Polls close in Russian vote with a near-certain outcome

By Ivana Kottasová, CNN

(CNN) — Polls have closed in Russia’s tightly controlled parliamentary elections with President Vladimir Putin once again set to cement his dominance over domestic politics.

In the absence of credible opposition, the question is not whether but by how much the United Russia party – which backs Putin – will win, although turnout could give an indication of support for the war in Ukraine.

Final election results will not be tallied before September 25, but according to initial data from the Central Election Commission, the United Russia party is easily on track to win with 57.54% of votes.

Overall turnout across Russia was at 56.66%, with Moscow seeing a record-high voter participation, according to the commission.

In the last parliamentary elections, held in 2021 – before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine – United Russia took 324 of the 450 seats in the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament.

Putin is not a member of the party, although he served as its leader between 2008 and 2012.

As the sitting president, Putin was not on the ballot. He is not up for election until 2030, having won the most recent presidential election in 2024 with just under 88.5% of the vote.

Meaningful opposition is effectively nonexistent in Russia, with critics either barred, in jail or exiled abroad. According to the independent human rights monitor OVD-Info, more than 2,000 people are currently in prison for political reasons.

Russia’s only registered anti-war party, Yabloko – “Apple” in Russian – was briefly allowed to take part before being barred by the Supreme Court last month from the federal party-lists election.

Some individual Yabloko candidates were allowed to run in single-seat local districts, even though the Supreme Court banned the party’s main national list. But these candidates faced significant restrictions and pressures. Two of the party’s deputy leaders were recently imprisoned on charges related to their anti-war stances and social media posts.

Yabloko said on Saturday that one of its election observers “lost consciousness” while being detained at a polling station in St. Petersburg. It said numerous other Yabloko observers were barred from polling stations elsewhere.

The outcome of the election is likely to be used by the Kremlin to claim a stronger mandate, saying it illustrates Russians’ support for Putin and what the Kremlin calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Ahead of the vote, Putin signaled in a televised speech to the nation that the election results will show Russians are united behind the army.

“Your choice and determination will show once again that millions of people are backing our fighters and that we stand together, united by shared values, our historical memory, love for our Motherland,” Putin said.

Rather than the actual results, observers will likely look at turnout as an indicator of how Russians are feeling about the war and Russia’s political trajectory.

Electronic voting questions

Polls closed on Sunday after three days of voting across Russia’s 11 time zones and at Russian embassies and consulates abroad.

People living in areas of Ukraine that are currently occupied by Russia were also asked to vote, with new constituencies added for Moscow-controlled parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

Ukraine rejected the elections taking place in its territory, calling them a “farce.” As the elections unfolded, Russia continued to attack its neighbor. According to Kyiv, Moscow fired hundreds of drones and several missiles against Ukrainian cities over the election period.

Separately, Kyiv launched one of its largest attacks against Moscow overnight into Sunday. More than 1,500 drones were launched, killing at least two people and damaging a major oil refinery.

After debuting the option during the last election in 2021, online and electronic voting was widely available – and encouraged – this time around. Moscow went as far as offering its residents incentives in the form of points for prizes, if they chose to vote electronically instead of casting a paper ballot.

Some voters in Moscow told the independent Russian news outlet SotaVision they weren’t issued paper ballots because of “malfunctions” and were encouraged to vote via an electronic terminal instead. “They did this on purpose, the b****rds,” one voter told SotaVision.

Critics have long been suspicious of the Kremlin’s introduction of electronic voting because they argue it’s less transparent. Russian authorities reject criticism of their electoral processes and insist elections are held in accordance with the law.

Putin himself opted to vote online, with the Kremlin releasing a video showing him navigating the online system and casting his vote.

Russian state news agency TASS reported outages and malfunctions of the electronic voting system in Moscow on Friday into Saturday, quoting Central Election Commission chair Ella Pamfilova as saying this was due to a “very large-scale and intense” attack.

During the elections, more than 3,000 waves of Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks on election infrastructure were recorded, according to Pamfilova.

In 10 regions, 74 buildings housing election commissions were damaged or destroyed during the voting days, Pamfilova said.

The remote electronic voting system was attacked 135 times, Rostelecom’s networks 420 times, and electronic government infrastructure nearly 2,000 times, the commission said.

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CNN’s Jonny Hallam contributed reporting.