Changes to federal electoral legislation from July 2021 to May 2026

Summary

This text analyses how the rules for electing deputies to the State Duma have changed over the past five years.

It has become a commonplace observation that no federal election in Russia has ever been held under the same rules as the previous one. The 2026 election is no exception. Over the past five years, a number of significant changes have been made to the legislation, although fewer than usual — simply because all the most important changes took place before 2021, and now they are merely being developed further. Thus, citizens’ electoral rights are being increasingly restricted, while procedures are becoming ever less transparent and ever less subject to public oversight. There are also positive changes — although, unlike the negative ones, they are of a more technical nature.

Key findings:

The main trend of recent years is the ever-greater restriction of citizens’ electoral rights. This concerns, above all, the passive electoral right: the authorities have acquired the ability to strip citizens of the right to be elected in a targeted manner, extrajudicially and without any serious justification. To do this, it is sufficient to include a person in the register of foreign agents and/or in the non-public unified register of information on persons involved in the activities of an extremist or terrorist organisation. In effect, this amounts to the arbitrary disenfranchisement of opposition politicians.
No less important is the blow struck by legislators, with the full support (or rather, on the initiative) of the Russian CEC, against the possibility of public oversight of the activities of mid- and lower-level election commissions — not only during the voting process, but also in the processes of candidate registration and the regulation of campaigning. This blow was struck from four directions: the institution of commission members with consultative vote was effectively abolished; authorised representatives were deprived of the right to be present at polling stations; there was interference in the work of media editorial offices through a ban on sending freelance correspondents to polling stations; and maximally non-transparent forms of voting and vote counting were actively introduced — above all, REV.
The expansion of REV practice deserves a separate mention, since technically this form of voting has not yet been sufficiently developed. The practice of its use is accompanied by well-founded suspicions of falsification and contributes to the creation of favourable conditions for coercing voters, especially in combination with three-day voting, when the majority of “electronic” votes are clearly cast from workplaces. Nor should we forget voters’ fear that their expression of will will become known to their superiors or the authorities. We therefore consider the widespread use of electronic voting in elections to be premature.
Additional difficulties have also been created for ordinary voters wishing to participate in the election campaign. The law may now establish a minimum amount for voluntary donations by citizens and legal entities. Limiting the maximum amount is understandable and justified, but here we are talking about limiting the minimum amount. This makes the most democratic method of fundraising — collecting small donations from the broad masses — more difficult.
Campaigning has become even harder. For example, it is now prohibited to campaign on resources blocked by Roskomnadzor, i.e., primarily on social media not controlled by the authorities. In effect, this novelty signifies an admission of the authorities’ impotence to shut down access to resources it deems undesirable — otherwise there would be no point in the ban. The ban on using images and voices of deceased and fictitious persons looks like a targeted and politically motivated measure against the LDPR and the Communist Party (CPRF), which had previously actively used images of Zhirinovsky and former communist leaders — Lenin and Stalin.
It is worrying that during this five-year period, legislative measures were taken to increase the dependence of election commission members on the executive branch, especially since, at the same time, election commissions acquired the ability to hinder opposition campaigning, as candidates and parties are now obliged to submit a copy of campaign materials to the election commission in advance.

During the period from July 2021 to May 2026, 20 federal laws amending electoral legislation were adopted. However, 12 laws (No. 360-FZ of 2 July 2021; No. 90-FZ of 1 April 2022; No. 220-FZ of 28 June 2022; No. 569-FZ of 28 December 2022; No. 51-FZ of 28 February 2023; No. 109-FZ of 3 April 2023; No. 153-FZ of 28 April 2023; No. 286-FZ of 10 July 2023; No. 407-FZ of 31 July 2023; No. 635-FZ of 25 December 2023; No. 232-FZ of 8 August 2024; No. 546-FZ of 29 December 2025) introduced only minor — mainly technical or terminological — changes, and we will not write about them. In addition, Federal Law No. 530-FZ of 14 November 2023 concerned only presidential elections. Some changes concerned regional and local elections, about which we have written extensively in previous years; therefore, this text is entirely devoted to those amendments that affect the rules for conducting elections of State Duma deputies.

