Observing Russia’s State Duma Elections - Report from Moscow
Russia held its State Duma (Parliament) elections from September 18–20. Caleb Maupin represented the Center for Political Innovation as a participant in the International Association of Political and Electoral Expertise (IAPEE) and observed the voting process alongside representatives from a number of countries who traveled to Russia for this purpose.
Caleb joined a team of English-speaking international delegates from Myanmar, Slovakia, and the United States to visit polling stations across Moscow, as well as the Civic Chamber, from which election monitoring was being conducted. He observed special voting machines for people with disabilities, paper and electronic ballot options, and a three-day voting period. When speaking to Russian media at the Civic Chamber, he contrasted what he observed with elections in the United States: “What I’m seeing here is an election that is much more democratic than our American elections. For example, every part of the Russian Federation is represented in your Duma. Whereas in America, the people living in Puerto Rico, the people in Guam, the people in the Virgin Islands, the people in all the U.S. territories have no say and no representation at the federal level.”
One polling station Caleb and the other observers visited in Moscow had reportedly been hit with a cyberattack. Poll workers explained that paper voting remained available when electronic voting was temporarily disrupted for three minutes. Russian authorities separately reported cyberattacks targeting election infrastructure during the three-day vote.
Caleb criticized Western press coverage that portrays Russia’s elections as illegitimate, stating that what he directly observed differed strongly from innuendo in the American media. During his visits, he saw efforts to provide voting access for people with disabilities and people unable to travel to polling stations including those in the hospital for medical treatment and prisoners. He also highlighted the presence of multiple political parties on the ballot, with some of the seats assigned in a system of proportional representation and media access ensured to smaller parties in order to present their platforms: “What I’m seeing is a country that is doing everything it can to maximize participation, to ensure transparency, to enable proper access to voting, and doing it within the context of a huge amount of pressure being placed on Russia.”
He continued: “The fact that there’s an app available, the fact that there’s paper ballots available, the fact that there’s electronic voting available, the fact there are so many polling stations, this is a real effort to make sure the voice of the Russian people is heard.”
As he departed, his flight was delayed by six hours as Moscow faced a massive wave of Ukrainian drone strikes on the final day of voting. Ukrainian forces launched hundreds of drones toward Moscow and the surrounding region. Ukrainian officials clearly intended to disrupt the voting process, and among their targets were civilian residential areas as well as energy infrastructure.