The presidential election in Russia reached its final day on Sunday, the first polling stations in the Russian Far East already closed at 20:00 local time. Ella Pamfilova, the president of the Russian Central Election Commission (CEC), announced on Sunday morning that the participation rate in the election, including online voters, was 61.7 percent after two days. The highest participation rate, 89 percent, was registered in Tuva.
There are places where the voting has already ended, and there are places where the big game is about to begin.
Photo: Alexander Nemenov / AFP
According to the Russian Ministry of Digitization, 90 percent of the voters registered for electronic voting in 28 regions, about 4.25 million people, accepted the option. The number does not include data from Moscow, where the electronic system of state services does not require prior registration to vote.
4.3 million people voted in the capital on Sunday morning, 3.2 million of them online.
According to Pamfilova, since the beginning of the election, the remote voting system has been hit by 280,000 overload attacks. According to reports, there were attempts to disrupt voting in several regions. A young woman was detained in St. Petersburg for throwing a Molotov cocktail at the entrance of a polling station, and another in Moscow for pouring liquid into the ballot box.
Pamfilova said that in 29 polling stations in 20 regions of Russia, they tried to set fire to the ballot boxes or pour liquid into them. The president of the CIK said that the not very wise perpetrators were pressured by Ukraine and European countries or incited to this act. Several voting districts were attacked in the territories annexed from Ukraine. In Enerhodar, drones dropped leaflets agitating for the boycott of the election.
In the presidential election, it is possible to choose between incumbent head of state Vladimir Putin, Nikolai Kharitonov, parliamentary representative of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Vladyslav Davankov, deputy speaker of the New People’s Party, and Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the parliamentary committee of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia. For Slutsky and Davankov, this is the first presidential election in their political careers, the second for Kharitonov, and the fifth for Putin.
According to the CIK, 1,115 foreigners from 129 countries came to observe the elections.