On the second meeting of the Central Referendum Commission

On 16 September 2024 within the framework of preparation and conduct of the Republican referendum scheduled for 6 October, the extended meeting of the Central Referendum Commission of Kazakhstan was conducted, where the following issues were considered:

1. on ensuring conditions for persons with disabilities;

2. on the work of local executive bodies on material and technical equipment of polling stations, creation of conditions for ensuring the rights of persons with disabilities, submission to the referendum commission of lists of citizens eligible to participate in the republican referendum;

3. on the production of ballot papers for voting at the Republican referendum;

4. on the procedure for voting at the Republican referendum;

5. on accreditation of observers of international organization and foreign states to the Republican referendum.

The CRC Members, representatives of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry, Internal Affairs, and the media attended the meeting. The chairs and members of territorial referendum commissions of regions, cities of Astana, Almaty and Shymkent, as well as chiefs of staff of regional akims participated via videoconference mode.  The online broadcasting of the meeting was conducted through the Internet resource and YouTube with the provision of sign language interpretation.

On the first issue the Central Referendum Commission Member, Anastasia Shchegortsova delivered report about ensuring conditions for persons with disabilities during the Referendum.

She reported that ensuring the electoral rights of persons with disabilities is an absolute priority for the activities of the Central Referendum Commission. On 3 September 2024, at the first meeting of the Referendum campaign, the Resolution on ensuring conditions for persons with disabilities was adopted.

According to this Resolution, local executive bodies instructed to take the necessary measures to ensure the provision of facilities for persons with disabilities at the Referendum polling stations. The equipment of polling premises includes a number of mandatory measures to ensure physical accessibility of the premises, installation of tactile signs, special voting booths, computers with headphones, magnifying glasses, etc. Representatives of non-governmental organizations are involved in monitoring the readiness of polling stations.

On 13 September 2024, the extended meeting of the Working Group under the CEC on ensuring the electoral rights of persons with disabilities was held. The Working Group considered issues relating to all three categories of persons with disabilities: persons with visual, hearing and locomotors disabilities. The aspects of work on filling in the “Accessibility Map” of objects, recommendations of the members of the Working Group to improve measures to provide persons with disabilities during the voting were also considered. 

As part of the Referendum preparation, a two-day online training will be conducted on 18-19 September. Participants of the training will be representatives of referendum commissions and employees of akimats in charge of social issues. The training program has been developed and compiled by experts in the field of electoral rights and needs of persons with disabilities. The training conducted jointly with our permanent partner – the Public Association “Women with Disabilities “Shyrak” with the support of the OSCE Program Office.

Regarding agenda’s second issue, Nurlan Abdirov informed the meeting participants that within the framework of the current campaign from 9 September to 3 October, the Chairman and the Central Referendum Commission Members began to visit all 20 regions with inspection visits, as well as to provide methodological and practical assistance to the territorial referendum bodies. 

Thus, to date, 7 regions have been visited and inspection control on preparation for the Referendum by territorial referendum commissions and all authorized bodies of Akmola, Atyrau, West Kazakhstan, Zhambyl, Pavlodar, Turkestan regions and Shymkent city has been conducted. During the visits, the quality of training of territorial referendum commission members and its organization was assessed, and emphasis was placed on practical cases in conducting voting.

Methodological assistance and specific practical recommendations were provided to the territorial referendum commissions and local executive bodies. Regarding the training of commission members, the training of all 1722 members of the territorial referendum commissions were conducted in accordance with the training plans and schedules. From 2 September to 15 September, the chairpersons, deputy chairpersons and secretaries of the precinct referendum commissions have been trained. To date, all 30,981 members of the management staff of the precinct referendum commissions have been trained. From 16 September to 5 October, it is planned to conduct training for members of precinct referendum commissions, which are 37 346 people. On-site inspection visits and control activities will continue. The CRC members will continue their visits to the remaining regions, where they will check the organization of training and readiness of polling stations for the voting day.

The heads of akimats of all regions and cities of republican significance reported on the work are being done to form the lists of citizens eligible to participate in the referendum, material and technical equipment of the referendum polling stations, including provision of conditions for persons with disabilities. 

Addressing to the representatives of local executive bodies, the CRC Head emphasized that it was necessary to keep under control the issues of readiness of polling stations for the voting day, as well as to provide all conditions for persons with disabilities.

On the third issue of the meeting Sabila Mustafina, CRC Member reported that according to subparagraph 7 of paragraph 1 of Article 21 and paragraph 4 of Article 27 of the Constitutional Law “On Republican Referendum”, the Central Referendum Commission according to given mandate establishes the form and text of the ballot paper and the procedure of its production.