Significant changes to federal electoral legislation were introduced by seven federal laws:

Federal Law No. 60-FZ of 14 March 2022 “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation”;
Federal Law No. 498-FZ of 5 December 2022 “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation”;
Federal Law No. 184-FZ of 29 May 2023 “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation”;
Federal Law No. 531-FZ of 14 November 2023 “On Amendments to the Federal Law ‘On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights and the Right to Participate in a Referendum of Citizens of the Russian Federation’ and Article 1 of the Federal Law ‘On the Contract System in the Procurement of Goods, Works and Services for State and Municipal Needs’”;
Federal Law No. 99-FZ of 15 May 2024 “On Amendments to the Federal Law ‘On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights and the Right to Participate in a Referendum of Citizens of the Russian Federation’ and Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation”;
Federal Law No. 115-FZ of 23 May 2025 “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation”;
Federal Law No. 130-FZ of 2 May 2026 “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation”.

Six of these laws (except for Federal Law No. 99-FZ of 15 May 2024) amended not only the Federal Law “On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights and the Right to Participate in a Referendum of Citizens of the Russian Federation”, but also the Federal Law “On Elections of Deputies of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation”. Below we examine the changes introduced by these laws, broken down by sections of electoral legislation.

Overall, the changes adopted during this 5-year cycle were not as large as before, since most of the important (and mostly negative) amendments to electoral legislation were made earlier.

Table of contents

Restrictions on the passive electoral right
Changes related to the activities of election commissions
Changes related to holding elections under extraordinary circumstances
Changes to the rules for registering candidates and party lists
Changes to the rules for conducting election campaigning
Changes related to the conduct of voting
Other changes

1. Restrictions on the passive electoral right

Federal Law No. 60-FZ of 14 March 2022 extended the period of deprivation of the passive electoral right for citizens convicted of extremist crimes until five years have elapsed from the day the conviction is removed or expunged (previously it ended upon the removal or expungement of the conviction). In addition, two more articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation were added as grounds for depriving the passive electoral right: Part 2 of Article 133 (compulsion to engage in sexual acts committed against a minor) and Part 1 of Article 134 (sexual intercourse with a person under the age of sixteen). These novelties continued the trend of recent years towards restricting the passive electoral right.

Further restrictions were introduced by Federal Law No. 99-FZ of 15 May 2024. The main changes are related to the disenfranchisement of persons included in the register of foreign agents and/or in the unified register of information on persons involved in the activities of an extremist or terrorist organisation. First and foremost, they were deprived of the passive electoral right. In addition, they were prohibited from being authorised representatives and plenipotentiary representatives of candidates and electoral associations, and observers (the ban on membership in election commissions for “foreign agents” had been established earlier). A certain safeguard against arbitrariness at the final stage of the election campaign can be seen in the ban on including registered candidates in the register of foreign agents.

Thus, the authorities have acquired the ability to strip citizens of the passive electoral right in a targeted manner, extrajudicially and without any serious justification, including at the initial stage of the election campaign. And the very first decisions of the Ministry of Justice to add to the register of foreign agents (in 2024) demonstrated that the authorities have begun to use this ability: the register included, in particular, Yekaterina Duntsova, Marina Litvinovich and Igor Artemyev, who had planned to participate in elections. Subsequently, other active politicians were also included in this register (Sergei Markov, Ksenia Cherepanova, Oleg Shein, and others).

If we speak only of persons included in the register of foreign agents, the ban applies, according to our data (as of 5 June 2026), to 756 people. Admittedly, a significant portion of them had already been deprived of the passive electoral right earlier, as they have been abroad for a long time and, apparently, hold a residence permit in a foreign state or citizenship of a foreign state. A small number of them are in places of deprivation of liberty by court sentence.

