Analytical report on the composition of election commissions of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation at the start of the 2026 State Duma elections, in four parts

Parts 3 and 4: Who is in charge in the election commission?

Introduction ↑

In the past few weeks we have all witnessed the removal of the lists and candidates of the Yabloko party and of some Communist Party candidates. The plaintiffs are usually their "rivals" from among other parties. However, in most cases the regional election commissions, together with the prosecutor's office, support the plaintiffs' demands, despite the fact that they themselves registered these candidates. At the same time, election commissions are by law collegial bodies, and for someone to be able to legally represent their position, including in court, this matter must be discussed at a commission meeting and an appropriate decision must be taken on it. We see nothing of the sort. So whose position is being defended by certain "representatives of election commissions" in all these proceedings?

Read about this in the final parts of our report. Who actually runs the regional election commissions and whose interests they really represent.

We present the third and fourth parts of the report analysing the composition of the election commissions of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation (regional election commissions), as well as the territorial election commission of the federal territory "Sirius". It is these election commissions (ECs) that will play a key role in organising and conducting the procedure for counting voters' votes in the upcoming elections directly across all territories of present-day Russia. The two previous parts of the report were devoted to how far the ordinary voter is able to understand who exactly bears responsibility for the honesty of elections in their region, as well as to the real party affiliation of members of regional election commissions.

In total, we analysed the composition of 90 regional election commissions (89 regional election commissions and the territorial election commission of the federal territory "Sirius"). At the same time, for eight regional election commissions (Khabarovsk Krai, Voronezh, Ivanovo, Kaliningrad, Orenburg, Tambov, Tver oblasts and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug), which were formed in late April — May 2026, we also analysed the outgoing compositions (in these cases the text will note that we are talking about the composition formed in 2021 or 2026). Therefore, a total of 98 compositions were analysed. Taking this into account, we were able to identify 1,355 commission members with the right to a decisive vote (MRDV), including those who left during the work of the analysed compositions. 1,201 MRDVs may take part in organising the 2026 elections in the regions, if the commissions are fully staffed. At least 327 MRDVs work on a permanent (staff) basis (MRDV(S)), i.e. they receive a state salary for this. However, these are only approximate figures, since the official data are incomplete; for example, the compositions of the election commissions of Zaporozhye and Kherson oblasts are classified. Therefore, all figures in this report are a lower, confirmed estimate.

Key findings ↑

1. In the modern system of public power in Russia, the election commissions of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation (regional election commissions) have undergone a deep institutional transformation: the commissions have been functionally integrated into the structure of the executive vertical, as a result of which they have in fact lost their status as independent collegial bodies and have been transformed into specialised "electoral departments" or "regional election management departments", practically indistinguishable in their operating principles from other administrative structures. The original model of commissions functioning as an independent arbiter composed of representatives of various political and civic actors has been replaced by a model of administrative management of election commissions, in which their administrative composition plays the leading role. This model of administrative filtering out of commission members not approved by the authorities has become one of the key elements in ensuring the stability of the current political system.

2. The leading role in election commissions is played not by representatives of political parties or public institutions, but by their "administrative composition" — the "electoral nomenclature/bureaucracy", as well as persons in state or municipal service, heading or working in budget-funded institutions and directly dependent on the authorities. There has been an increase in the administrative dependence of election commissions: if in 2015 the share of "administrators" of all kinds in the composition of regional election commissions was less than 50%, by 2026 it had grown to 59%. On average, there are 7.8 administratively dependent persons per regional election commission conducting the current elections. Of these, about 30% are full-time electoral administrators (electoral nomenclature), 17% are officials, and 13% are heads and rank-and-file employees of budget-funded institutions. The "small parties" or satellite parties have become an important instrument of the bureaucratisation of election commissions. For example, through New People the largest number of "budget workers" (21.6%) and about 5.7% of all officials have been brought into the commissions.

3. The election commissions of the regions do not simply consist of people connected to state structures — they function as an extension of these structures. A characteristic feature of regional election commissions is the mandatory inclusion in their composition of high-status representatives of regional power with the rank of ministers, deputy governors, heads of internal policy departments and government apparatuses. These figures exercise direct political and administrative control in the commission on behalf of regional administrations, turning the collegial body into an obedient instrument of executive power. The presence of "overseers" of this level makes compliance with the principle of commission independence impossible.

4. The flip side of the close connection between commissions and regional power is that the personnel fate of many commission members directly follows changes in the region's leadership, in the change of governor (for example, as happened in Chelyabinsk and Kursk oblasts, the Republics of Khakassia and Chuvashia). The commissions function in a mode of rigid linkage with regional power, becoming objects of personnel purges when it changes, sharing its political fate.

5. By analogy with the rest of the top-level regional bureaucracy, the appointment of leading personnel of regional election commissions requires coordination with the federal Centre. This turns the leadership of regional election commissions into part of a managerial nomenclature dependent on the Centre, the lower link of the managerial vertical, which predetermines the sources of its staffing and deprives the regional system of electoral autonomy. In the emphatically closed process of forming the "leading troika", from which political parties (with the exception of United Russia) are in fact excluded, three vectors of control intersect and are synchronised: bureaucratic (the CEC of Russia) — implementing the federal electoral agenda and ensuring technological uniformity; political (the region) — the desire of governors' teams to control the local electoral cycle; administrative (the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation) — control over the governors themselves, the placement of vetted personnel or the neutralisation of the influence on elections of overly independent regional elites. The CEC of Russia at the same time has an actual monopoly on nominating chairs (in 103 of 110 cases), as well as on nominating the majority of their deputies (53% of cases).

6. Overall, personnel policy is built on a combination of internal reproduction ("electoral administrators") and external infusion ("state administrators"). The practice of appointing "novice chairs" from among high-status officials with no experience working in election commissions is developing, which underscores the secondary importance of professional skills compared with administrative loyalty. In addition, following the example of regional administrations, even interregional rotation has begun to be practised: vetted election commission personnel are transferred to risk zones.

7. There has been a final degradation of public representation in the composition of regional election commissions, which has become decorative and nominal. Non-commercial organisations (NGOs) and local self-government bodies (LSGBs) have lost their role as channels of communication between election commissions and civil society, and have instead entered the general bureaucratic mechanisms of personnel selection, which have turned civil society institutions (parties, NGOs, LSGBs) into technical channels for replenishing commission compositions with administrative and administratively dependent persons. 45% of NGO "nominees" can be classified either as state employees or as workers in the electoral system, 12% work in the leadership of various state organisations or institutions, and about 24% are connected to United Russia. A real connection between the "public activists" and the NGO is traceable in only 35% of cases. Overall, more than 60% of NGO nominees turned out to be officials or administratively dependent persons.

8. Cases where an LSGB nominee had any connection to the given territory (a native of it, a former deputy or official) are literally isolated, but among their nominees 33% are state and municipal employees, and 24% are direct employees of election commissions. In 22% of cases, LSGB "nominees" turn out to be connected to United Russia. Cases of their connection to other parties are isolated.

9. Thus, overall we can speak of the formation within the electoral system of a kind of electoral corporation: closed, non-public, politically non-independent, dependent both on federal bodies (the CEC of Russia and the Presidential Administration) and on regional power, engaged by United Russia, and critically disposed towards the opposition. All this was vividly demonstrated in the course of the current election campaign and, among other things, explains why election commissions, managed by their leadership, readily agreed to remove the Yabloko party and its candidates, and some Communist Party candidates, from the elections, and demonstrated a special attitude towards other candidates not approved by the authorities.

Part 3. The "public" composition of regional election commissions ↑

3.1. Number of commission members nominated by NGOs and local self-government bodies ↑

In addition to political parties, legislation provides the opportunity to nominate members of regional election commissions from other public associations, by which are meant all-Russian or regional non-commercial organisations and movements (NGOs). Local self-government bodies (LSGBs), i.e. councils of municipal deputies, may also participate in the formation of the composition of regional election commissions. In theory, they should represent the interests of non-party election participants in the regional election commissions.

Data for 2015 showed that the regions had developed different practices for bringing "representatives" of the public and local communities into the composition of regional election commissions. Overall, NGO nominees were present in the majority of election commission compositions (in 53 of 85 regional election commissions) — on average, about 15% of commission members were nominated by public organisations. In 30 commission compositions there were one or two NGO nominees each, and the most "public" regional election commissions were the election commissions of Samara Oblast, where eight MRDVs were nominated by public organisations, Oryol and Rostov oblasts — seven members each, Kamchatka Krai, Karelia and Kostroma Oblast — six each.

Even then (in 2015), the analysis showed that nomination on behalf of public organisations is used by regional administrations to bring into the election commissions persons they need or who are loyal to them. Which specific NGOs are used for this was of no fundamental importance, since in most cases no connection between the nominee and the organisation could be traced. Most often used for nomination were trade union (in 16 regions), women's (15, for example, the "Union of Women of Russia") organisations, the "Association of Lawyers of Russia" (13), national-cultural organisations (11), youth organisations (15, for example, the "Russian Union of Youth"), the "Young Guard of United Russia" (13), but the most representative were the veteran organisations of various law enforcement agencies (50 of 177 "public activists", for example "Combat Brotherhood" — nine regions).

In the compositions of regional election commissions formed in 2021-2026, NGOs and LSGBs continue to act simply as technical nominators for needed and loyal EC members, or are used for the prompt filling of seats in order to prevent the opposition or genuinely principled persons from entering the election commissions. Just as in the situation with the "small parties", officials and/or employees of the electoral system are often brought into the composition of regional election commissions through NGOs and LSGBs.

In almost every region one can trace which specific NGOs are used from one convocation to the next to replenish the composition of the election commission. A kind of "regional set of NGO nominees" testifies rather to which of them the regional administration interacts with more closely (to the degree of their dependence, closeness to power and administrative control over them), rather than to the fact that these organisations show any particular interest in elections.

In total, by 2026, of the 1,473 MRDVs identified in the compositions of regional election commissions, 235 were nominated by public organisations (16%; as we can see, the ratio compared with 2015 has not changed). At the same time, a real connection with the NGO that nominated the MRDV could be found in only about 35% of cases. In total, "public activists" were nominated in 80 of the 98 commission compositions. At present, the most "public" election commissions are: Irkutsk Oblast — eight NGO nominees, Mordovia — seven, Crimea, Perm Krai, Samara Oblast — six each; another ten commissions formally have five each, and eight commissions have four "public activists" each.

Table 1. Nominees from public organisations and local self-government bodies in the composition of regional election commissions

NGOs are actively used to promptly replace a commission member who has left, performing the role of a kind of "ambulance service". During the existence of the regional election commission compositions we studied, 18 "public activist nominees" left them, while more than 30 were brought in.

3.2. Types of public organisations represented in the composition of election commissions ↑

Compared with 2015, the compositions of regional election commissions have noticeably more MRDVs nominated by veteran organisations and organisations linked to law enforcement agencies.

