"Vote and then enjoy": the state budget paid for a series about life at a polling station.
A mini-series about a local election commission that works in a regular school, out with a grant from the state-funded Internet Development Institute. One of the project's producers was Victor Shkulev — the owner of a media holding that includes the largest network of regional media outlets.
The 10 episodes were filmed in vertical format, each approximately three minutes long. The script depicts the life of the electoral commission as full of humor and amusing adventures. However, some episodes depict violations of electoral law that go unnoticed.
For example, in the very first episode, the school principal, in an attempt to boost turnout, walks through the neighborhood early in the morning with a loudspeaker, calling everyone to the polling station. Angry residents, deprived of sleep, come running after him, armed with ladles, rolling pins, and baseball bats. However, after the precinct election commission chair treats them to sausage sandwiches, their spirits improve and they fill out their ballots. The show's creators, however, don't dwell on the fact that obtaining ballots requires passports, which residents are unlikely to have brought with them as they rushed out of their apartments in their underwear and robes.
In the same episode, it is specified that the elections will last three days, “so that everyone has time to vote.”
- Nonsense built on wild stereotypes, - This is how a member of one of the territorial electoral commissions, with whom I spoke, described his impressions of watching the series NotMoscow.
First of all, he noticed that the same school principal hangs out at the polling station throughout all ten episodes. So does the security guard.
“These people have nothing to do with the polling station or the voting process, but they are there even outside of working hours, including at night, which is strictly prohibited,” the NeMoskva interlocutor emphasized. And in the third episode, it's downright trashy: everyone and their dog is touching the ballot box. Even though only members of the electoral commission are allowed to do so. And no one is allowed to touch the seal.
It is noteworthy that the school principal and the security guard, who, by law, have no connection with the work of the precinct correctional commission, are among the four main characters in the series.
Incidentally, there are no observers at the polling station. Except for the young people who pop up in the seventh episode, dressed in bright clothes and speaking in a mixture of broken English and Zoomer Russian. Eventually, one of the polling station members realizes what they're after and begins a rap: "Make a choice, vote, and then enjoy."
In the last episode, the election documents are taken to the TEC by a security guard and a member of the PEC, who is his girlfriend (they forgot to seal the box).
— Actually, the documents are submitted to the TEC by the chairman of the precinct election commission, the secretary, and any number of commission members, accompanied by a police officer, — a member of the territorial election commission recalled in a conversation with NeMoskva. And they don’t hand it over in the morning, as in the TV series, but immediately after the votes are counted and the final protocol is drawn up.
The amount of budgetary funds allocated for the series is not specified. However, this year's budget has allocated nearly 26 billion rubles for content creation and distribution through the Internet Development Institute.