As for the unified register of information on persons involved in the activities of an extremist or terrorist organisation, this register is not publicly accessible, and we do not know how many people are in it. However, in this case, it is merely a matter of systematising the restrictions introduced in 2021: the persons affected by that ban at that time are now included in a closed register, accessible only to election commissions upon their requests.

2. Changes related to the activities of election commissions

The main novelty of Federal Law No. 60-FZ of 14 March 2022 is the abolition of the possibility of appointing members of election commissions with consultative vote to territorial, district and precinct election commissions. Such status is retained only in the CEC and election commissions of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. In addition, it is prohibited to appoint one person as a commission member with consultative vote to more than one election commission (parties sometimes used this possibility, appointing a unique specialist to several commissions at once). Also abolished is the retention of powers of an election commission member with consultative vote in the event of the election of a candidate or the admission of a party list to the distribution of mandates — now the powers terminate on the day of the official publication of the results of the relevant elections or referendum (this did not apply to already appointed members of the CEC and election commissions of constituent entities of the Russian Federation with consultative vote, whose powers were retained until the end of the registration of candidates and candidate lists for the next elections to the same body or for the same position). Another restriction: a member of an election commission with consultative vote is deprived of the right to attend meetings of lower-level election commissions and to familiarise themselves with their documents.

In exchange, the possibility of appointing observers to district and territorial commissions is provided for (observers could previously be appointed to precinct commissions, and to territorial commissions only when early voting was conducted), but they may be present in these commissions only on voting days and during the summing up of voting results, and their powers differ significantly from the powers of commission members with consultative vote. In particular, they do not have the right to participate in discussions at commission meetings or to verify the correctness of the vote count.

Thus, a serious blow has been struck against the possibility of oversight of the activities of mid- and lower-level election commissions — not only during the voting process, but also in the processes of candidate registration and the regulation of campaigning. The institution of election commission members with consultative vote had operated in Russia since 1993 and was an effective means of such oversight.

Federal Law No. 498-FZ of 5 December 2022 was a consequence of changes to the legislation on foreign agents. Most of its provisions are related to terminological replacements: instead of different categories of legal entities and individuals included in various registers, a single term “foreign agent” was introduced.

Nevertheless, this law contained a significant novelty: persons included in the register of foreign agents are prohibited from being members of election commissions with either decisive or consultative vote. This is simultaneously an additional restriction for such persons and a further reduction in the possibilities for public oversight of the conduct of elections.

Federal Law No. 184-FZ of 29 May 2023 introduced new difficulties for public oversight of the conduct of elections. Thus, the possibility of the presence at polling stations of media representatives who have concluded a paid civil-law contract with a media outlet was excluded — now media representatives are considered to be only those working for them under employment contracts. In essence, these amendments amounted to interference in the work of media editorial offices, as they significantly limited their ability to choose correspondents to cover the work of election commissions on voting days. In addition, they further complicated election observation by independent civic activists. The termination of the powers of authorised representatives simultaneously with the end of the campaigning period is also provided for: this means that authorised representatives have lost the right to be present at polling stations. Furthermore, the establishment of designated places for observers and media representatives in the voting premises is provided for, which will lead to a restriction of their ability to actually see what is happening at the polling stations.

The possibility of allocating funds from the budget of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation and the local budget to assist in the preparation and conduct of elections (including payments to election commission members) is provided for — in other words, the dependence of election commission members on the executive branch now also acquires a legalised financial component.

Federal Law No. 99-FZ of 15 May 2024 further increased the difficulties for the presence of media representatives at polling stations. Whereas previously they had to submit an accreditation application no later than three days before the first day of voting, now it must be no later than seven days.

