The Russian local elections that took place at the beginning of September did not produce any surprises. All the Kremlin-approved candidates for governorships won emphatic victories, and the ruling United Russia party gained majorities in all the regional parliaments that were up for grabs. Kremlin officials were able to boast of a record turnout, and the use of electronic voting in Moscow ensured an almost clean sweep for pro-government candidates (the opposition traditionally does well in the Russian capital). At the same time, a few hiccups showed that the system does occasionally malfunction. 

The Russian authorities have a plethora of tools to influence the electoral process. These include blocking undesirable candidates from standing, pressuring state employees and requesting companies to encourage employees to vote, electronic voting, elections that last multiple days, and plain old-fashioned falsification. Indeed, Russian elections have come to resemble a corporate event. While they may look like elections from the outside, they have nothing in common with competitive democracy.

In the twenty-one regions where governor elections took place in September, fifteen Kremlin-approved candidates got 78 percent or higher. It appears that 80 percent was some sort of target. At the same time, governors didn’t want to be seen to be exceeding the 87 percent support President Vladimir Putin allegedly received in presidential elections back in March.

The authorities gave up trying to make elections look convincing long ago. They field candidates without political experience, or from other regions. For example, the small pro-government Green Alternative party put forward the same candidate in governor elections in both the Samara and Chelyabinsk regions. He had no links with either place.

In certain circumstances, however, the system occasionally fails to produce the sought-after result. The incumbent governor of St. Petersburg, Alexander Beglov, only got 59 percent—a very modest result by current Russian standards. And that was despite other candidates having no public profile and deliberately putting forward controversial ideas: LDPR candidate Maxim Yakovlev suggested prohibiting foreign music; Green Alternative’s Pavel Bragin wanted to ban non-electric cars from the city center; and the Communist candidate Sergei Malinkovich wanted to rename the city back to Leningrad.

Yet even with all the tools at their disposal, Beglov’s unpopularity meant that the authorities were unable to secure him an impressive election result. Similarly, Grigory Filimonov, governor of the Vologda region, got just 62 percent. He was hamstrung by his abrasive style and oddball image.

The system’s limits were also evident in regional parliament elections. The Kremlin has long sought to knock the Communist Party off its perch as the country’s second most popular political party, and pushes officials to suppress the Communist vote. In some regions, this is exactly what happened (in Bryansk and Crimea, for example, the LDPR placed second). But the authorities were unable to replicate this success nationwide.

In the six ethnic republics where parliamentary elections took place, the Communists came in second. It proved impossible to elevate the LDPR because voters remember how that party sought to curtail the autonomy of ethnic republics, as well as the extreme nationalism of the late LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky. This illustrates that when the Kremlin’s wishes come up against entrenched local beliefs, it’s impossible to fully control elections.  

It’s for these reasons that the Kremlin intends to continue increasing the number of levers at its disposal to influence elections. Above all, this means expanding electronic voting, which makes it much easier for the authorities to achieve the desired outcome, and has already extinguished the impact of anti-regime sentiment in the Russian capital.

Officially, September’s elections to the Moscow City Duma resulted in United Russia winning thirty-eight of the forty-five available single-mandate districts. Two districts were won by pro-government independents, and three others by in-system opposition candidates following deals with the authorities. Just five years ago, the results were very different: twenty of the forty-five single-mandate districts went to candidates endorsed by opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s smart voting system, which sought to maximize electoral damage to United Russia.

The main reason for this dramatic shift is electronic voting. In these Moscow elections, just 142,000 of over 3 million votes cast were paper ballots. This allows the authorities to guarantee the election of both United Russia and in-system opposition candidates. Following this victory in Moscow, there is no doubt that electronic voting will be introduced in other regions in the 2026 State Duma elections, especially those with a traditionally strong protest movement, such as St. Petersburg.

Finally, these elections have shown that splits within the elite can also lead to the Kremlin losing control. For the moment, this has only occurred in politically insignificant elections. But if such an elite split were to occur at a higher level, its consequences would be unpredictable.

One example was the battle between two prominent local politicians for the mayorship of Bratsk, a city in the Irkutsk region with a population of about 200,000. The official United Russia candidate, incumbent mayor Sergei Serebrennikov, had the support of the authorities and part of the local elite. But he was challenged by the head of the Bratsk district Alexander Dubrovin, who was backed by influential local groups and used his connections to register as an independent. In the end, Bratsk voters chose Dubrovin—not an opposition figure as such (he is also a member of United Russia), but someone who opposed the officially approved candidate.

Of course, the Kremlin will continue seeking to maximize the “manageability” of elections as it prepares for the State Duma elections in 2026. At the very least, electronic voting will likely be rolled out in most large Russian cities (where support for the opposition is usually higher), and pressure on local elites will increase. However, the Kremlin is unlikely to be able to overcome, for example, the reluctance of voters in ethnic republics to cast their ballots for nationalists, or ensure that voters back unimpressive candidates (like Beglov). 

Russia’s September local elections showed that there are distinct limits on the Kremlin’s ability to achieve its desired electoral outcomes—and even small anomalies have the potential to turn into big problems.