Table 2. Types of public organisations — entities nominating members of regional election commissions

3.2.1. NGOs linked to law enforcement agencies ↑

"Veteran" organisations nominated the largest number of MRDVs — 42 people into the composition of 31 regional election commissions. Moreover, among them there are often organisations of veterans of law enforcement agencies and military conflicts — 13 ("Combat Brotherhood" — three members, the Russian Union of Afghanistan Veterans — six, organisations of Interior Ministry veterans — two, as well as veterans of combat operations — two). The most active veteran organisation in nominating members to regional election commissions is the regional and local branches of the organisation of veterans (pensioners) of war, labour, the Armed Forces and law enforcement agencies — 23.

In the election commission of the Republic of Altai, three regional branches of veteran organisations at once nominated MRDVs: the Russian Union of Afghanistan Veterans nominated Yevgeny Meshkinov (former chair and former deputy chair of the commission, who in the previous composition was proposed by the regional public organisation "Veterans of Combat Operations"); before moving to the electoral system he was Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Altai — head of the public security police — i.e. perhaps the only commission member connected to the NGO that nominated him; Svetlana Suslova, head of the centre for legal information and access to the Presidential Library and a long-time commission member, was nominated by the Council of Veterans of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Republic of Altai; the official Lyudmila Khoroshilova headed the documentation support department in the apparatus of the head of the republic and the government, and was nominated by the public organisation of veterans (pensioners) of war, labour, the Armed Forces and law enforcement agencies.

In the election commission of Arkhangelsk Oblast, the same organisation of veterans (pensioners) of war, labour, the Armed Forces and law enforcement agencies nominated Andrei Plotnikov, a retired police colonel and formerly deputy head of police (for public order protection) of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs directorate for Arkhangelsk Oblast (in June 2021 appointed head of the Rosgvardia directorate for Vologda Oblast), while the regional branch of "Combat Brotherhood" nominated the entrepreneur Gennady Zelyanin. In Irkutsk Oblast, the same veterans of law enforcement agencies nominated the deputy chair of the election commission, lecturer and legal scholar Dmitry Rymarev; and the organisation of Afghanistan veterans nominated the lawyer Alexei Shangin.

In Kemerovo Oblast, "Combat Brotherhood" nominated Yuri Krasnikov, a pensioner and formerly head of the directorate of the Information Centre of the election commission of Kuzbass; the organisation of Afghanistan veterans nominated Yuri Blekus — director of the state professional educational institution (SPEI) "Topkinsky Technical College"; the organisation of veterans (pensioners) of war, labour, the Armed Forces and law enforcement agencies nominated Larisa Uporova — at the time of nomination she held the post of chair of the Municipal Election Commission of the Novokuznetsk city district, and after its liquidation she became head of the department for assisting the electoral process and holding referendums in the administration of Novokuznetsk.

In the election commission of Kaliningrad Oblast, the city public organisation of veterans of war, labour, the Armed Forces and law enforcement agencies nominated Ivan Moor, chair of the legal committee of the administration of the municipal formation "Zelenogradsk municipal district of Kaliningrad Oblast" and participant in the special military operation.

Overall, at least 15 of the 42 members of the EC compositions nominated by "veteran" organisations can be classified as state employees, five as employees of the electoral system, and three as heads of state organisations.

3.2.2. Trade union organisations ↑

Various trade unions participated in the nomination of commission members 35 times, and in Khabarovsk Krai — two organisations (healthcare and education). Among trade union nominees, about half are heads of medical and educational institutions: for example, Vitaly Tseplyaev, rector of Volgograd State Agrarian University. Also, about half of trade union "nominees" are directly connected to United Russia: for example, Natalya Bolonyaeva, chief physician of the regional state budget-funded healthcare institution "Consultative and Diagnostic Centre" of the Ministry of Health of Khabarovsk Krai "Viveya", is a member of the regional political council, and Yevgeny Andrienko, director of the state budget-funded institution of the city of Moscow "City Centre for Professional and Career Development", nominated by the Moscow Federation of Trade Unions, is a member of the regional political council and in 2026 took part in the United Russia primaries. In 10 cases trade union organisations nominated officials, and in eight — heads of state institutions.

3.2.3. Youth and student organisations ↑

In 21 cases, commission members were nominated by various youth and student organisations, for example regional branches of the "Russian Student Teams" (Perm Krai, Orenburg Oblast), the "Russian Union of Youth" (North Ossetia — Alania, Irkutsk Oblast), as well as various regional organisations (for example, the "Federation of Youth of the Republic of Buryatia", Voronezh's "Young Chernozemye", Saratov's "Youth of the Volga Region", etc.). In Kamchatka Krai, the regional branch of the "Movement of the First" (a "state-public movement of children and youth", positioned primarily as a children's organisation) nominated Nikita Okhmanyuk, a student and member of the youth parliament, to the commission. At the same time, nominees of youth organisations often have a close connection to United Russia. For example, Alexei Blyumin, nominated to the election commission of Perm Krai by the regional organisation of student teams, which he heads, was a member of the regional political council of United Russia from 2014 to 2023; German Danilenko is a member of the party's political council in Astrakhan Oblast, and Dmitry Kolesnikov — in Samara Oblast. Among the "youth nominees" there are also their own officials and election commission employees, some of whom, including by age, are hard to classify as "youth". For example, Yulia Olshanskaya (born 1975), deputy minister of territorial policy of Moscow Oblast, was nominated by the youth public movement of ecologists of the Moscow region "Mestnye", and in Lipetsk Oblast student teams nominated Alexander Smolyaninov (born 1968), who since 2022 has held the post of first deputy minister of internal policy of Lipetsk Oblast, and previously was one of the heads in the regional department of education and science.

3.2.4. "Patriotic" organisations ↑

Compared with 2015, the activity of organisations engaged in patriotic education in nominating election commission members has noticeably increased (13 cases). For example, "Volunteers of Victory" nominated commission members in the Republic of Altai, Chuvashia, and Leningrad Oblast, and the Russian Military Historical Society — in Pskov Oblast, the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), and the Republic of Buryatia. Of the 13 nominees of patriotic organisations, 10 are administrative persons. For example, the Kabardino-Balkarian public organisation "Patriot" nominated Aslan Makoyev, head of the state-legal directorate of the administration of the head of the republic, to the commission, and the "Military-Patriotic Club 'Orden'" nominated Kira Ryzhenkova, director of the state autonomous institution of Arkhangelsk Oblast "Youth Centre", former head of the youth affairs department of the city of Arkhangelsk. DOSAAF organisations and Cossack associations (nine people), which are also actively involved in patriotic education and military training of youth, also participate in the nomination of EC members.

3.2.5. Women's organisations and organisations dealing with family and childhood issues ↑

In 25 cases, women's organisations, as well as organisations dealing with family and childhood issues, participated in the nomination of EC members, for example local branches of the "Union of Women of Russia" (15), which, as is well known, is very closely connected to United Russia. For example, Olga Ignatova, director of the municipal institution of additional education "Centre for Children's Creativity No. 2", chair of the "Union of Women of Mordovia", which nominated her to the election commission, is a member of the presidium of the party's regional council. And, again, more than half of the nominees of women's organisations are officials.

3.2.6. Association of Lawyers of Russia ↑

Regional branches of the "Association of Lawyers of Russia" (27) are also very active in nominating members of regional election commissions — a kind of regional "elite clubs" of persons with a legal education. Often the Association nominates experienced and distinguished legal scholars and university lecturers with academic degrees.

3.2.7. Political, including party, organisations ↑

The participation in the formation of the composition of regional election commissions of public organisations that have a direct connection to United Russia and to regional power raises a big question — these are the "Young Guard of United Russia", branches of the "People's Front", and the Public Chambers of the regions (nine members of regional election commissions in total). In Sakhalin Oblast, the "Young Guard of United Russia" nominated to the commission — in addition to the party's official representative — Larisa Kornienko, deputy director of the department, head of the monitoring section of the internal policy department of the administration of the governor and government of Sakhalin Oblast, and a member of the party's regional political council.

NGO nominees are closely connected to the incumbent authorities. Of the 235 nominees of public organisations, about 110 members of regional election commissions can be classified either as state employees or as workers in the electoral system (45%), and about 50 (24%) as belonging to the United Russia party (only two people can be classified as belonging to A Just Russia, and one each to the LDPR and the Party of Pensioners). About 30 people (12%) work in the leadership of various state organisations or institutions.

Overall, more than 60% of NGO nominees turn out to be far from representatives of the public, but rather administrative and administratively dependent persons.

3.3. Representatives of local self-government bodies in regional election commissions ↑

Local self-government bodies (LSGBs) are used in a number of regions as a technically more convenient way of delegating the needed members. Their nomination is formalised by an ordinary decision of the council of deputies at a regular session. Delegation from an NGO, by contrast, requires holding a meeting of its members and preparing and submitting a package of various documents.

In total, 203 MRDVs were nominated by LSGBs into the compositions of 78 regional election commissions.

The most “municipal” commissions are those of Chelyabinsk Oblast, where eight full-time members with a casting vote (FTMCV) were nominated by LSG bodies; the republics of Mari El and Khakassia, Altai and Khabarovsk krais, Tyumen Oblast, and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (formed in 2021) — six members each; Nizhny Novgorod and Smolensk oblasts, St. Petersburg, and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (current composition) — five each; and another eight regions — four each. Moreover, there is an obvious correlation: the more “nominees” from municipalities, the fewer “nominees” from NGOs, and vice versa.

Cases where an LSG body nominee had any connection to that territory (a native, former deputy or official) are literally isolated.

At the same time, their close ties with the incumbent regional authorities are established. In 45 cases, “nominees” from LSG bodies turn out to be linked to the United Russia party, and only one each to the LDPR and the SRs. In 67 cases (33%), they are state and municipal employees, and in 49 (24%), they are the leadership and staff of an election commission. Twenty-six people (13%) can be classified as the management of various state organizations and institutions. For example, in Khabarovsk Krai, different LSG bodies at different times nominated to the election commission: the head of the organizational department of the administration of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, the head of the department (for organizing military-political work) of the military-political directorate of the Eastern Military District, and later his deputy, and the chief adviser of the department for internal policy issues of the apparatus of the plenipotentiary representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Far Eastern Federal District.

LSG bodies, along with the previous composition of the election commission, are the main entities (after the CEC of the Russian Federation, through which the vast majority of chairs of RECs, their deputies or secretaries are nominated) for nominating members of commissions on a permanent (full-time) basis — 44 and 45 respectively. For comparison, 41 FTMCV(S) were nominated through parliamentary parties, with 31 from United Russia, while 22 FTMCV(S) were nominated through NGOs and 21 from other parties. LSG bodies are especially often used to nominate ordinary full-time commission members — 17 cases — and secretaries — 16.