Federal Law No. 115-FZ of 23 May 2025 introduced a new article into the Federal Law “On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights…”: “Procedure for the consideration of appeals by commissions”. The article introduces a certain order into this important sphere, contains mostly reasonable provisions, and can be welcomed. This includes, in particular, the possibility of submitting an appeal to the commission in electronic form, and the procedure for the commission’s actions regarding appeals.

Federal Law No. 130-FZ of 2 May 2026 strictly stipulates that precinct commissions always combine powers for the preparation and conduct of elections and referendums at various levels within a defined territory. This has always been the case, but special decisions by higher-level commissions were required. Now this will happen automatically.

3. Changes related to holding elections under extraordinary circumstances

Federal Law No. 184-FZ of 29 May 2023 provided for the possibility of holding elections and referendums under conditions of martial law by decision of the CEC based on a proposal from the head of the region. Certain other specifics for holding such elections are also provided for.

Federal Law No. 115-FZ of 23 May 2025 established that by-elections are not held in the year preceding the year of the main elections. In accordance with this norm, no by-elections of State Duma deputies were held in 2025. Thus, citizens residing in electoral districts where a deputy has died or resigned may theoretically be deprived of the opportunity to have a deputy for almost two years (taking into account the previously adopted norm on holding by-elections to the State Duma only on the single voting day). For example, in the Biysk district of Altai Krai, where deputy Alexander Prokopyev relinquished his mandate as early as 3 July 2024, voters will be deprived of a representative for 26 months, or 43% of the term of office of the current convocation of the State Duma.

4. Changes to the rules for registering candidates and party lists

Federal Law No. 60-FZ of 14 March 2022 introduced a clarification that, in the event of failure to submit any of the documents required by law for registration, the relevant election commission shall adopt a decision to recognise the relevant candidates as having lost their candidate status. Previously, there was inconsistency in the decisions of election commissions in such cases — most commissions adopted a decision to refuse registration in such instances, which was legally incorrect. The novelty is, in principle, correct. Although it does not affect the realisation of citizens’ electoral rights, it facilitates expert analysis of the processes of nomination and registration of candidates.

Federal Law No. 99-FZ of 15 May 2024 restricted the “ceiling” of the electoral fund before the registration of a candidate — 30% of the total “ceiling”. Although it was claimed that this was aimed at combating money laundering through electoral funds, it may become a restriction for those candidates who collect voters’ signatures, as a substantial part of the fund may be spent on signature collection.

It is also worth noting a novelty that appeared as a result of the implementation of Ruling of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation No. 31-P of 07.06.2023: errors (misprints) made in the execution of documents submitted to the election commission in respect of an individual candidate, which do not allow the citizen nominated in the relevant single-mandate (multi-mandate) electoral district to be reliably identified, are grounds for excluding the relevant candidate from the list of candidates for single-mandate (multi-mandate) electoral districts before its certification, but not for refusing to certify the entire list.

A useful novelty introduced by Federal Law No. 115-FZ of 23 May 2025 is the possibility of remotely opening a special electoral account.

Federal Law No. 130-FZ of 2 May 2026 clarified issues concerning the name of an electoral association. Whereas previously the name of an electoral association was considered to be the name indicated in the document on state registration issued by the authorised federal executive body, now it was added: “or the name indicated in the unified state register of legal entities”. This makes it easier for an electoral association to adopt a new name.

5. Changes to the rules for conducting election campaigning

Federal Law No. 60-FZ of 14 March 2022 established a new obligation for candidates and parties in the event that a statement by an individual included in one of the registers of “foreign agents” is used in their campaign material. Now this statement must be preceded by information that it is a statement by a “foreign agent”. Here the trend towards restricting the rights of citizens recognised as “foreign agents”, and in effect — opposition-minded public figures and experts, is continued.

This law also established the obligation for candidates and electoral associations to submit to the relevant election commission a copy of campaign material intended for placement on the channels of television and radio broadcasting organisations or in periodical print media. This increases the ability of election commissions to hinder the conduct of the campaign by opposition parties and candidates.

