Social Media in the Electoral Process: Findings from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The article identifies the specificities of using social media in the electoral process under COVID-19-related restrictions. With the ban on public gatherings, politicians had to reconsider traditional measures and methods of communicating with citizens during elections. This prompted the refinement of methods using relevant inter-net technologies across various platforms. Based on an analysis of practices in remote voting during elections to the Moscow City Duma from 2019 to 2021 and electoral campaigns in Russia during the pandemic period, the author concludes that under stringent epidemiological constraints, it became evident that internet voting is a crucial independent direction in electoral campaigns. The tools used for organizing online citizen voting proce-dures are identified, as well as technologies for remote voting on digital platforms are described.