One of the main objectives of the project is to get the opinion of citizens on topical issues related to the development of Moscow. Active Citizen's polls are divided into three categories: city-wide, industry-specific, and regional. For active participation in surveys, bonus points are awarded, which can be exchanged for rewards.
Active Citizen is a system of electronic polls launched at the initiative of the Moscow Government on May 21, 2014.
History
The "Active Citizen" electronic survey system was launched on May 21, 2014. The initiator of its creation is the Deputy Mayor of Moscow Sergei Sobyanin Anastasia Rakova. According to official statements, the applications and website of the "Active Citizen" were developed by the Moscow Department of Information Technologies, and the costs amounted to about 20 million rubles. The journalists also found information on tenders for an information and advertising campaign, the development of a logo, corporate identity and a concept of prizes worth about 30 million rubles on the Internet portal "Electronic Moscow". The “Active Citizen” was presented as an instrument of direct democracy, allowing citizens to influence the development of Moscow through participation in voting and polls.
Less than a year later, on March 6, 2015, the number of registered users of Active Citizen exceeded 1 million. In just the first year, 500 polls and votes were conducted, in which users left 25 million opinions, on the basis of which more than 250 management decisions were made. On the first anniversary of the project, the Moscow authorities announced the creation of a volunteer association designed to monitor the city's fulfillment of the obligations assumed as a result of discussions at Active Citizen. By November 2015, the site of the "Active Citizen" became the third most visited city portal in Moscow, excluding mobile device users. In December 2016, the number of surveys conducted approached 2000, and the number of registered users in February 2017 exceeded 1.5 million.
According to various estimates, by the end of 2015, from 20 million to 185 million rubles were spent on the project.
Work principles
The questions that fall within the competence of the Moscow executive authorities are put up for voting in the "Active Citizen". The technical side of voting is provided by the Department of Information Technology, the Committee for Public Services is responsible for conducting surveys and using the platform. Polls are not conducted on insignificant issues, and departments are not allowed to bring up for discussion issues in which they have a conflict of interest. Citizens cannot directly propose polls, but they can send them to the website of the Russian Public Initiative at the level of the municipality or subject. If the issue gets at least 5% of the votes of the residents of the municipality or at least 100 thousand people, when voting at the level of the subject, it will be considered by the authorities and can be presented in the "Active Citizen". In some polls, users can leave their own answer.
Registration in the system is possible from any Russian SIM card, the indication of personal data is optional. According to Rakova, the circle discussed in the "Active Citizen" is interesting only to the townspeople, and due to the large number of users, a huge number of cards will be required to manipulate the vote, and the introduction of the verification procedure will lead to a decrease in the number of voting participants. She also reported that the mayor's office is developing a new format for holding public hearings, in which the "Active Citizen" can be used. The progress of voting on the platform is not displayed in real time, and the results are published processed - as a percentage of the number of voters.
Active Citizen uses gamification: filling out a profile, connecting an account on a city services portal, participating in voting and other activity is encouraged by points that the user can exchange for tangible and intangible prizes. At the time of launch, the “in-house store” was based on branded merchandise, but due to its unpopularity (only 10% of the earned points were spent) the emphasis was shifted to tickets to museums, theaters, visiting other city events or traveling by public transport. Users also received points and tickets for check-in (English) Russian. at a polling station on the day of elections to the State Duma of the VII convocation.
In September 2014, the cooperation between the Active Citizen and the voluntary search and rescue squad Lisa Alert began, within the framework of which photographs and signs of those who disappeared in Moscow were broadcast to the application users' 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 to those who indicated the area of the person's disappearance as of interest to them, information about the missing children - to all users. Feedback included the ability to indicate whether the user had seen the missing person, contact stakeholders, and take part in a search and rescue operation. Also in 2014, the “My Street” program was launched as part of the “Active Citizen” program, in which citizens expressed their views on urban problems and future changes, and which was subsequently separated into an independent project dedicated to urban improvement.
Evaluations
According to the participants in the training for vice governors held by the Sberbank Corporate University in December 2016, Active Citizen helped the Moscow mayor's office to win over the creative class, which is considered to be the electorate of Alexei Navalny, Sergei Sobyanin's rival in the 2013 mayoral elections.
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 concerned about general urban problems, understand the needs of the population and actually manage the agenda.
There is an opinion that the "Active Citizen" is intended to create the appearance of the legitimacy of the decisions of the mayor's office and the Moscow City Duma.
According to the author of the book, Robert Argenbright, it would be an exaggeration to call the "Active Citizen" e-democracy, since the townspeople are limited in their ability to bring topics up for discussion. He does not regard the system as a revolutionary breakthrough, but considers it a useful tool, as well as public hearings: Muscovites can ignore it, accept it “as it is,” or pressure city officials into bringing up more important issues for discussion.
In Vladimir Putin's message to the Federal Assembly on December 1, 2016, the President noted the "Active Citizen" as a useful experience worth sharing.
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 development (for example, a store or a household), but could not oppose construction on the site. Some polls were published in the "Active Citizen" when a decision on them had already been made (or should have been made). Examples are polls about the expansion of the network of bike paths, the format of the Sosenki "people's park" in Kotlovka (the improvement project was already under development), the place of the transfer of the Nagorny recreation center (one of the answers, the building of the cinema "Angara" bargaining). The results of the vote for the project for the improvement of Bolshaya and Malaya Bronnaya streets were published on the day of the conclusion of the state contract, according to the requirements of which the design solutions had to undergo a state examination 2 months earlier.
Deputy of the Moscow City Duma of the VI convocation from the Communist Party faction Elena Shuvalova stated that the format of Internet voting creates "property, age and educational qualifications", depriving people of the opportunity to participate without smartphones and access to the Internet.
Critics noted that the federal law "On the general principles of organizing local self-government in the Russian Federation" does not provide for 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 information. Journalist Ilya Rozhdestvensky, in an article on the website of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, also pointed out that issues were brought up for discussion in the Active Citizen, which the townspeople obviously have no right to solve. For example, in November-December 2014, a survey was held on the construction of the DreamWorks amusement park in the specially protected area of the Nagatinskaya Poima.
Critics pointed to the lack of transparency in the voting process due to the lack of intermediate results and information on the total number of voters.
The attention of opposition politicians was attracted by a poll on renaming the Voikovskaya metro station, conducted in November 2015, as a result of which the majority of votes received the preservation of the previous name. Both supporters and opponents of the renaming expressed speculations 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 Information Technology Department published a schedule for the receipt of new votes, and after Leonid Volkov sent a statement to law enforcement agencies, it announced a tender for an external audit of the "Active Citizen"
Awards
· Best M-Govt Service Awards 2015 in the category "Social sphere" in the international category, established by the Government of Saudi Arabia
2015 SABER (Superior Achievement in Branding, Reputation & Engagement) Award in the category of public institutions in Europe, Middle East and Africa, established by the specialized publication on public relations The Holmes Report.
· Runet Prize 2015 in the "State and Society" nomination.