Thus, LSG bodies and, partially, NGOs have become the main channels for the reproduction of electoral bureaucracy, alongside the CEC of the Russian Federation and the RECs themselves. Their nominees, as a rule, have no real connection to regional civil and municipal society.

Part 4. State-administrative composition of RECs ↑

4.1. Level of administrative dependence of RECs ↑

The leading role in the activities of RECs is played not by representatives of political parties, and even less so by the rare representatives of the public. The leading role belongs to those who can be classified as the so-called “state-administrative composition” of the commission. These are commission members who are in state or municipal service, hold leadership positions in state and municipal organizations, enterprises, institutions, occupy state administrative positions — in short, those who receive income from state funds and are administratively dependent on federal and/or regional authorities.

In our view, the following main categories of “administrative” REC members should be distinguished:

• employees of the electoral system itself (“electoral administrators”, “election administrators”, “electoral bureaucracy”, “electoral nomenclature”) — these are members of election commissions on a permanent (full-time) basis (FTMCV(S)) (chairs, their deputies, secretaries and ordinary full-time commission members), who are classified as persons holding state positions, as well as staff of EC apparatuses, who formally belong to the category of state civil servants. Staff of REC apparatuses may hold positions as full-time commission members, or they may not. The “leading trio” of an election commission — the chair, deputy chair and secretary — always work on a permanent full-time basis;

• state and municipal civil servants proper (officials, “state nomenclature”, “state administrators”), holding positions in state authorities (ministries, agencies, departments, offices, apparatuses, administrations, etc.) — as a rule, these are direct representatives of regional authorities in election commissions;

• heads (directors, their deputies, heads of divisions, departments, etc. — “state managers”) of federal, regional and local budgetary institutions, organizations and enterprises (state unitary enterprises, state government institutions, municipal unitary enterprises, educational and medical institutions, universities, secondary vocational schools, commercial structures established by authorities, etc.), who are in direct administrative dependence on the authorities as their founders;

• “budgetary workers” — ordinary employees of state and municipal budgetary institutions (teachers, deans and heads of university departments, doctors, employees of various departments, etc.), who are in direct administrative dependence on the heads of budgetary institutions.

State and electoral administrators of election commissions are the administrators within the commission; it is they who, as a rule, develop and implement key organizational and political decisions, coordinating them with the CEC of the Russian Federation, regional authorities, and various agencies, including law enforcement. State managers and budgetary workers are the administratively dependent persons within the commission, whose main task is to support the proposals of administrative persons at commission meetings. Formally, all decisions at commission meetings are made collectively by a majority of its members.

We proceed from the assumption that the distinction between state civil servants and “persons holding state and municipal positions” is quite conditional, and that the norm establishing a restriction on the entry of state and municipal civil servants into the composition of election commissions (clause 5 of Article 22 of Federal Law No. 67-FZ “On Basic Guarantees…”) should apply to all these categories. They may not constitute more than one half of the total number of commission members.

In 2015, administrative and administratively dependent persons (excluding “budgetary workers”) constituted just under 50% of the total number of all election commission members, and in most REC compositions their number was on the verge of the permissible six to seven people, while in 25 commissions it slightly exceeded this norm.

The practice of administrative coercion in recent times in all spheres of life (from installing applications on personal smartphones to electoral mobilization) demonstrates that virtually all categories of “budgetary workers” have turned into “administratively dependent persons”; therefore, they must also be taken into account when studying the “administrative composition” of commissions.

Overall, the administrative dependence of RECs has increased significantly.

According to our data for 2026, the 98 REC compositions we studied included a total of about 58% “state-administrative persons” (860 out of approximately 1,475 FTMCVs). In 58 REC compositions, the “administrative part” amounted to eight or more people; if ordinary “budgetary workers” are excluded, then in 46 commissions, which is also almost twice as many as in 2015.

In the 90 RECs that will conduct elections of State Duma deputies in 2026, at least 714 out of approximately 1,200 current FTMCVs (or also about 59%) are “state-administrative persons”: of these, about 30% (350 people) are FTMCV(S) and staff of election commission apparatuses, about 17% (210 people) are officials of various levels, 7% (88 people) are heads of various budgetary structures, and 6% (66 people) are ordinary “budgetary workers”.

The most “administrative” RECs are the following:

• EC of the Republic of Dagestan — 12 out of 14 commission members can be classified as administrative composition: in addition to the leading trio (chair, deputy, secretary), the commission includes three full-time commission members (two of them proposed by political parties — the CPRF and A Just Russia, while the deputy chair of the commission was proposed by United Russia); two commission members are current state civil servants (Ruslan Rabadanov — head of the legal directorate of the head of the republic, Ali Ibragimov — head of the directorate of the head of the republic for internal policy and local self-government), and Olliomar Avtorbiev, although he had retired by the time of his appointment to the commission, was for many years a consultant in the legal directorate; another two people can be classified as state managers (Dzhamal Aliev heads the state-owned JSC “Makhachkala Sea Trade Port”, and Elvira Ramazanova is the head of the postgraduate and doctoral studies department of Dagestan State University); in addition, the composition includes a school teacher, Safar Saidumov.

Fourteen RECs have 10 administrative and administratively dependent members in their composition, for example:

• EC of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast — 10 out of 12 (the most “budgetary” in its composition): only three FTMCV(S) and one municipal-level official, but as many as six “budgetary workers”, including: a kindergarten teacher, a primary school teacher, a psychologist from a psychiatric hospital, a legal adviser from a dental clinic, a university lecturer, and a youth work specialist, with only one of them having been a member of the previous commission;

• EC of Stavropol Krai — 10 out of 14: four election commission staff, four officials (two of whom are deputy heads of directorates in the government apparatus: Sergei Shchepkin — in the directorate for regional policy, and Alexei Soshnikov — in the directorate for interaction with civil society institutions), one head of a state organization, and one “budgetary worker”;

• EC of Leningrad Oblast — 10 out of 14: four FTMCV(S), three officials (including, for example, Denis Sedov — Vice-Governor of Leningrad Oblast for Transport and Development of the Fuel and Energy Complex) and three heads of budgetary institutions (for example, Praskovya Ponicheva heads the “Resource Volunteer Center” of Leningrad Oblast, Alexander Romantsov is the director of the municipal budgetary institution “Center for Improvement and Construction”);

• EC of Ulyanovsk Oblast — 10 out of 14: six FTMCV(S), four officials (Inna Mitrofanova — First Deputy Head of the city of Ulyanovsk, Anton Butorin — Head of the Internal Policy Directorate of the Governor’s Administration, Mikhail Dodin — First Deputy Minister of Property Relations, Urban Development and Digital Development (since April 2026 he has been under arrest in a corruption case), Elena Ivlieva — Head of the Apparatus of the Legislative Assembly);

• EC of Bryansk Oblast — 10 out of 14, which has the largest number (five) of heads of budgetary organizations: director of the state budgetary professional educational institution “Bryansk Professional-Pedagogical College”, chief physician of the state budgetary healthcare institution “Bryansk Regional Children’s Hospital”, director of the municipal budgetary educational institution “Education Center ‘Perspektiva’”, director of the municipal budgetary educational institution “Gymnasium No. 7”, as well as a professor-agronomist and former vice-rector for science of “Bryansk State Agrarian University”, plus two officials and three FTMCV(S).

We also see an administrative composition of 10 people in the election commissions of the Republic of Buryatia, the DPR (10 out of 12), Khabarovsk and Zabaikalsky krais, Astrakhan, Kurgan, Sakhalin, Smolensk (10 out of 12), and Tomsk oblasts.

Twenty RECs have nine administrative persons in their compositions:

• EC of Kamchatka Krai — the most “official” commission: three FTMCV(S) and six officials of various ranks: officials from the Ministry of Education, the Ministry for the Development of Civil Society and Youth, and the Ministry for Local Self-Government Affairs and Development of the Koryak Okrug, the head of the apparatus of the legislative assembly, the head of the center for countering extremism of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs Directorate, the head of the personnel department of the education directorate of the administration of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

The most “official” commissions can also include those of Sakhalin Oblast, Khabarovsk Krai, Volgograd Oblast, the Republic of North Ossetia — Alania, and Lipetsk Oblast — each with five state or municipal civil servants.

• EC of Primorsky Krai can be classified as one of the most “electoral-administrative” or “electoral-nomenclature” election commissions, with the largest number of election commission staff (eight): five FTMCV(S) (moreover, when the composition was formed in 2021, Sergei Sovetnikov became deputy chair, who at the time of appointment was deputy director of the department of internal policy, head of the organizational department of the apparatus of the administration of the city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk; in 2023 he was replaced by Olga Mikhailova, who had headed the TEC of Ussuriysk since 2016 (in 2018, it was precisely because of the scandal over the falsification of results in Ussuriysk that the results of the gubernatorial elections were annulled), and Evgenia Bessonova, who worked in the personnel service of the regional administration, became secretary), two staff of the election commission apparatus and a former chair of one of the TECs; the commission also includes one official (Alexei Litvinov, First Deputy Head of the Administration of the city of Artyom — Artyom, who also previously worked in the EC of Primorsky Krai).

Other most electoral-administrative commissions are the election commissions of the Republics of Sakha (Yakutia) and Kalmykia, whose compositions include seven employees of the electoral system each.

In 19 RECs, the compositions include eight administrative persons each.

On average, there are 7.8 administratively dependent persons per election commission, including: 3.8 employees of the election commissions themselves, 2.3 officials, 0.9 heads of state organizations, and 0.7 budgetary workers.

The averaged portrait of the administrative composition of a typical election commission in a Russian region looks like this: a leading trio, a staff member of the election commission apparatus, two state civil servants (one of them predominantly from the regional administration or the head’s apparatus), a manager of some state institution (rector, chief physician, director), and a budgetary worker (dean, department head, university lecturer).

Current election commissions are characterized by a noticeable share of high-status administrative representatives, for example: officials of regional administrations with the status of head/deputy head of the department of internal policy, regional ministers (e.g., Alan Bagiev — Minister of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania for National Policy and External Relations; Andrei Senkov — Minister for Regulation of the Contract System in the Sphere of Procurement of Irkutsk Oblast; Mikhail Dodin — Minister of Property Relations and Architecture of Ulyanovsk Oblast; Rustem Zagidullin — Minister of Justice of the Republic of Tatarstan, etc.) or their deputies/heads of departments, deputy governors. The compositions of regional election commissions even include federal officials (e.g., Irina Provalenkova — Chief Federal Inspector for Lipetsk Oblast), and officials of regional branches of federal agencies (Alan Pliev — Head of the North Ossetian OFAS Russia). How they manage to combine membership in the EC with their main job during the election campaign, when in some intense periods commission and working group meetings occur almost daily, is unknown.

