Okay, let me tell you right away what is the problem with electronic voting. It is not that someone stole something or did not steal it. It is not that it suddenly took a long time to count the votes, and not that there was more support for United Russia than in live voting and that all the candidates from the Sobyaninsky list suddenly passed through it. The problem with the EG is that no one really understands how it works. The voters cannot be blamed for this: in Russia, the government often, like Peter I, brings potatoes, but does not explain that you


need tubers, not tops.

In the view of critical commentators, people are poking something on their screen, and in the Electoral Commission, villains in jackets draw absolutely any numbers - there is no connection between these events.

Commentators, conditionally pro-government, believe that there is still an invisible wire between the voter's computer and the CEC's computer.

The numbers on it come to where they should go, and they count them more or less honestly.

In fact, the main thing to know about the EG system is that it works on the blockchain.

We all learned about the existence of this technology thanks to bitcoins - cryptocurrency, that is, virtual money.

The technology of "block chains" (literal translation of blockchain) is used there precisely so that anyone who wishes could not "draw" as much money for himself as he wants.

Roughly speaking, each next block in the chain contains information about all the


previous ones.

And it is impossible to change the information in any separate block without breaking the entire system.

Then everyone can download the blockchain to their computer and then compare it with what is on the network.

The blockchain is encrypted, but the keys to the cipher of this vote are in the public domain.

Anyone can climb inside and unwind the chain.

In other words, it is impossible in principle to perform any manipulations with the EG result imperceptibly.

Every step, every modification can be tracked and compared.

And the main property of the "wire" connecting the voter's computer and the CEC computer is not that it exists, but that it is transparent.

How it happened that more voters voted for United Russia electronically than offline, although logically it should have been the other way around - these are the details.

Over the past day, a lot of explanations have appeared on the network, you can choose any.

Personally, I like two.

One is logical, the other is emotional.

Logically simple: the opposition forces called for a boycott of the "digital", while among the loyal voters, on the contrary, there was intensified campaigning for.

Electronic voting was as much the brainchild of Sobyanin as “smart voting” was the brainchild of Alexei Navalny.

One won over the other - what's so strange about that?

People did exactly what was expected of them.

The second possible explanation is not so obvious, but I like it better as a writer. When voting online, we are alone with a monitor screen. We are not distracted or led astray by friends and acquaintances who have joined in the elections with us, neighbors and just random people. If there is an entity in the world with which we are as honest as possible, then it is a computer. We trust her with all our secrets, up to intimate correspondence and preferences in pornography. Nobody will look over your shoulder, nobody will judge. And at the same time, alone, we are more susceptible to fears than in a noisy company.

No matter how much conventional liberals say about their uniqueness, their oppositional instinct is collective and herd.

Everyone ran - and I ran.

But, being left alone, we can critically examine that “beautiful Russia of the future” that we are promised, honestly ask ourselves if we want it, and honestly answer “no”.

And then look out the window and see Sobyanin's Moscow, which is not ideal, but which ... here it is - is and will be for a long time, if you vote in the way that Sergei Semyonovich advises us.

What do you think the average person will choose?

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.