The draft form and text of the ballot paper has been prepared in the state and Russian languages. 

The submitted question: “Do you agree with the construction of a nuclear power plant in Kazakhstan?”.

And the options of the voter's answer: 

-“YES, I agree”.  

-“NO, I disagree”.

The voter puts any mark in the empty square to the right of the answer option to which he/she votes.

According to the submitted information and reports of the regions akimats, the cities of Astana, Almaty and Shymkent 12 244 683 citizens were included in the lists of the Republic.

The articles of the Constitutional Law “On the Republican Referendum” also establishes that voting ballots are delivered to the precinct referendum commissions not earlier than three days and not later than one day before the voting.

The CRC Chairperson emphasized the need to provide visually impaired people with the opportunity to vote. For this purpose, a stencil (without Braille) and an audio version of the ballot paper are prepared and delivered to each polling station. In addition, Braille stencils will be available at those polling stations where citizens who will be voting familiar with Braille. The territorial referendum commissions provided the relevant information based on the data of local executive bodies in each region.

The CRC Deputy Chairman Konstantin Petrov reported on Agenda’s fourth item. He informed that every citizen, starting from 20 September has the right to apply to the polling station of the referendum and check his/her inclusion in the list of voters and the correctness of the provided data. From the same day and until 18.00 hours on 5 October, the citizens who is going to leave the region of their residence, have the opportunity to get an absentee certificate at the precinct referendum commission at the place of their inclusion in the list, which gives the right to vote at any polling station in other settlements.

An absentee voting certificate is issued based on the written application and presentation of an applicant’s identity document. It may be obtained by proxy and notary certificate for it is not required. Absentee voting certificates shall not be issued to citizens wishing to vote at another polling station within the same locality. Lost absentee certificates cannot be restored and duplicates shall not be issued. 

In case of illness or care for a sick relative, it is possible to apply to the precinct commission with an application for voting at home.

For citizens who for some reason cannot find themselves on the list, but actually reside within the boundaries of the referendum precinct, for them will be an opportunity on the voting day to apply to the precinct commission, who will check the address of registration of the citizen. In case of confirmation of residence, the citizen will be included in the list. Citizens, who are not registered, and for this reason have not been included in the list at any polling station, have an opportunity to be registered at the referendum polling station on the day of voting and can vote there. To implement these algorithms, the CRC together with the Ministry Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry and the Ministry of Internal Affairs have developed two relevant online services  for checking information on the place of citizens' registration (it will work at 4,622 polling stations) and registration of citizens at the addresses of referendum polling stations (it will work at 196 polling stations).

The voting will take place at 10,327 polling stations. In addition, as of 16 September 2024 at the place of registration of citizens in 9,709 polling stations as well as at 618 polling stations of temporary stay of citizens, including 78 at the representative offices of the Republic of Kazakhstan in 63 foreign countries.

Konstantin Petrov also explained that ballots shall be issued to the citizens based on the lists of citizens eligible to participate in the referendum upon presentation of the identity document. The electronic document from the E-gov portal or from the bank applications can be presented. Citizens sign in the list to receive the ballot. The ballot shall be filled in by voters in the secret ballot booth. Nobody except for the voter is allowed to be present during filling in the ballot. The only exception is that the citizens who cannot fill in the ballot by themselves they have the right to use assistance of the person they trust. 

The speaker reminded to the meeting participants that the citizens of Kazakhstan, the representing accredited public associations, non-profit organizations, as well as accredited observers from foreign countries and international organizations, the representatives of foreign media might be present during the referendum. 

On the voting day from the moment of opening of the polling station and until the establishment of the results of voting during the votes counting at the polling station of the referendum are eligible to be present at the same time: 

- one observer from each accredited public association, non-profit organization of the RK; 

- observers of foreign states and international organizations, who may be accompanied by an interpreter;

- one representative from each mass media, no more than three representatives from each TV channel, provided that they have an official ID and an editorial assignment.

Interference to the work of the referendum commissions is not allowed.

On the fifth issue, the CRC Secretary Mukhtar Erman at his speech informed that since the opening of the Institute of International Observation on 3 September this year the Ministry of Foreign Affairs submitted for accreditation of the observers the candidates from 1 international organization and 5 foreign states.

The Observer Mission of the Commonwealth of Independent States submitted for accreditation 5 observers, 1 candidate from the USA, 2 candidates from Turkiye, Azerbaijan and Moldova, 1 candidate from Armenia also were submitted. 

As soon as the proposals for accreditation are received, the data on observers will be updated.

At the end of the session, the briefing traditionally was conducted for the media representatives, where the members of the Central Referendum Commission answered all the questions of the journalists.