Moscow (EFE).- Russian President Vladimir Putin opened Friday’s parlimentary elections by voting online, as one-fifth of the 111 million eligible Russian voters have been called to cast their ballots.
Tight security measures were in place due to the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, with no ceasefire for the upcoming 72-hour voting period.
At several Moscow polling stations, EFE observed that security forces armed with submachine guns were guarding the buildings’ interiors and exteriors.
Authorities reported that over 600 drones were shot down on Friday night in the European part of the country before the polls opened.
The Moscow City Government estimated that 32 drones were shot down on Friday as they were heading toward the city of 13 million residents.
Due to the drone threat, several polling stations in the resort city of Sochi (on the Black Sea) were closed for a few hours.
Putin leads by example
Although he is not a big fan of the internet, the Kremlin leader exercised his right to vote online, as he did in the 2024 presidential election.
The Russian presidency released a video showing Putin voting on a desktop computer in his office.
Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin joined him.
Voter turnout among Russians who chose this method exceeded 50% during the first few hours of voting, two million in Moscow alone.
As in previous elections, the Central Election Commission (CEC) emphasized electronic voting, a practice that the opposition claims enables fraud.
At one polling place, a commission member urged each voter to cast their ballot electronically at terminals set up for that purpose.
As of Friday, the chairwoman of Russia’s CEC Ella Pamfilova denied that the servers had been hacked or that information had been compromised.
«We managed to repel several attacks and threats of this kind. All this cheap provocation is worthless. We are confident that it will not interfere with the expression of our citizens’ will,” she said, noting that, despite the provocateurs, voting is proceeding smoothly.
However, the anonymous hacker group CikLeak claimed to have hacked the servers and exposed that the CEC “has created a completely opaque remote electronic voting system” that allows fraud.
They urged Russians to vote only on the last day of the election “to make it harder to rig the results.”
High voter turnout
Although it was a workday, voter turnout was high on Friday. By 6:00 pm Moscow time, it had reached 21.58%, including voters from the four annexed Ukrainian regions. By that time, many polling stations beyond the Urals had already closed.
Turnout in Moscow was higher than in the rest of the country, suggesting that the authorities mobilized administrative resources, such as civil servants, teachers, and healthcare workers.
According to analysts, low turnout benefits United Russia (UR), the Kremlin’s party, especially among those who support an immediate end to hostilities.
In an act of protest against the war, the Democratic opposition and dissidents in exile have called on their supporters to vote only at 12:00 pm on Sunday.EFE
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