Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
A voting app run by supporters of prominent Putin critic Alexei Navalny is once again available for download on Apple’s Russian App Store, The Washington Post reports, citing independent researchers and Navalny’s chief of stall Leonid Volkov. Both Apple and Google removed the app last year after the Kremlin threatened to criminally prosecute company employees in the country.
The “Smart Voting” app contains over a thousand endorsements of Russian political candidates, WaPo notes, with the idea being to help citizens consolidate votes against the ruling United Russia party, which has Vladimir Putin as its de facto leader. Pressure to remove the app came ahead of Russia’s legislative election in September. WaPo reports that Google restored…
