Team Navalny reports DDoS attacks on ‘Smart Vote’ website

The “Smart Vote” website and Telegram bot are being subjected to DDoS attacks, Alexey Navalny’s team reported late in the evening on Thursday, September 16.

In a message on Telegram, Team Navalny wrote that the “Smart Vote” website and Telegram bot are currently facing the “most powerful” DDoS attacks. “Requests may not work temporarily. We’re trying to deal with it,” Team Navalny said.

The DDoS attacks are taking place on the eve of the three-day voting period in Russia’s State Duma elections, which will take place from September 17–19.

Alexey Navalny’s team published its “Smart Vote” candidate endorsements for the State Duma elections on the morning of September 15. They also uploaded the list of candidates to Google Docs. On the evening of September 16, telecoms providers in Russia began blocking Google Docs, as well as Telegram’s publishing service telegra.ph — but the blocking had stopped by the next morning. Nevertheless, Team Navalny published their list of “Smart Vote” candidates on GitHub on September 16.

Russia’s federal censor recently blocked the “Smart Vote” website, as well as the “Navalny” mobile application, which includes a “Smart Vote” function.