Federal Law No. 184-FZ of 29 May 2023 added two more novelties that make the campaign of opposition parties and candidates more difficult. Thus, election campaigning using information resources to which access is restricted by the federal executive body is prohibited. In effect, this novelty signifies an admission of the authorities’ impotence to shut down access to resources it deems undesirable — otherwise there would be no point in the ban. Another novelty — the law may establish a minimum amount for voluntary donations by citizens and legal entities, which may not exceed 3% of the subsistence minimum per capita for the Russian Federation as a whole. Limiting the maximum amount is understandable and justified, but here we are talking about limiting the minimum amount. This makes the most democratic method of fundraising — collecting small donations from the broad masses — more difficult.

Federal Law No. 130-FZ of 2 May 2026 once again permits the use of the image and voice of individuals in campaigning with their consent, but prohibits the use of the image and voice of deceased and fictitious persons. The permission can be welcomed, while the ban appears excessive. At the same time, it is easy to see opportunistic elements in these novelties, aimed, in particular, at prohibiting the use of Zhirinovsky’s image and permitting the use of Putin’s image.

This law also provides for the publication of information on the financing of candidates and electoral associations on the websites of election commissions instead of transmitting it to the media, which is entirely justified.

6. Changes related to the conduct of voting

Federal Law No. 60-FZ of 14 March 2022 changed the restrictions on the formation of polling stations. In federal cities, centres of constituent entities of the Russian Federation and urban districts with more than 500,000 voters, the formation of polling stations with more than three thousand voters is permitted. At the same time, the previously existing restriction of 3,000 voters meant that polling stations in Russia were among the largest in the world.

This law also introduced a new article on remote electronic voting into the Federal Law “On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights…”. Such voting had been conducted experimentally since 2019, but was regulated by federal legislation to a very small extent. On the one hand, the appearance of a separate article could be welcomed. However, firstly, the article is insufficiently detailed and does not contain real guarantees for the observance of electoral rights during remote electronic voting. Secondly, technically this form of voting has not yet been sufficiently developed; the practice of its use is accompanied by well-founded suspicions of falsification and contributes to the creation of favourable conditions for coercing voters, especially in combination with three-day voting, when the majority of “electronic” votes are clearly cast from workplaces. Nor should we forget voters’ fear that their expression of will will become known to their superiors or the authorities. We therefore consider the widespread use of electronic voting in elections to be premature.

Federal Law No. 184-FZ of 29 May 2023 introduced a number of changes to the rules for organising elections that strengthen the influence of administrative resources. Thus, the possibility of forming polling stations outside the territory of the relevant constituent entity of the Russian Federation during regional elections is provided for. This increases the opportunity for certain categories of citizens to vote, but oversight of such voting is difficult. The possibility of compiling voter lists in electronic form is also provided for, and this measure (which looks like keeping up with the times) also complicates oversight of the conduct of voting.

Federal Law No. 99-FZ of 15 May 2024 provided for the possibility of voting by voters who are in places of detention, suspects and accused persons, outside the boundaries of the relevant electoral district.

In Federal Law No. 115-FZ of 23 May 2025, the main novelties were those related to electronic voting. Article 2 clarified the concepts of “Electronic voting” and “Remote electronic voting” (as well as “Electronic voting complex”). The first is “voting at a polling station or referendum precinct without using a ballot paper produced on paper, using an electronic voting complex”, and the second is “voting without using a ballot paper produced on paper, using special software hosted on a special portal, access to which via information and telecommunication networks is provided on the voter’s or referendum participant’s technical device”. In other words, the remote electronic voting (REV) already familiar to voters in some regions is voting via the Internet, while simply “electronic voting” (EV) is voting at a polling station without a paper ballot using technical devices (electronic voting complexes, EVCs).

Here it is necessary to delve a little into history. EVCs appeared in Russian elections back in the early 2000s. But there were few of them (literally a handful), they were used at a negligible number of polling stations, and no meaningful statistics on them were accumulated. A clause on electronic voting was introduced into the Federal Law “On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights…” in 2005, but it merely stated that the procedure for electronic voting and summing up its results is established by the CEC.

