Under pressure from the almighty Kremlin party United Russia, the Internet companies Google and Apple have removed the app for so-called smart voting from their stores. This was announced by the team of the imprisoned opposition activist Alexei Navalny, who had developed this method to break the Putin party’s monopoly on power.
The system sounds simple: by always uniting behind a common candidate in the respective constituencies, the aim was to prevent the opposition votes from splintering. An app called “Navalny”, named after the Kremlin critic, was supposed to help with the selection of the regional candidate. But when the election started yesterday, the voters could suddenly no longer access the app. The homepage for “Smart Voting” has been blocked for days. The opposition members are outraged: The corporations are violating basic human rights and threatening to file a lawsuit. They are now promoting the possibility of reaching those eligible to vote via Telegram and YouTube.