Participation in the work of an EC, especially during the election campaign, takes up a considerable amount of time even for non-staff members. Therefore, the practice of including persons who have a serious workload at their main place of work is highly questionable. In October 2023, i.e., on the eve of the start of the presidential election, Alexei Vasiliev, the chief physician of the Pskov City Hospital, left the commission of Pskov Oblast, citing workload. He was replaced by the head of the Directorate for Digital Development and Communications of the government, who, apparently, has more time to participate in the work of the EC.

In regional election commissions, there is a significant share of “apparatchiks” (heads/deputy heads/staff of the apparatus of the governor/government/legislative assembly). These are a kind of “chief officials”, the heads of all state civil servants of a particular authority (e.g., Elena Ivlieva, Head of the Apparatus of the Legislative Assembly of Ulyanovsk Oblast).

Furthermore, it must be taken into account that many heads of election commissions (chairs, their deputies and secretaries) held state or municipal positions before their appointment, i.e., they continued their administrative career, now within the electoral system.

There is another category of administrative members of election commissions — these are “former administrative persons” (“ex-administrators”), who are currently pensioners but, before retiring, held important administrative positions in the civil service or law enforcement agencies, and also served on the leadership of election commissions for several terms. Formally, they are not currently within the framework of administrative relations, but they continue to personally support the established system of power. For example, the composition of the EC of the Altai Republic includes, as an ordinary member, Evgeny Meshkinov, who is a military pensioner but previously worked in the electoral system for over 20 years, was chair (2003–2007), deputy chair of the commission (until 2016), and earlier made a career in law enforcement — he was the head of the public security police. He is a combat veteran, heads the regional organization of veterans of the Russian National Guard, and is actively engaged in public activities.

4.2. Entities nominating administrative members of RECs ↑

Through whom are administrators and administratively dependent persons usually introduced into the compositions of RECs?

Table 3. Entities nominating the administrative composition of RECs

As expected, full-time staff of election commissions are replenished mainly through the resources of the electoral system itself (the CEC and previous REC compositions) — about 62% of cases. In another 18% of cases, election commission staff are nominated through LSG bodies and NGOs. Among parties, United Russia is most actively involved in this — almost 9%. At the same time, the CEC of Russia effectively has a monopoly on nominating future chairs to REC compositions (103 out of 110 cases) and shares control with United Russia over the appointment of their deputies to commissions (53% and 14%, respectively), with about another 13% of deputies nominated by previous commission compositions. 60% of future commission secretaries were also nominated by the higher-level and previous election commission. In 15% of cases, LSG bodies were used for this purpose, and only in nine cases (8.5%) — parliamentary parties, and exclusively United Russia. Overall, parliamentary parties were used for nominating anyone from the leading trio of an EC in only 7.8% of cases (25 times), and only two parties participated in this — United Russia and New People. Non-parliamentary parties participated in this 14 times, most often the Party of Pensioners — five times. All this indicates that parties, with the exception of United Russia, are excluded from the formation of the governing bodies of RECs.

At the same time, it cannot be said that parties do not strive for this. However, we are not aware of a single case where pre-agreed and proposed candidates for positions in the leading trio of an election commission were not elected to these positions during the vote at the first meeting of the commission. Alternative candidates, including those from nominees of political parties, do appear, of course, but they never garner the necessary number of votes from other commission members. The electoral and administrative nomenclatures strictly control the personnel issue in RECs.

As can be seen from the table, NGOs and LSG bodies are most often used to include officials in REC compositions — in almost 60% of cases. Among parties, officials are most often nominated by United Russia, New People, and the Party of Pensioners. Approximately the same situation has developed with the appointment of state managers — heads of various budgetary structures — to REC compositions: about 50% through LSG bodies and NGOs, about 17% through United Russia and New People. The largest number of budgetary workers were introduced into commissions through New People and NGOs — 21.6% and 23% respectively.

Thus, electoral administrators (leadership and staff of election commissions) are appointed to regional election commissions through channels of the electoral system itself — the CEC and the previous REC composition; state administrators (officials and state managers) — through controlled NGOs, LSG bodies and “small parties”; and administratively dependent persons (budgetary workers) — are nominated primarily through NGOs and New People.

Regional election commissions do not simply consist of people connected to state structures — they function as an extension of these structures, which makes their position predictable, manageable, and moderately stable, until the emergence of political upheavals within the regional power systems themselves.

Overall, in the current compositions of RECs, the informal influence of United Russia and the formal dependence on regional administrations have strengthened. The role of political parties has decreased even further. The leading role in the commission is played by the “electoral bureaucracy” and regional officialdom. A process of depoliticization and bureaucratization of the election commission’s activities is underway. The election commission functions as part of the regional administrative system, rather than as a politically balanced independent body of public authority.

4.3. Rotation of REC members: bureaucratization and politicization ↑

Naturally, in such a position, the election commission, as a kind of department for conducting elections or as a peculiar electoral agency, despite its formally collegial and independent status, quite organically fits into state policy.

For example, under the conditions of the “besieged fortress” regime, election commissions, like other agencies, must demonstrate patriotic loyalty, including allegiance to the foreign policy course — neglecting this can cost a career. The case of Maxim Finchenko, chair of the Kirov EC, who was removed from his post due to a “visit to a NATO country”, although it was simply a vacation in Turkey, was apparently used as a lesson to others. The story was turned into a scandal of federal proportions.

Through their leadership, RECs participate in collecting material aid for participants in the Special Military Operation (SMO), about which they write extensively on their resources (it seems even more actively than other agencies). In some regions, named polling stations in honor of SMO participants have begun to appear. The chair of the election commission of Pskov Oblast, Igor Sopov, became a mentor in a program supporting SMO veterans within the project “Heroes of the Pskov Land”.

There is not yet a mass phenomenon of REC members who have officially been through the SMO, but this is an obvious personnel prospect — most likely, such members will appear when compositions are renewed in 2026–2027. In Primorsky Krai, Artur Potapov, a participant in combat operations in Syria and the SMO, joined the EC from A Just Russia. In 2024, on the initiative of the CEC of Russia, Vitaly Novoselov joined the Kaluga EC, who worked for over 20 years in the internal affairs bodies of Kaluga Oblast, then served in the National Guard troops of the Russian Federation. Novoselov’s service record includes hot spots — Budyonnovsk, Ingushetia, Dagestan; he served as part of the UN peacekeeping mission in Kosovo and Sudan; during the SMO he took part in battles on the territory of the LPR and DPR. Since 2023, Vitaly Novoselov has been working as a social coordinator of the branch of the State Fund for Support of Participants in the Special Military Operation “Defenders of the Fatherland” for Kaluga Oblast.

In May 2026, volunteer and SMO participant Ivan Moor was included in the new composition of the EC of Kaliningrad Oblast by a decree of the governor. He was proposed by the city organization of veterans of war, labor, the Armed Forces and law enforcement agencies. He currently holds the position of chair of the legal committee of the administration of the Zelenogradsk municipal district of Kaliningrad Oblast.

After the formation of election commission compositions, replacements among their members are not uncommon. Many of them are caused by personal life circumstances: moving to another region, changing jobs, being elected as a deputy, illness, death… Questions are raised by resignations that occur too early, soon after the formation of a new commission composition, as well as, obviously, “political” and “administrative” resignations, i.e., replacements made to remove a commission member who has lost the trust of the authorities, and/or to make room for a more needed person. Replacements of party representatives often occur due to limited internal personnel resources, or because of intra-party conflicts. Unfortunately, the real reasons for resignations and replacements of FTMCVs are, as a rule, not officially explained.

According to our data, in 68 of the 98 REC compositions we examined, replacements of FTMCVs occurred from the moment of their formation, and in 23 of them, the replacements affected the commission leadership.

The most unstable since its formation has been the election commission of Volgograd Oblast, where the current composition has lost seven out of 14 members with a casting vote since its formation in 2021. The replacements, however, did not affect the leading trio of the commission, but are quite indicative from the perspective of the reality of party representation in the EC. For example, Sergei Skachkov, nominated by the Cossack Party, a member of the regional public chamber, chair of the public council of the committee for territorial entities, internal and information policy of Volgograd Oblast, replaced Alexander Votsko, co-chair of the regional headquarters of the ONF, in the commission in July 2023. At the same time, already being a member of the election commission, Skachkov joined the regional election headquarters of presidential candidate Vladimir Putin in December 2023. Vitaly Tseplyaev, rector of Volgograd State Agrarian University, was appointed to the commission in July 2024, replacing Alexander Korotkov, rector of another university — Volgograd State Social-Pedagogical University, who was nominated as a candidate for the Volgograd Oblast Duma by United Russia in the 2024 elections. A whole chain of replacements was carried out with formal nominees from the Russian Party of Pensioners for Social Justice (RPPSS): when the commission was formed, Leonid Borzenkov was appointed from the party; in May 2023, he was replaced by Vladimir Zhitvaev, head of the department for interaction with representative bodies of the apparatus of the governor of the oblast, who soon signed a contract to be sent to the SMO; in July 2024, he was replaced by Oleg Egorushin. At the same time, Egorushin’s entire socio-political career is connected with United Russia, and in 2026 he participated in the party primaries. In addition, he is the head of the Center for Regional Management (TsUR). New representatives of the CPRF and LDPR were introduced into the ECVO in connection with the election of their predecessors as deputies.

The fastest replacement of an EC member occurred in Chuvashia, where Marina Yarantseva, head of the labor and wages department of the Cheboksary enterprise “Sespel”, nominated by the environmental NGO “Green City”, refused her seat on the election commission almost immediately after its formation in December 2021. She was not even present at the first meeting of the commission. Her resignation was related to an organizational “blunder” by the republican authorities. It turned out that they simply forgot to take into account the interests of the New People party, which, after the elections in September 2021, entered the State Duma for the first time and received mandatory seats in election commissions at all levels. Sources in some media said that Moscow drew attention to the oversight, so they had to urgently find someone to remove from the commission. The choice fell on Yarantseva. She was replaced by a “representative” of New People, Vladimir Kirillov, a former chair of the TEC of the Leninsky district of Cheboksary and an employee of the administration of the head of the republic. Yarantseva, in June 2025, was registered as an authorized representative for financial matters of the incumbent head of the Chuvash Republic, Oleg Nikolaev, who, as a candidate from A Just Russia, ran for a second term. Interestingly, in 2025, two more members left the ECChR, who were also replaced by employees of the regional administration.

In Moscow Oblast, two months after the formation of the new composition in December 2021, Nikolai Khanin, who was appointed acting head of the city of Kashira, left the commission. He was replaced by retired police colonel Sergei Cherkashin. In total, over the incomplete term, 21 people served as members of the ECMO. Seven members left its composition, mainly representatives of parties, and the representatives of the RPPSS and New People changed twice. Overall, high turnover is a characteristic feature of the ECMO.

