the election.

The automated system enables the compilation of list of voters, checks the money flow in candidates’ accounts, designs ballot layouts, adds and process the information about the results of the vote.

The March 18 Russian presidential election has eight candidates, including Sergey Baburin from the All-People’s Union party; Pavel Grudinin from Communist Party, incumbent Russian President Vladimir Putin and Civil Initiative party candidate, Ksenia Sobchak.

Others are Communists of Russia party Chairman, Maxim Suraykin; Presidential Commissioner for Entrepreneurs’ Rights, Boris Titov; co-founder of Yabloko party, Grigory Yavlinsky, and Head of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

(Sputnik/NAN)