If the official data are to be believed, the elections of 18–20 September in Krasnodar Krai passed without incident: turnout was about 50% against 41.6% in 2021, United Russia won 40.6% on the party lists and took all four single-mandate State Duma districts. But it is worth taking a close look at the protocols, comparing them with past elections and cross-referencing them with observer data — and the picture, to put it mildly, ceases to look flawless.
Geography of the result
First of all, what draws attention is how differently the winners’ results look in different districts. Thus, in two Krasnodar districts United Russia candidates won with 31.4% (Oleg Likontsev, No. 58) and 33.0% (Alexander Drozdov, No. 59). In the Divnogorsk district Sergei Yeryomin already has 41.7%, and in the Yenisei district Andrei Grachyov — 44.9%. In other words, the further from the regional capital, where observation is denser and voters are less dependent on their employer and the administration, the higher the ruling party’s tally. It is this gradient that, in essence, sets the direction for further analysis — the main anomalies are concentrated in the districts and in the north.
Voting at home
According to expert estimates, the normal share of out-of-polling-place voting is 2–6% of all who voted. Meanwhile, in a number of districts of the krai it turned out to be 3–4 times higher. The data for the Legislative Assembly elections are particularly telling: Yenisei district No. 20 — 17.5% (6,105 people), Minusinsk district No. 14 — 17.2% (8,788), Uyar district No. 18 — 17.0% (7,475), Sharypovo district No. 13 — 13.9%, Kuragino district No. 15 — 13.3%. Undoubtedly, there are more elderly voters in the districts, but even allowing for an ageing rural population such values require an explanation.
The first day of voting, Friday 18 September, stands out in particular. The record belongs to PEC No. 412 in the Sovetsky district of Krasnodar: 254 people voted at home there in a single day. A simple calculation shows how unrealistic this is. Even at 10 minutes per visit including travel, that is more than 40 hours of work for one mobile team and 14–20 hours for two or three teams — longer than the entire voting day lasts. Moreover, this precinct is not the only one: at a number of other precincts on that same Friday, 150–200 people voted at home. Where such figures come from is partly shown by the incident at PEC No. 264 in the Leninsky district (Reidovaya Street): observers found in the home-voting register a voter who had not submitted an application, had not received a ballot and ultimately came to vote at the polling station in person. The police and the Investigative Committee were called to the scene. This picture can be observed across the entire city — more in some places, less in others. The Sovetsky district of Krasnodar stood out most of all. There United Russia showed a high result, but the number of “home voters” also requires an explanation.
How it all happened in practice was recorded by observers. Two or three teams with portable ballot boxes would leave one precinct simultaneously, making it impossible to monitor all the trips. Characteristically, the difference in results turned out to be systematic: teams accompanied by an observer returned with fewer ballots and a lower share for United Russia; teams without observers returned with a larger number of “home voters” and a higher result for the ruling party. Yet the real demand for voting at home obviously would not depend on the presence of an observer.
Invalid ballots
The second anomaly, in turn, concerns the share of spoiled ballots. As a rule, it does not exceed 2–3.5%, whereas in a number of districts of the krai it amounted to 5–7%: Taimyr district No. 23 — 7.3%, Uyar district No. 18 — 6.5%, Evenki district No. 24 — 6.3%, Yenisei district No. 20 — 5.2%. It should be said that a known way to obtain such figures is to place a second mark on a ballot cast for a competitor during the count. As a result, the vote does not transfer to the winner directly, but drops out of the calculation — and the leader’s share accordingly rises.
Yenisei district No. 20 (Legislative Assembly). Sergei Ponomarenko won with 37.5%, ahead of his closest rival by 3,996 votes. 6,105 people voted at home, 1,821 ballots were declared invalid — together, twice the difference between first and second place. In addition, the precincts received 75,855 ballots for 71,634 voters on the lists.
Norilsk: two templates
Perhaps the most telling case is Norilsk, which is part of Yenisei district No. 61. To begin with, turnout in the city was 59.3% against 49.1% in the krai. Andrei Grachyov received 78.3% in Norilsk against 44.9% in the district; United Russia candidates for the Legislative Assembly in the Norilsk districts received 70.9% (Dmitry Sviridov) and 64.8% (Irina Subocheva) — these are records for the krai. For comparison, in 2021 on the territory of the current district No. 61, United Russia won 41.7%, the CPRF — 18.8%, the LDPR — 13.7%.
Yet even more telling is the distribution across precincts. As is well known, in real voting the results of neighbouring PECs are scattered across a wide range. In the results of the Norilsk TEC, however, the precincts are clearly divided into two groups with almost identical figures within each:
Group 1: United Russia — 70–73%, LDPR — 23–25%, CPRF, A Just Russia and the remaining parties — no more than 1–1.5% each.
Group 2: United Russia — 79–81%, the remaining parties are distributed roughly proportionally.
It is worth noting that in the first group two parties receive about 96% of the votes. Meanwhile, the CPRF — which has almost 19% across the krai, the same share it had on this territory five years ago — practically disappears, while the LDPR gets more than its krai-wide average (15.2%). In the second group, by contrast, the proportions look natural, but United Russia has the same result across dozens of precincts with a spread of two percentage points. Thus, two different but equally “neat” templates in one city are a characteristic sign that the results were written into the protocols rather than obtained during the count. And since the precinct results are compiled by the Norilsk TEC, the main questions naturally arise about it.
Krasnodar: working with the lists
In the regional capital, however, the violations were of a somewhat different nature. In Krasnodar district No. 58, voting by deceased voters who remained on the lists was detected. It is notable how this story became public. Ivan Petrov, the LDPR candidate who reported the “dead souls” on his social media, emphasised that on Friday and Saturday he tried to resolve the issue through the territorial election commission — and to get the violations stopped. The commission, according to him, did not respond to his appeals, and on Sunday he was forced to bring the information into the public domain. In Central district No. 59, voting took place at the addresses of previously demolished houses. It is clear that such “voters” are convenient because no one can refute their turnout. On the other hand, it is precisely these episodes that are easiest to confirm with documents — by cross-checking the lists with civil registry data and demolition records.
Conclusion
Of course, each deviation individually can be explained away. But together they form a consistent pattern: inflated home voting, 5–7% spoiled ballots, template figures in Norilsk, “dead souls” in Krasnodar — and all of it works in favour of one party. According to the assessment of the authors of the independent analysis of the protocols, without these mechanisms United Russia’s result in the krai would have been closer to 30% than to 40%. And, perhaps most importantly, the common denominator of all the episodes is the absence of observers: where they were present, the results turned out to be noticeably more modest.