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In nearly half of Russia’s regions, chairs of precinct election commissions are more likely to be dismissed if they failed to deliver a high turnout and strong results for Putin. The findings come from a data-driven investigation by Novaya Gazeta.
The journalists analyzed the data compiled by electoral analyst Ivan Shukshin on changes in the composition of precinct election commissions that occurred between the 2018 and 2024 presidential elections. By law, the composition of these commissions must be renewed at least once every five years. However, in some cases, entirely new commissions were formed and new chairs appointed, while in others, the previous chairs remained in place.
Graphs produced by Novaya Gazeta show the distribution of results in the 2018 presidential election in the Volgograd Region. On both graphs, the vertical axis represents the number of precinct election commissions reporting results that fall into a particular band. On the left, the horizontal axis shows the share of votes for Putin. On the right, voter turnout data is presented. Pink bars indicate that the precinct chair remained the same for the 2024 election, while blue bars indicate that the chair was replaced.
As Novaya Gazeta found, in 41 Russian regions precinct chairs were dismissed more often in districts with lower turnout and/or a lower percentage of votes for Vladimir Putin. The difference was statistically significant, and the reverse trend was observed in only two regions: Novosibirsk and Omsk. In both Moscow and St. Petersburg, commission chairs who delivered lower support for Putin tended to be replaced.
Although the study focuses on the period 2018-2024, its author notes that similar trends likely held in past cycles, further distorting the official election results that have been produced in recent years: “It is quite possible that dismissals were common before. By the time of the 2024 elections, there were even fewer precincts in the country where the results were previously low, meaning it has become almost impossible to estimate the real percentage of support for the authorities.”