Regional elections get underway in Russia amid fears that e-voting will further reduce oversight

A three-day voting period began in Russia on Friday with 20 regions and the city of Sevastopol in Russian-annexed Crimea electing governors, 11 regions choosing new regional legislatures and 25 regions selecting local councils.

“While these events can hardly be described as genuine elections, they are still among the few indicators of internal dynamics in a country that has been waging war against Ukraine for the past three and a half years,”  Russian Election Monitor, a European election transparency initiative, said as the polls opened. 

As well as in-person voting at polling stations, Russians in most regions will have the choice of casting their ballots using remote electronic voting (REV), with over 1.7 million voters registering to do so, according to state-affiliated news agency Interfax. 

According to Russian Election Monitor, the use of REV removes all public oversight of electronic vote counts by preventing voters from verifying how their ballots were counted and eliminating the possibility of a paper-based recount.

In total, over 5,000 elections and local referendums will be held over the weekend, with most voting expected to take place on Sunday. Once votes are counted, some 47,000 elective positions will be filled, state-affiliated business daily Kommersant reported on Friday.

Among the candidates are 1,397 Russian military veterans who have recently returned from the war in Ukraine, according to figures provided by the Central Election Commission. Some of those standing for election served in and even commanded military units accused of committing war crimes against civilians, including in Bucha and the southern region of Kherson.

Praising the number of veteran candidates, Central Election Commission head Ella Pamfilova said their participation was vital to the country’s health as they would bring with them “the heightened sense of justice that is characteristic of our heroes”.

According to Elections in Details, a Russian election monitoring group, 2,541 candidates with criminal records will also be on the ballot this weekend, with theft, fraud, hooliganism, drunk driving, and violent crimes their most frequent charges.