Two rapid replacements occurred in two commissions that were formed quite recently. On 20 May 2026, i.e., a month after her appointment to the commission of Khabarovsk Krai, Natalya Martynenko, deputy chair of the “Khabarovsk Krai Association of Trade Union Organizations”, was relieved of her duties (reason unknown). In the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Marina Markovskaite, nominated by A Just Russia after the death of the leader of the SRs in Yamal, Maxim Lazarev (died on 10 May 2026), left the commission on 21 May to accept his deputy mandate.

The Election Commission of Kursk Oblast, formed in December 2021 under the control of then-Governor Roman Starovoit, went through a serious shake-up after Alexander Khinshtein took charge of the region in December 2024. Even under Starovoit's successor Alexei Smirnov, who headed the region from May to November 2024, the commission was left by political technologist and senior adviser to the previous governor Oleg Vedutov; in 2023 he had headed the newly formed Ministry of Information and Public Communications, which he also left with Khinshtein's arrival. Vedutov was replaced on the commission by Sergei Tokarev, acting minister for tariffs and prices. In June 2025 Alexander Khinshtein renewed the composition of the Kursk Oblast Election Commission even more radically. Commission chair since 2021 Tatyana Malakhova, who before her appointment had been chair of the TEC of Gorshechensky District, resigned. Her place was taken by lawyer Yevgeny Cherkashin, who had been a member of the election commission since 2011 and became deputy chair in 2021. In his place, Oksana Kirichenko was elected deputy chair; she had worked in the commission's staff since 2003 and had held the post of commission secretary since 2016. Her place was taken by Yevgenia Zaitseva, who had been on the election commission since 2022 and was first deputy head of the executive committee of the Kursk regional branch of United Russia. Also brought onto the commission was SVO veteran Maxim Kalutskikh, deputy head of the NGO "Patriot" Center for Support and Patriotic Education of Kursk Oblast. Sergei Tokarev, having left the post of minister, also left the commission; in February 2026 he was replaced by Svyatoslav Grebenkov, who had previously been chair of the TEC of Kursky District. Given the threefold change of the New People representative on the commission, a total of seven replacements have occurred in the Kursk Oblast Election Commission since 2021, and 19 people have served as commission members.

Even more interesting movements took place not long ago in the Election Commission of Novosibirsk Oblast. In January 2025, Oksana Khizhina became deputy chair of the commission; she had previously held the post of head of the legal department of the election commission's staff. Formally she was nominated to the commission by the Russian Party of Pensioners for Social Justice, as if replacing rank-and-file CPRF member Dmitry Bogomolov, who took the post of minister of construction of Novosibirsk Oblast. Khizhina replaced Nadezhda Marinkevich as deputy chair, who remained a member of the commission — extremely rare for former heads of election commissions. Until February 2026, the Novosibirsk Oblast Election Commission was headed by the experienced Olga Blago (chair of the Novosibirsk city election commission since 2011, and from 2015 chair of the regional election commission, where she replaced Yuri Petukhov, who was appointed deputy governor and head of the governor's administration, under whom the Democratic Coalition had not been allowed to stand in the elections to the regional legislative assembly). Blago explained her departure by "her own wish," asking that no "hidden rocks" be sought — she is 66 and already retired. The post of chair was taken by Natalya Koshkina, who first worked with Blago on the city commission and from 2018 became her secretary on the regional election commission. In Blago's place, commission staff member Galina Prushinskaya was brought onto the commission and appointed the new secretary. Thus, since 2023, ahead of the State Duma elections, the entire leadership of the Novosibirsk Oblast Election Commission has changed, and a total of 19 people have served as commission members.

In Omsk Oblast, where the election commission was formed in December 2021, its chair Alexei Nesterenko retired quite unexpectedly, already in August 2022. He had headed the Omsk Oblast Election Commission since 2012, for three terms. His place was taken by Ivan Khodakov, who had previously headed the Omsk city election commission and whose candidacy was nominated by United Russia. In a farewell interview to the media, Nesterenko noted: "An important achievement in the commission's work, it seems to me, is the awareness of one's own role in the election campaign. The understanding that the commission is not the main thing in elections. The main things are the voters and the candidates; we are only intermediaries between them. And our task is merely to help people make the right choice, but to do it in such a way that they know it is truly their own choice, and not 'that's how they counted it'."

In Ulyanovsk Oblast, chair of the Ulyanovsk Oblast Election Commission Yuri Andrienko, re-elected in 2022 (he first headed the commission in 2008), resigned as early as summer 2024 and was appointed adviser to the governor on work with representative bodies of local self-government and the regional Legislative Assembly. Apparently, he needed to hold the presidential elections, after which he got the opportunity to move to less stressful work. He was replaced by Yelena Gorbunova, who only in 2021 became chair of TEC No. 1 of the Zasviyazhsky District of Ulyanovsk, and before that had worked as a lawyer in corporate business and simultaneously headed PEC No. 3733 of the city of Ulyanovsk.

The situation in the Election Commission of the Republic of Kalmykia turned out to be one of the most unstable. In 2022 its composition changed almost completely compared with the 2017–2022 composition. Only two members remained, and one of them left the commission in the course of that term. It is worth recalling that in 2019 Batu Khasikov became head of the Republic. He replaced Alexei Orlov, under whom the two previous compositions of the commission had been formed. The current chair of the Kalmykia Election Commission, Chuzhayev, was a member of it in 2012–2017. Already after the commission was appointed, by 2024 four people had left it. Interestingly, of the 12 commission members, seven work on a permanent (staff) basis.

A difficult situation arose in the Republic of Khakassia in summer 2023, during the elections of the head of the region and deputies to the republic's Supreme Council. Two commission members first suspended their powers and then left the commission because one of them (Larisa Yefimenko-Mikhailova) was running for deputy from United Russia, and the mother of the second (Tamara Shirkovets, from A Just Russia) was nominated for deputy. In this situation, the election commission was unable to register the candidate for governor from the Communists of Russia party, Vladimir Grudinin, who was considered a spoiler for the incumbent head of the region, Konovalov of the CPRF. The commission simply lacked the votes "in favour." The CEC of Russia had to intervene and register Grudinin on its own. In addition, the CEC supplemented the commission with a new representative from A Just Russia (Sofya Melikova), and also brought in a CPRF member from New People (Lyubov Semikova). However, after the elections both of them left the commission and were replaced by other party representatives.

One of the reasons for turnover in the compositions of regional election commissions is that many commission members are regional officials. They have their own career trajectories; they are often transferred to other posts or dismissed at the will of higher-ranking leaders or in the event of a change of regional power. In such cases they have to be removed from the commission and replaced with other administration representatives. For example, in the Republic of Komi, already in spring 2022 the commission was left by Anastasia Golubykh — first deputy minister of digital development, mass communications and communications of the region, who moved to Kaliningrad Oblast to head a similar department there. She was replaced by Igor Trukhanov, first deputy head of the staff of the republic's State Council. Incidentally, employees of various departments are the first candidates to replace departing commission members.

The principles and methods of rotation of the administrative composition of regional election commissions differ little from those of other regional departments. Overall, the formation and rotation of the compositions of regional election commissions proceed not from professional but from political and, partly, career considerations. Naturally, the situation differs in each region, but nevertheless certain general tendencies characteristic of the practice of forming the compositions of regional election commissions can be identified.

Legislation in no way limits the number of terms any commission member may serve on a regional election commission. It also does not require that a candidate have any experience working in the electoral system. Although usually when submitting an application of consent to join a commission, the applicant indicates their experience of activity in the electoral system, in reality this gives no competitive advantage when there are several candidates for a vacant seat. There are known cases where nominees from the Yabloko party were massively refused appointment to commissions of various levels despite the fact that their experience working in election commissions was considerably greater than that of their competitors.

The policy on rotation of the compositions of election commissions, especially their leadership, is highly contradictory. On the one hand, the CEC of Russia and regional authorities like to say that experienced, long-serving heads of election commissions give the system confidence and guarantee the legitimacy of election results; on the other, they quite often and easily go ahead with appointing new heads with no experience working in the system on the eve of important elections.

At the same time, many years of experience in the electoral system do not guarantee against serious problems arising in the course of elections or against unprofessional and scandalous decisions, while newcomers cope quite successfully, by the system's standards, with tasks that are new to them. In our view, this only indicates that participation in the organisation and conduct of elections does not require any special professional skills, especially given the considerable staff of employees of regional election commissions.

The example of Saratov Oblast demonstrates that to occupy such a responsible post as chair, it is not at all necessary to have any experience in the electoral system. In October 2019, Irina Romanova became chair of the commission; she had spent the entire previous part of her career in the preschool education system, starting in 1996 as a kindergarten teacher and then heading various preschool institutions. In parallel she pursued a party career in United Russia and from 2009 to 2012 was head of the party's executive committee in Yershovsky municipal district. From March to October 2019 she was a deputy of the Saratov Regional Duma, when she was given the mandate of former speaker of the regional duma Ivan Kuzmin, who had resigned, but already on 17 October 2019 she was elected chair of the Election Commission of Saratov Oblast. She replaced Vladimir Pisaryuk, who, for comparison, was a candidate of legal sciences and former vice-rector of the Saratov State Law Academy, who had only headed the Saratov Oblast Election Commission in 2017 but resigned voluntarily without explaining his reasons. CEC member Anton Lopatin, who spoke at the commission meeting then, said that "we studied Irina Viktorovna's candidacy long and thoroughly, coordinated it with all structures and the public," and in response to well-founded doubts about her lack of experience said that "a person with experience working in education will be able to head a regional election commission as well." Interestingly, soon after her appointment, their posts were left by deputy chair of the Saratov Oblast Election Commission Yuri Bryzgalin, who had held the post for several convocations, and secretary Alexander Milovanov, who had worked only four months. In Milovanov's place, a typical silovik was appointed secretary — former deputy head of the regional Investigative Committee department Sergei Sedov, and deputy chair became Tatyana Komoltseva, an employee of the election commission's staff. In 2022, all three were re-elected to the new composition of the election commission.

With commission compositions of from 10 (five regional election commissions) to 14 (the majority) members, on average seven to eight commission members with deciding vote, i.e. more than half, usually kept their seats on the commission. For the 98 commissions studied, on average 7.6 commission members with deciding vote from the previous composition moved to the new composition. For comparison, for commissions of the conditional "fifth" convocation (roughly 2011(12)–2016(17)), this indicator was 6.9.

