Elections have begun in Russia — and with them record e-voting turnout (and zero at polling stations), a million voters in the 'DPR' and bribing of observers

Meduza's running report on the first voting day, 18 September 2026. It reports that by noon a hundred times as many Moscow voters had voted electronically as in the 2021 Duma election while polling stations recorded zero turnout; that virtual queues built up on Moscow's e-voting system, which the city election commission attributed to attacks on the system rather than to coerced voting; and that the Gosuslugi portal needed to vote online had stopped working from abroad. It reports public-sector workers being pushed into e-voting, the Communist Party's Altai committee threatening not to recognise online results, teachers in Yakutsk reporting parents' turnout, the claim that 75 per cent of voters in the occupied 'DPR' — more than a million — had voted early, nearly 1,300 Communist and Yabloko observers refused entry, and attempts to bribe observers in Chuvashia.