How did electronic voting in the 2023 elections differ from “paper” voting?

The past election campaign showed that remote electronic voting (DEV), as a rule, gives an advantage to United Russia (UR) on the lists, but plays against its candidates personally. Thus, in elections to legislative assemblies and city dumas, the electronic result of the party in power exceeded the “paper” result by 10–17 percentage points (pp), but in the gubernatorial elections, the majority of United Russia nominees received the best percentage in ordinary polling stations, Kommersant calculated. The expert explains this by the varying degrees of mobilization of the electorate: if the results of the parliamentary campaigns were fundamental for United Russia, then there was no doubt about the gubernatorial victories.

According to Kommersant’s calculations, in the September elections to the legislative assembly, the United Russia lists received significantly more support based on the results of the DEG than in traditional areas. Thus, in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug (NAO), 59.3% of voters voted remotely for United Russia, while only 42% voted on paper (a difference of 17.3 percentage points). Taking into account the fact that electronic ballots accounted for 11.3% of the total, the DEG raised the final result of the United Russia by 2 percentage points, to 43.9%.

In the Yaroslavl region, 59.9% of voters supported United Russia electronically, while only 43.1% supported it traditionally (a difference of 16.8 percentage points). The share of DEGs in the total votes here was 20.7%, so it had a more serious impact on the results of United Russia – plus 3.5 percentage points, to 46.6%. In the Vladimir region, 67% of voters ticked a virtual box for United Russia, while at polling stations – only 53.5% (a difference of 13.5 percentage points). With 14.4% of electronic ballots, the final result of the United Russia increased by 1.9 percentage points, to 55.5%. Finally, in the Arkhangelsk region the difference between the DEG and the “paper” for the EP was 10.1 percentage points: 58.4% and 48.3%, respectively. The share of virtual ballots here reached 18.5%, and the aggregate result of the party in power due to this increased by 1.9 percentage points, to 50.2%.

Together with the United Russia members, the “New People” were in the black; they were more actively supported in the Vladimir, Yaroslavl and Arkhangelsk regions on the DEG than on paper (the difference is 2.6 p.p., 2.1 p.p. and 1.5 p.p., respectively), as well as “Greens” in the Arkhangelsk region and the Nenets Autonomous Okrug (2 p.p. and 1.2 p.p.). Electronic voting hit the results of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation the hardest, which missed from 4.1 percentage points in the Yaroslavl region to 8.2 percentage points in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, as well as A Just Russia – For Truth (SRZP) in the Vladimir and Yaroslavl regions (2.3 p.p. and 3.8 p.p.). In addition, the Pensioners Party finished significantly worse in the DEG than in the paper: it received 3.2 percentage points less in the Yaroslavl region and 4 percentage points less in the Vladimir region.

Let us recall that the Communists were more active than other opposition parties in agitating Russians not to use the DEG (see Kommersant on September 8). The rest of the parliamentary forces were not so categorical, leaving the choice to the voters.

A similar pattern is visible in elections to city parliaments. Thus, in Yekaterinburg, United Russia members received 53.2% in virtual polling stations, but only 37.7% in regular polling stations (a difference of 15.6 percentage points). Every fourth voter cast their vote electronically (27% of the total), so the United Russia result immediately increased by 4.2 percentage points, to 41.9%. In Arkhangelsk, at the DEG, 60.1% of voters voted for the list of the party in power, and only 46.1% voted in the traditional way (a difference of 14 percentage points). With a share of electronic ballots of 21.5%, this gave EP an additional 3 percentage points, the final result was 49.1%.

As in the cases with legislative assemblies, in the administrative centers the DEG had a positive effect on the performance of the “New People”, and a negative impact on the performance of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, SRZP and Yabloko. The LDPR in Yekaterinburg received 1.5 percentage points more in virtual polling stations than in regular ones, and in Arkhangelsk – 1.1 percentage points less.

The picture is different in the gubernatorial elections. The result of the majority of active chapters on the DEG turned out to be worse than on “paper”. Thus, 81.8% of voters voted electronically for the governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, Gleb Nikitin, and 82.9% traditionally (a difference of 1.1 percentage points). For Novosibirsk resident Andrei Travnikov – 71.7% and 76.2%, respectively (4.6 p.p.), for the head of the Moscow region Andrei Vorobyov – 79.3% and 84.2% (5 p.p.). And the largest gap was found among Voronezh governor Alexander Gusev, who was supported by 59.8% of voters in the DEG, and 78.1% on paper (a difference of 18.3 percentage points).

However, in the Voronezh region the share of electronic ballots in the total was minimal (6.7%), so this had almost no effect on Mr. Gusev’s overall result – 76.8% (minus 1.2 percentage points). From Mr. Travnikov and Vorobyov, the DEG “took” 0.5 p.p. of the final result (the share of “remote” was 11% and 10.7%, respectively), and from Mr. Nikitin – only 0.1 p.p. (7 ,8%).

Remote voting played into the hands of the governor of the Pskov region, Mikhail Vedernikov, who was more actively supported at the DEG (by 1.9 percentage points) than on paper (87.8% versus 85.8%), as well as the head of the Altai Territory, Viktor Tomenko (plus 3.8 percentage points, 79.3% and 75.5%, respectively). For the first, with a share of electronic ballots of 24.3%, this gave an increase of 0.5 percentage points (up to 86.3%), for the second, with 18.1% – 0.7 percentage points (up to 76.2%).

Finally, the Moscow campaign stands out, during which the overwhelming majority of voters (81.5%) voted electronically. The current mayor Sergei Sobyanin turned out to be 3.6 percentage points more popular in the DEG than in traditional areas (77.1% and 73.5%, respectively). Remote control also played a positive role for the State Duma Vice-Speaker from the LDPR, Boris Chernyshov, who scored 2 percentage points more online than on paper. The result of the other candidates for the DEG turned out to be lower: for State Duma Deputy Speaker Vladislav Davankov – by 1.2 percentage points, for Duma deputy from SRZP Dmitry Gusev – by 0.2 percentage points, and for Moscow City Duma deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Leonid Zyuganov – by 0.8 p.p.

Political scientist Rostislav Turovsky believes that regional authorities treated the DEG differently: “In many cases, it was not stimulated or stimulated little.” According to the expert, mobilization through the DEG was carried out during the parliamentary elections, since the result there was “important for the interests of United Russia,” but such efforts were not made at the gubernatorial elections, because they were easily won with any type of vote. “They clearly sought to attract a loyal electorate through the DEG in the Arkhangelsk and Yaroslavl regions. In the elections of heads, Moscow, the Pskov region and the Altai Territory became in fact exemplary regions. But where there was no targeted mobilization of loyal groups in the DEG, it was used by opposition-minded voters, probably young ones,” the expert sums up.

Andrey Prah, Elena Rozhkova