The most "stable" in composition turned out to be the commissions of the Republic of Adygea (12 of 12), Kaluga Oblast (11 of 12), Penza Oblast (13 of 14), the Republic of Crimea (12 of 14); in six regions (Bryansk, Pskov, Irkutsk, Tomsk, Novosibirsk oblasts, the Republic of Buryatia) 11 of 14 commission members with deciding vote were reappointed to the new compositions, and in two (Sevastopol and Kaluga Oblast) 10 of 12. The most "unstable" in composition turned out to be the Republic of Kalmykia (only two of 12 commission members with deciding vote kept their seats); in four regions (Kursk, Lipetsk oblasts, the Udmurt Republic and the Republic of Tuva) only three "old" members each remained, and in six regions only four each. At the same time, among the 10 most "stable" commissions, only in Kaluga and Irkutsk oblasts did one replacement occur in the commission leadership, and among the 12 most "unstable," only in three cases (Tuva, Ulyanovsk and Magadan oblasts) did the entire leadership trio keep their posts; in all other cases either the commission chair changed, or the chair and their deputy, or the entire trio.

Interesting is the case of Kaluga Oblast, where, apparently, an unsuccessful attempt was made to install a new commission head while retaining the entire previous composition (11 of 12 members). Alexander Bukov became the commission's only newcomer in 2021; he was recommended to the commission by the CEC of Russia and was appointed chair. Before that, Bukov had worked in the staff of the Russian president's plenipotentiary envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District, in the Ministry of Regional Development, in the Rostec corporation and in the presidential administration. His last post was deputy head of a department of the Presidential Directorate for Domestic Policy. Apparently, he had had no connection to Kaluga Oblast before, and according to Bukov himself he had had offers to head election commissions in other regions as well. However, in November 2024 reports appeared that Bukov was leaving the election commission and moving to work in state bodies. In his place, commission deputy chair Yekaterina Knyazeva, who has worked on it since 2003, was appointed chair.

Assessing the dynamics of the composition, three aspects can be clearly identified:

• the stability of the commission's leadership, as well as of the commission's staff employees;

• the turnover/volatility of representation of parliamentary parties;

• rotations in commission leadership and among administration representatives after a change of the region's political leadership.

In 48 of 98 cases, the previous commission leadership (chair, deputy, secretary) fully kept their seats. The most serious changes affected 20 commissions: in nine regional election commissions the entire leadership trio changed, in eight only the chair changed, in three both the chair and their deputy changed. In the remaining 30 commissions, either the deputy or the secretary changed.

4.4. Appointment of the leadership of regional election commissions ↑

To date, a non-competitive model of appointing the members of the commission's leadership trio has taken shape. At the first meeting of a new commission composition, elections of its leadership take place. Formally, any commission member can lay claim to the post of chair, deputy or secretary, but who will occupy these posts is known in advance — as a rule, these are the persons nominated to the commission by the CEC of Russia and by the previous commission composition (only in six commission compositions were chairs not nominated by the CEC, and only because they took the post after the previous chair's resignation, while chair of the Yaroslavl Oblast Election Commission Yelena Novik, formally nominated by a local self-government body, was forced to resign in summer 2024). The only chair of a regional election commission nominated to the commission by a political party (United Russia) is Ivan Khodakov of the Omsk Oblast election commission. He began his political career as a lawyer for the party's regional branch, then headed the Omsk city election commission. In 2015 he first joined the regional election commission from United Russia. In December 2021 he again joined the commission at the party's proposal and became deputy chair, and in summer 2022 he headed it after the early resignation of the previous chair, Alexei Nesterenko, who had been nominated by the CEC. It is worth noting that at that time the region's governor was Alexander Burkov, who represented A Just Russia.

It must be admitted that the administrators of Russian elections have learned very effectively to use the seemingly "democratic" principles of forming election commissions laid down in the 1990s by the architects of the electoral system. It was assumed that the diversity of nominating subjects and electoral procedures would promote the independence, political neutrality and collegiality of decisions taken by election commissions, and that internal checks and balances would be created. In practice, in the conditions of a non-competitive political system and the controllability of socio-political life, this has led to the fact that the incumbent authorities simply push the representatives they need into commission compositions through formal channels. Somewhere through small parties, somewhere through NGOs, somewhere through local self-government bodies — it does not matter, situationally — as is convenient at the given moment. At the same time, of course, the independence of regional authorities is limited in matters of appointing the leadership of regional election commissions — here prior coordination with the CEC and, accordingly, with the Russian Presidential Administration is required.

In the appointment of the leadership of regional election commissions, three competing lines actually intersect and are coordinated: the "bureaucratic" line — connected with the interests of the CEC, aimed at carrying out the CEC's agenda in the regions; the "political" line — connected with the interests of regional authorities, to strengthen their own control over the electoral system in the region; the "administrative" line — connected with the interests of the Presidential Administration, for example, placing former federal officials, strengthening control over the region, reinforcing the position of, or, on the contrary, weakening, the incumbent head.

The very election of commission leaders takes place absolutely formally, as a rule, on a non-alternative basis and unanimously. The election procedure is often attended by the region's top officials to demonstrate their support for the leadership of the new commission composition. In this context, the procedure of "electing" the chair, deputy and secretary by other commission members looks like a completely symbolic and anachronistic procedure.

As mentioned above, the only case where the chair of a regional election commission became a candidate not nominated by the CEC of Russia when the new composition was formed was Yelena Novik in Yaroslavl Oblast. She consistently pursued a political career in the region's electoral system, starting as chair of a TEC of one of Yaroslavl's districts, then holding the posts of secretary and deputy chair of the regional commission, but for some reason did not receive direct support in the CEC of Russia. In December 2021 she was appointed to the new composition on the initiative of the Yaroslavl City Duma, being deputy mayor of Yaroslavl for social policy, and at the first meeting was elected chair. However, in 2024 she was forced to leave the post of chair (formally moving to work in the government), about which Ella Pamfilova herself announced in advance, expressing some criticism. Together with Novik, the commission was left, as is believed, by her protégé, commission member with deciding vote (A Just Russia) Elvira Kalinina. The post of chair was taken by a kind of "electoral technocrat," Sergei Fefilin, a former deputy chair nominated by the CEC, who had performed the main organisational functions in the commission over the previous two convocations.

Overall, it can be said that the time of loud conflicts (as once in St Petersburg) between the CEC of Russia and regional authorities over the posts of heads of regional election commissions has passed. Coordination usually takes place non-publicly; its results are announced when agreements have already been reached.

In 2021, the CEC of Russia, instead of the incumbent chair of the Sverdlovsk Oblast Election Commission, Vladimir Rusinov, proposed Yelena Klimenko, who had been his deputy, as the commission's new head. It is believed that this was an initiative of Ella Pamfilova, who was allegedly dissatisfied with the long counting of results at the September elections of deputies to the State Duma of the previous convocation. Rusinov did not make it into the commission composition (he is currently an associate professor at the Ural State Law University); there is an opinion that he was reminded of the low turnout at the vote on amendments to the Constitution in summer 2020. Interestingly, when Rusinov was appointed in December 2018, Pamfilova publicly acknowledged that Governor Kuivashev had proposed another candidacy that did not suit the CEC of Russia, but after difficult negotiations the head had abandoned it.

One of the latest appointments announced in advance but not carried out occurred in Stavropol Krai. In December 2020, information appeared in the Stavropol media that after the early resignation of chair Yevgeny Demyanov, the krai election commission would be headed by Anna Koneva, and that her candidacy had allegedly been coordinated with the CEC. By that time Anna Koneva held the post of head of the regional government's department for the preservation of cultural heritage sites. A symbolic meeting of the future chair with the governor was even held. However, instead of her, in February 2021 Sergei Tarasov, who held the post of head of the department for regional policy of the regional government's staff, was appointed chair. In December 2021 he was re-elected chair for a new term. Anna Koneva, for her part, never joined the commission and still works as head of the Stavropol Krai department for the preservation and state protection of cultural heritage sites.

Quite widespread is the practice of replacing the leadership of regional election commissions when, shortly before the end of the term of the previous commission composition, the incumbent chair resigns on their own initiative ("in connection with moving to another job," "with fatigue," "a desire to spend more time with the family," and so on). In their place, as a rule, someone from the local administration's officials is brought onto the commission, often with no experience working in the electoral system, so as to gain that experience. Then, when the new commission composition is formed, they are already recommended for the post of chair.

For example, in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Nikolai Goncharov (deputy head of the Anadyr administration — head of the department for organisational and administrative-legal matters and a member of the regional political council of United Russia) was brought onto the previous commission composition in February 2021, in May he became its chair, and in December 2021 he was recommended by the CEC of Russia as chair of the new commission composition. In Tomsk Oblast, incumbent chair Rostislav Radzivil was first included in the commission in April 2021 in place of his predecessor, who had laid down his powers before the end of the previous commission's term. Since 2004 Radzivil had held the post of head of the regional department for state-legal matters and legislative activity.

The most extensive replacements (of the entire leadership trio) occurred in nine of the 98 commission compositions (Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Kostroma, Kursk, Chelyabinsk, Lipetsk oblasts, Khabarovsk Krai, the Republic of Kalmykia, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast and the federal territory of Sirius). In eight regions, over the past five years (2021–2026) the commission chair was replaced (Moscow, Amur Oblast, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Yaroslavl Oblast, St Petersburg, the Chuvash Republic, Orenburg Oblast, the Luhansk People's Republic). In three cases both the chair and their deputy were replaced simultaneously (Omsk Oblast, the Republic of Khakassia, the Udmurt Republic).

In the Chuvash Republic, the new commission chair, Gennady Fyodorov, had been the president's plenipotentiary envoy to the region before his appointment; moreover, he is 17 years older than the previous chair, Alexander Tsvetkov, who had worked on the commission since 2003 and headed it from 2011 to 2021. Tsvetkov now works as vice-rector at Chuvash State University. His departure, as in other similar cases, is linked to the change of head of the region.

A characteristic example of a change of the entire leadership for political reasons occurred in Chelyabinsk Oblast. In March 2019 there was a change of regional power — instead of Boris Dubrovsky, Alexei Teksler was appointed governor. When the new commission was formed in December 2021, the previous chair Sergei Obertas, deputy chair Yelena Shubina and secretary Vyacheslav Volchkov did not join its composition. In all, of the 14 members of the 2016–2021 commission, only four kept their seats — representatives of parliamentary parties, over whom regional authorities and the CEC of Russia, as a rule, have the least influence of all commission members. The new chair was Yevgeny Golitsyn (previously deputy governor of Chelyabinsk Oblast), his deputy was Artyom Mironov (lawyer of the Chelyabinsk branch of United Russia), and secretary was Natalya Gavrish (deputy head of the department of public communications of the regional government). Among the rank-and-file commission members there were also many representatives of the new regional power: Vitaly Shikov (head of the department for domestic policy of the government, nominated by United Russia); Yevgeny Yemelyanov (deputy from Magnitogorsk); Oksana Yergunova (deputy head of the main department of youth policy of the region, nominated by the New People party); Nadezhda Rylskaya (deputy mayor of Chelyabinsk); Kirill Usmanov (deputy head of the main department for labour and employment); Alexei Fartygin (deputy head of the staff of the governor and government). Incidentally, such instability of the composition of the Chelyabinsk Oblast Election Commission is highly characteristic of the region. As an analysis of the compositions of its last three convocations (2011–2016, 2016–2021, 2021–2026) shows, only from four to six people moved from the previous composition to the new one (during this time the region saw three governors: Mikhail Yurevich (2010–2014), Boris Dubrovsky (2014–2019), Alexei Teksler (2019–present)). With the formation of each subsequent election commission, its composition increasingly resembled an advisory body of top regional officials. In the current composition, to the "administrative" members already mentioned above must be added: Yulia Kapkova, deputy director of the Chelyabinsk City Employment Centre, who joined the commission in 2025; Yuri Podshivalov, deputy chair of the regional government; Vitaly Shikov, nominated by United Russia, head of the Department for Domestic Policy of the government. Thus, of the 14 commission members, eight represent the highest level of regional power. For comparison: in the previous commission composition (2016–2021) there were four officials representing the highest echelon of regional power, but none with the rank of deputy governor or deputy chair of the regional government. In the fifth convocation (2011–2016) there was not a single official who had ever worked in the structures of regional power.