Voting using EVCs was actively discussed during the period when Vladimir Churov was the chair of the CEC. Experts criticised it for not allowing the voter to verify how their vote was counted. As a result of the discussion, it was decided that the EVC must include a tape on which voters’ expressions of will are printed; the voter must see the fragment of this tape relating to their voting, and PEC members must be able to carry out a control recount of votes based on this tape. And the EVCs were modified in accordance with this agreement. But during that period, EVCs never gained traction.

The situation changed after the introduction of REV. In parallel, in Moscow, election organisers began to compel voters who came to polling stations to vote not using paper ballots, but using technical devices (TEG), i.e., effectively using REV, but at the polling station.

Now, voting at a polling station using paperless technical means will be called EV, and these technical means — EVCs, although they differ from the EVCs that operated previously. This is also facilitated by the change in the law’s definition of an EVC. Whereas previously an EVC was defined as “a technical device intended for conducting electronic voting, automated counting of votes of voters and referendum participants, establishing voting results and drawing up the protocol of the precinct commission on voting results”, now it is “a software and hardware device that is provided to voters and referendum participants for conducting electronic voting and by means of which the preservation of data on the expression of will of voters and referendum participants, their transmission for establishing voting results, or the automated counting of votes of voters and referendum participants, the establishment of voting results and the drawing up of the protocol of the precinct commission on voting results are ensured”. In other words, the EVC ceases to be a device exclusively for the automated counting of voters’ votes, the establishment of voting results and the drawing up of the PEC protocol on voting results; now data on voting using the EVC will be transmitted somewhere, and the protocol will be drawn up somewhere else.

In effect, the law provides for the spread of the Moscow practice of using TEGs (under the new name EVC) to the entire country. At the same time, the TEGs used in Moscow:

have a built-in passport scanner and video camera, which structurally allow for the possibility of violating the secrecy of the vote;
do not allow the voter to verify how their vote was counted;
do not allow a recount of votes based on paper records controlled by voters;
are directly connected to the information network during voting.

Another important point: “In the event that remote electronic voting and electronic voting are conducted simultaneously on the territory of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation, the procedure for remote electronic voting may stipulate that the results of electronic voting are taken into account in the results of remote electronic voting.” In effect, different forms of voting will be mixed, and it will be impossible to analyse them separately.

A group of experts, even during the passage of the bill, drew the attention of State Duma deputies to these significant shortcomings of the bill, and then, after the law was adopted, appealed to the president with a request not to sign it. However, their opinion was ignored.

Federal Law No. 130-FZ of 2 May 2026 clarified the procedure for drawing up final protocols in electronic form.

7. Other changes

Federal Law No. 115-FZ of 23 May 2025 introduced changes concerning elections to the State Duma. Whereas previously the district scheme for these elections was adopted for 10 years, the new law reduced this period to five years. However, this change will only have a real impact for the next elections to the State Duma, i.e., the elections in 2031, since the previously existing scheme was adopted in 2015 and a new scheme would have had to be adopted in 2025 in any case (and it was adopted).

Federal Law No. 130-FZ of 2 May 2026 changed the procedure for forming voter lists — they are formed using the state system of registration (accounting) of voters and referendum participants and the “Unified System of Identification and Authentication in the Infrastructure Ensuring Information-Technological Interaction of Information Systems Used for Providing State and Municipal Services in Electronic Form”. There is hope that this change will make voter lists more accurate, i.e., deceased and departed citizens will be promptly excluded from them. To what extent these hopes will be justified, practice will show.

Overall, we see that over the past five years, a number of entirely reasonable and justified changes were made to electoral legislation, which, however, do not significantly improve the situation with the realisation of citizens’ electoral rights. At the same time, a number of changes were also introduced that substantially restricted citizens’ electoral rights.