Russian presidential elections 2024: New voting options, record turnout

Russia has concluded voting in the seventh presidential election of its modern history. This time voting was held over three days and saw four new Russian regions – Kherson and Zaporozhye, as well as Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics – taking part.

Ballot papers offered a choice of four candidates. Apart from the incumbent leader, Vladimir Putin, all other candidates were nominated by their parliamentary parties. President Vladimir Putin, who ran as an independent, was expected to win by a wide margin, according to exit polls.

New rules & voting options

It was also the first time presidential elections in Russia were held over three days, for twelve hours daily between March 15 and 17. The new voting window was adopted by lawmakers and signed by President Putin in 2020. The decision was justified by the need to provide people with a wider range of options for “exercising their voting rights.” Russians could cast their ballot at any time between 8am and 8pm local time on any of the three days.

Residents of almost 30 Russian regions, including Moscow, also had the opportunity to vote online. In the Russian capital, residents whose identities had already been verified with various state online services could do that right away by using the federal or local electronic services portal.

In other regions, a preliminary request was required. A state online voting monitor reported that more than 4.7 million people registered for electronic voting, and 94% of these exercised their rights online.

Election disruption attempts

This year’s ballot also saw sporadic attempts to interfere with the work at polling stations. Almost 30 such cases in a total of 20 Russian regions saw perpetrators attacking ballot boxes, according to CEC head Ella Pamfilova. In eight cases, suspects tried to set the boxes on fire; in other instances, there were attempts to pour dyed liquids inside the boxes.

The attacks resulted in a total of 214 ballots being “irreversibly damaged,” Pamfilova revealed. In St Petersburg, a young woman threw a Molotov cocktail at a polling station entrance. The incident resulted in no casualties, and the perpetrator was detained at the scene and placed into custody. She now faces charges of disrupting the election process, which on conviction carry penalties ranging from a hefty fine to up to five years behind bars, depending on the severity of the offense.

In the Russian city of Perm, another activist set off a powerful firecracker in a building where a polling station was located. The explosion prompted the evacuation of some 50 people. The perpetrator ended up being the only person injured in the incident. According to the local authorities, she suffered an injury to her arm and was hospitalized. The local media described her condition as critical.

Russian electoral commissions in Kherson Region and Zaporozhye Region also reported several Ukrainian attacks targeting polling stations, including drone strikes and shelling. The attacks led to some injuries, the reports said.

Candidates

The current election is the fifth for Russia’s incumbent leader, Vladimir Putin. As of 2018, he was running as an independent while also enjoying the support of several political forces, including the governing United Russia party and the opposition party Fair Russia-For Truth, as well as the Rodina party. Much of his program was outlined in his recent address to the Federal Assembly. Putin’s major policy goals include fighting poverty, supporting families with children, and strengthening Russia’s economic independence.

The Communist Party nominated Nikolay Kharitonov, a veteran politician who already ran for president in 2004 but lost to Putin and took second place at that time. At this year’s elections, he was running with a program including a progressive tax scale, abolishing taxes for low-income citizens, and lowering the retirement age.

The right-wing Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) was represented by its new leader, Leonid Slutsky, who took over after the passing in 2022 of its long-time head, Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Seen as hawkish, Slutsky advocates closer cooperation with Asian countries while considering the West to be a threat. He is also calling for tighter control over “foreign agents” and for accelerating Russia’s military campaign against Ukraine.

The fourth candidate on the ballot was Vladislav Davankov, an MP and a member of the New People Party created in 2021. Although his political career started only three years ago, Davankov joined the budget and tax committee and also became a State Duma vice chairman under United Russia’s Vyacheslav Volodin. Last year, the politician ran for the Moscow mayor’s office but finished only fourth with 5.34% of the vote. His presidential program is centered on peace and negotiations, with the caveat “on our terms, not a step back.”