It is believed that the change of leadership of the Chelyabinsk election commission in 2021 was the result of a combination of disciplinary, political and organisational factors. The formal grounds for the change of leadership were: remarks from the CEC of Russia over the condition of certain polling stations and the demand of the regional public chamber to put those stations in order; a complaint to the CEC of Russia in 2020 from deputy of the Legislative Assembly of Chelyabinsk Oblast Olga Mukhometyarova over incorrect statements by election commission chair Sergei Obertas; high-profile losses by the Chelyabinsk Oblast Election Commission in courts in the course of local elections. In the opinion of political scientists, Sergei Obertas never managed to become "one of their own" for the team of the new governor, Alexei Teksler. He was trailed by the stigma of being "Dubrovsky's man," of the "Magnitogorsk group" (Obertas had previously headed the Magnitogorsk election commission and worked in Dubrovsky's team). Experts also noted that Obertas was a man of "aggressive charisma," which did not correspond to a post that requires emphatic correctness. In addition, corruption suspicions arose in relation to him: in 2018 the prosecutor's office of Chelyabinsk Oblast found facts of Obertas exceeding his official powers, when in 2017, on his orders, unlawful accruals and payments of bonuses to four commission members with deciding vote, including the chair himself, were made in the amount of more than 2.5 million rubles. The inspection materials were sent to the Investigative Committee to decide on opening a criminal case. The election commission claimed that all payments were lawful and were made within budget limits. Currently, Sergei Obertas is acting deputy governor of Zaporozhye Oblast.

All this indicates that the region's election commission has in fact become one of the structural subdivisions of the governor and regional power, whose actions will inevitably be subordinated to its rules, and whose fate will follow the fate of the gubernatorial power itself, with all its risks (recall that two previous governors of Chelyabinsk Oblast are under investigation and on the wanted list, and their assets have been seized).

Overall, most commissions are characterised by relative stability of the leadership (staff) composition and turnover of non-staff members, especially representatives of political parties. For example, in the Chukotka election commission, already after the commission was formed in 2021, seven of 14 members changed, while the leadership trio has not changed since 2016.

Among the most experienced leadership trios of regional election commissions are the election commissions of Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Zabaikalsky and Perm krais, Leningrad, Tambov, Arkhangelsk, Pskov, Penza oblasts, and the Republic of Komi, where the average time served on the commission by members of the leadership trio is from four to five terms. The least experienced trios (on average less than two terms per commission head, including the current composition) head the commissions of Chelyabinsk, Yaroslavl, Vladimir, Orenburg, Oryol oblasts, the republics of North Ossetia–Alania, Kalmykia and Udmurtia, Stavropol and Khabarovsk krais, St Petersburg, and the Jewish Autonomous Oblast.

Among long-serving chairs, the most experienced is Andrei Gibert, born 1955, who has headed the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug election commission since 1995. Inga Irinina has also worked in the ranks of the Kamchatka election commission since 1995, and in 2022 headed it for the 4th time (since 2008). Chairs of the election commissions of Perm Krai, Igor Vagin (chair since 2014), and Tyumen Oblast, Igor Khalin (chair since 2002), are working their sixth term on the commission. Interestingly, for both, apparently, chairing the regional election commission became the peak of their state career, but if for Khalin, a former prosecutor's office investigator, this is a kind of achievement, then for Vagin, who initially had significant political ambitions (he was a federal inspector for the region, deputy head of the regional administration), chairmanship became a kind of dead end in his career. For several convocations, the commissions have been headed by chairs of the election commissions of Arkhangelsk, Novgorod, Tver, Kaluga, Penza, Kurgan, Ivanovo, Kaliningrad, Voronezh, Tambov oblasts, Zabaikalsky and Altai krais, Kabardino-Balkaria, the Republic of Komi, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug and a number of other regions. In many cases these are "people of the electoral system" who had previously been rank-and-file commission members, held the posts of deputies and secretaries, worked in the commission staff, and only after that were appointed chairs. They, as a rule, demonstrated loyalty and faithfulness to the system, survivability through changes of heads of regions, without laying claim to a more significant political role. For example, chair of the Tver election commission Valentina Dronova was both deputy chair and secretary of the commission, and in total has more than 30 years of work experience.

A characteristic example of an "apparatus" commission composition can be considered the election commission of Ivanovo Oblast. The professional biographies of the chair, deputy and secretary are typical of regional election administrators: legal education, work in the staff of the regional duma, membership of the commission, holding the post, a long term of office. Thus, chair of the Ivanovo Oblast Election Commission Anzhelika Solovyova, after working in the staff of the regional duma, became a commission member in 2007, and in 2012 took the post of chair, to which she has already been re-elected three times. Her deputy Alexander Pavlov has more than 20 years of service in the system; he also started in the election commission staff, then was commission secretary, and from 2011 deputy chair. Pavlov is one of the most experienced regional election administrators in the country. He actively participates in public events, conferences, in training observers and commission members, and teaches at a university, where he recruits students to participate in various kinds of pseudo-observer organisations. Commission secretary Vera Zubova also came to the Ivanovo Oblast Election Commission through the staff, where she headed the organisational-legal department. Since 2011 she has been a commission member with deciding vote; in 2016 she became secretary for the first time and was re-elected in 2021.

On the contrary, among novice chairs who first joined the election commission in the current or in the course of the previous convocation, there are quite a lot of people from regional administrations. For example: Taras Yasnevich in Krasnoyarsk Krai became chair in 2024, and before that headed the krai's tourism agency; Yevgenia Ivleva (Orenburg Oblast), re-appointed chair in May 2026, had previously held the post of deputy minister of regional and information policy of the region, as well as leadership posts in the regional executive committee of United Russia; economist by education Maxim Meiksins (St Petersburg) was deputy governor of the region and on the eve of his appointment had no experience working in the electoral system at all; Adygyzhi Dongak (Republic of Tuva) is already the third chair of the commission in office since 2021, and had previously been deputy governor; Marina Yerofeyeva (Kostroma Oblast) worked in the department of domestic policy of the regional administration; Igor Lazarev (Belgorod Oblast), before his first election as chair in the previous composition (in 2018), worked as deputy mayor of Belgorod; Svetlana Palchik (Udmurt Republic) — protégé of Governor Brechalov, previously headed the head's press service and was deputy head of the administration — joined the commission almost at the very end of its term of office.

The stability of an election commission chair’s position can be affected by a wide variety of factors, including personal ones. In Bashkortostan, after the resignation of the respected Khaidar Valeev in 2019, the former director of the Institute of Law at Bashkir State University, Ilona Makarenko, became the new chair of the CEC. In June 2022 she was re-elected chair in the new commission, but in December 2023 she unexpectedly resigned, after which she was appointed vice-rector of Ufa University of Science and Technology. In her place, the vice-rector of the same Ufa University of Science and Technology, Azat Galimkhanov, was brought onto the commission, and in January 2024 he was elected chair of the commission (a literal job swap). Some observers linked Makarenko’s resignation to the fact that her ex-husband is the well-known Ufa lawyer Sergei Makarenko, who has a difficult relationship with the federal and republican authorities. At one time he defended Ural Rakhimov, the son of the republic’s first president, Murtaza Rakhimov.

4.5. Conflicts in the appointment of members of regional election commissions ↑

In the majority of cases, the appointment of commission leadership and rank-and-file members proceeds without conflict. However, there are several examples where regional deputies, on whom the appointment of half the commission’s membership formally depends, have expressed dissatisfaction with certain candidates.

Perhaps the most conflict-ridden appointment of a commission member occurred in the Komi Republic, where in the 2010s the local electoral system experienced a series of high-profile scandals and criminal cases. On the initiative of deputies from the CPRF, LDPR and A Just Russia factions, who sit on the State Council’s committee on legislation and local self-government, Zinaida Konovalova was excluded from the draft State Council resolution on the appointment of six of the 12 members of the new election commission. Her candidacy had been proposed by the Rodina party, which has a regional quota for including its representative on the commission. In her place, the deputies included in the draft Oksana Vorontsova, a member of the regional election commission for the 2016–2021 term, dean of the law faculty of the republican academy of state service and administration, nominated by one of the municipalities. After a discussion, Vorontsova’s candidacy was rejected by a majority of deputies. The right to appoint the missing commission member passed to the CEC of the Russian Federation. After the CEC’s intervention, Zinaida Konovalova was eventually appointed to the Komi Republic election commission. At the same time, at the Central Election Commission meeting, rapporteur Yevgeny Kolyushin reported that the head of the region, when appointing his list, had not taken into account the provision of paragraph 7 of Article 23 of the Federal Law “On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights…”. This provision states that the head must appoint at least half of the members from his quota based on party proposals, but he appointed only two of the three representatives — from the New People and CPRF parties. That is, the CEC of the Russian Federation raised objections not to the deputies but to the head of the republic. Deputy Chair of the CEC Nikolai Bulaev said that a similar situation had arisen not only in Komi — in 12 regions, heads had appointed fewer party representatives to election commissions than required by federal law. In our view, this once again demonstrates the absolute formality of the division of appointments of regional election commission members between the governor’s list and the list of legislative assembly deputies.

During the formation of the Orenburg Oblast commission, some opposition deputies in the Legislative Assembly voted against the candidacy of Eleonora Kuchinskaya. She had worked in various positions on the oblast election commission and territorial election commissions of Orenburg Oblast since 2004, and in 2022 became chair of the TEC for Leninsky District of the city of Orenburg. In the elections of deputies to the Vesenniy Village Council on 19 October 2026, which were held with a number of gross violations, Kuchinskaya found herself at the centre of a scandal, effectively taking charge of the work of a PEC and removing its chair. Recalling this incident, eight deputies spoke out against her candidacy. A heated dispute erupted in the parliament, with microphones being turned off. However, the votes of the United Russia deputies proved decisive. Kuchinskaya was later elected deputy chair of the commission.

In the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), deputies of the Il Tumen refused to appoint their former colleague from the LDPR as a member of the republic’s CEC. Only 21 of the 57 parliamentarians voted to include the party’s nominee, Yevgeny Ryabchenko, in the list of commission members appointed by the legislators. At the same session, a decision was made to terminate his powers early. Ryabchenko was accused of careerism and disrespect for the status of deputy, which he had received only a few months earlier. After this refusal, the right to appoint an LDPR commission member passed to the CEC of Russia, which exercised it.

4.6. Career trajectories of regional election commission members ↑

Entering the leadership of an election commission can be seen as a certain achievement in the career of a mid-level administrative official (specialist / head of various departments or divisions) or an election commission staffer (Natalya Koreneva rose in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast election commission from records clerk to deputy chair).

The chair is a public political figure who has status interaction with the regional authorities and the CEC of Russia. The position of election commission chair in a number of regions (especially national republics, electorally significant regions, so-called “electoral sultanates”) is part of the system for distributing influence among various groups / clans of the regional elite.

The deputy chair and secretary are more bureaucratic positions. The deputy chair, who often handles the main organisational work in the commission, can be the “shadow” leader of the commission, the “grey cardinal”, since he or she builds the commission’s working relationships with law enforcement and the administration, manages the TECs, and sits on various inter-agency groups. The secretary is primarily responsible for legal matters, the technical preparation of decisions and commission documents. It is the secretary positions that are very often held by former election commission staffers. For example, in Khabarovsk Krai, Igor Vezhnovets, the new secretary of the commission formed in April 2026, was previously deputy head of the department for organising the electoral process in the election commission apparatus, and before that held the post of head of the legal department of the apparatus. The longest-serving secretary is Sergei Kovalchuk, secretary of the Pskov election commission — since 1993.

Often the system draws its internal personnel reserves from lower-level commissions — TECs and disbanded municipal election commissions (MECs). For example, in Omsk Oblast, the chair of the city election commission, Ivan Khodakov, became a deputy chair of the oblast election commission. In total, the current Omsk oblast election commission includes four former members of the former city election commission. In Ulyanovsk Oblast, the former chair of the Ulyanovsk city election commission joined the oblast election commission from United Russia. Since March 2023 he has been deputy chair of the government of Ulyanovsk Oblast, and before that he was a member of the presidium of United Russia and head of the party’s election campaign staff (State Duma deputy Alexei Kurinny from the CPRF publicly called him an “experienced election falsifier”).

However, it sometimes happens that joining a regional election commission indicates not an upward but a downward trajectory for a politician, when the election commission becomes a “fallback airfield” for previously high-status officials / politicians whose careers have for some reason stalled, as well as a haven for political and other status pensioners, for example former law enforcement officers. In both cases, by including them on the commission, they were rewarded for their loyalty to the authorities, in the hope of their experience and connections, and given additional status.

For example, in Krasnodar Krai, Sergei Danilenko became the nominee from New People. He headed the krai commission back in 1995–1999, was twice a member of the CEC of the Russian Federation (1999–2003, 2011–2016), headed the CEC apparatus from 2016 to 2018, and from 2018 headed the Sevastopol election commission. The Tomsk election commission includes a pensioner, the honoured Russian road-builder Alexander Kadesnikov. In Ulyanovsk, the former dean of the law faculty of Ulyanovsk State Pedagogical University, Svetlana Artyomova, joined the election commission as a salaried member; however, she had to leave her post after she entered and won the United Russia primaries without coordinating with the regional authorities, but was barred from participating in the elections. After this incident she showed no further political ambitions. In the Komi Republic, LDPR representative Galina Nagayeva returned to the commission several times after unsuccessful attempts to become a deputy. In Murmansk Oblast, the election commission includes the pensioner Natalya Karpenko, who was previously the regional minister of education and science. In Ingushetia, after the commission had already been formed, it was joined by Mukharbek Dikazhev (former chair of the People’s Assembly of the Republic of Ingushetia in 2014–2016, former head of the apparatus of the government of Ingushetia in 2016–2017), acting head of the department of criminal law and procedure at Ingush State University. The commission of the Republic of Tatarstan includes lawyer Gulnara Sergeyeva, who in the past was the general director of the republic’s Agency for Development and Entrepreneurship, a State Duma deputy, and head of the department of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation for Tatarstan.

Often, work in a regional election commission becomes a dead end in the political career for ambitious politicians. Few from the leadership of election commissions have managed to rise to a higher political or bureaucratic level.

Among the rare cases of relatively successful advancement, one can note the secretary of the North Ossetia–Alania election commission, Irina Dzgoeva, who became deputy minister of agriculture of the republic. The secretary of the Perm Krai election commission, Alexander Smertin, became acting head of the administration of the new governor, Dmitry Makhonin. The head of the Sverdlovsk Oblast election commission, Valery Chainikov, who came to the oblast together with Governor Yevgeny Kuyvashev and was elected chair of the commission in 2012, became vice-governor in 2018 and held the post until October 2024. The chair of the Nizhny Novgorod city commission of the previous term, Oksana Kislitsina, was appointed to the post of oblast ombudsman for human rights; a similar post of regional ombudsman was taken by the previous chair of the Voronezh Oblast election commission, Sergei Kanishchev. The former chair of the CEC of Bashkortostan, Khaidar Valeev, who headed the commission from 2011, was appointed deputy chair of the republic’s Constitutional Court in 2019, and after its abolition in December 2022 — chair of the republic’s Constitutional Council. Natalya Chechina, chair of the St. Petersburg election commission in 2020–2022, joined the government of St. Petersburg in July 2022, and in 2023 became one of the vice-governors. Marina Obrubova, deputy chair of the Sverdlovsk Oblast election commission of the previous term, became deputy head of the apparatus of the governor and government in 2018. The chair of the Orenburg Oblast election commission from 2011 to 2021, Alexander Nalvadov, moved to the position of advisor to the governor. Larisa Andalaeva, former chair of the Tyva Republic election commission, after her resignation became first deputy minister of education of the republic.

There are cases of election commission heads moving to become heads of municipalities, but this is more of a horizontal move.

For ordinary members with voting rights, membership in an election commission can be a good way to attract the attention of the authorities. For example, the leading lawyer of the EATPBank, Irina Grishina, during her work on the Astrakhan Oblast commission entered the personnel reserve and became head of a department in the oblast ministry of labour and social development.

At the same time, some election commission leaders, perhaps tired of excessive workload and/or political games, decide to “depoliticise” their career and move into ordinary official positions (Irkutsk — the deputy chair of the commission became head of the apparatus of the Accounts Chamber).

Another interesting phenomenon that is gaining momentum in the Russian electoral system is inter-regional rotation of electoral cadres — a practice that is mandatory for law enforcement agencies and common for officials in the executive branch. Proven and reliable cadres are transferred to territories that cause particular concern.

A striking example is the situation in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug. In April 2021, the post of chair was vacated for family reasons by Georgy Popov, who had worked his entire life in the okrug and had headed the election commission for 10 years. Under him, in 2020, the okrug was the only region in the country where “no” won in the vote on amendments to the Constitution. As his successor, Ivan Makarov was selected, who began his career in the administration of Leningrad Oblast. In 2014 he was nominated by United Russia to the Leningrad Oblast Election Commission, where in 2017 he became deputy chair; in 2019–2020 he worked as head of the department of internal policy of the administration of the head of the Republic of Khakassia, while continuing to participate remotely in meetings of the Leningrad Oblast Election Commission; from April 2020 to May 2021 he returned to the post of deputy chair of the commission. Finally, in April 2021, on the proposal of the CEC of Russia, he was appointed to the Election Commission of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug and on 12 May 2021 was elected its chair, and in December 2021 he took this post again.

In May 2025, the secretary of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast election commission, Olga Yefimova (23 years of experience in the electoral system), was “transferred” to the Amur election commission, where she was also elected to the post of secretary.

In April 2026, Olga Maltseva joined the Khabarovsk Krai election commission; just two months earlier, on the proposal of the CEC of Russia, she had been deputy chair of a TEC in the federal territory “Sirius”. In the period from 2012 to 2026 she was secretary of the Stavropol Krai election commission. In the new composition of the Khabarovsk Krai election commission she became chair of the commission, and the most experienced member.

In the Russian electoral system, a kind of “electoral dynasties” have already emerged. In Krasnodar Krai, United Russia has been represented for a second term by the deputy chair of the commission, Viktor Tushev. Previously, his father Alexander Tushev was on the commission. Viktor Tushev, before coming to the krai commission, worked as head of internal policy in the administration of the krai capital and chair of the Krasnodar city commission, which has now been abolished. In Sverdlovsk Oblast, a commission member with 20 years of experience, its former secretary and deputy chair Valery Raikov, temporarily headed the election commission in November 2018 after a series of resignations in the commission’s leadership, but was soon caught by the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation distributing TEC chair positions to his two daughters, and was forced to resign shortly afterwards. In the Chechen Republic, the commission was headed by Umar Baikhanov, the younger brother of the former chair of the Chechen Republic election commission, Ismail Baikhanov, who headed the commission in 2004–2012.

In the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Svetlana Klimentyeva, a salaried permanent member of the commission, is the wife of Sergei Klimentyev, first deputy secretary of the regional branch of the United Russia party, a member of the Presidium of the regional political council, until 2026 the director of the okrug’s department of internal policy, and currently a deputy governor who continues to oversee this department. Moreover, Sergei Klimentyev himself was a member of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug election commission until 2016, and the new secretary in 2022 became Yulia Kurkina, who previously worked in the department of internal policy as deputy head of a directorate — head of the expert-legal department of the legal directorate, i.e., a former subordinate of Klimentyev. In our view, a conflict of interest occurred twice in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug commission. In the new composition, formed in April 2026, Svetlana Klimentyeva again retained her place as a salaried permanent member of the commission.

As in any other agency, there are stable “career pairings” in the electoral system. For example, in the Murmansk Oblast election commission, its chair (since 2014) Anton Bogomolov worked in the Soviet era in the prosecutor’s office of Pechenga District, and his deputy Yelizaveta Yevsyukova was his deputy in the Pechenga prosecutor’s office as well.

Thus, overall, one can speak of the formation within the electoral system of a kind of electoral corporation: closed, non-public, politically dependent, reliant on regional authorities and beholden to United Russia, critically disposed towards the opposition. All of this was vividly demonstrated during the current election campaign and, among other things, explains why election commissions, led by their management, readily proceeded to remove the Yabloko party and its candidates, and showed a special attitude towards other unapproved candidates.