Photo: Donat Sorokin/TASS
MOSCOW, March 15 /TASS/. Presidential voting has begun in Russia: over the next three days Russians will elect their president for the next six years. In total, more than 94,000 polling stations will be open in Russia from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. local time.
This will be the first presidential vote to use the latest technology tried and tested in previous lower-level elections - a three-day voting period and remote voting. For the first time, residents of Donbas and Novorossiya will participate in the elections.
Polling stations have already opened in Russia's Far East regions, specifically in the easternmost Kamchatka and Chukotka. Vladimir Solodov, the governor of Kamchatka, became the first head of the region to cast his vote.
Four candidates will compete for the top state post in the 2024 elections, the eighth in modern Russia's history. They are Vladislav Davankov (nominated by the New People's Party), current President Vladimir Putin (a self-proclaimed candidate), Leonid Slutsky of the LDPR and Nikolai Kharitonov (Communist Party of Russia).
At the very beginning of the presidential race, a total of 33 people were planning to run for the post of Russian president, including 9 candidates from political parties and 24 independent candidates. In the end, only 15 of them submitted the documents needed to be registered. When the deadline for submitting documents expired on 1 January, only 11 candidates remained in the race, but only four of them were eventually registered.
Scope of voting
For the first time in history, presidential elections in Russia will continue for three days. According to the chairwoman of the Russian Central Election Commission, Ella Pamfilova, Russians like this format because it gives them more opportunity to vote.
In total, more than 94 000 polling stations will be open in Russia from 8:00 to 20:00 local time. With the exception of a few locations abroad, voting will formally close on 17 March at 21:00, when polling stations in Russia's westernmost Kaliningrad region will close.
A total of 295 polling stations will be opened in 144 foreign countries and on the territory of the Baikonur space centre, which Russia leases from Kazakhstan. The exact timing of voting abroad will vary from country to country. The first country where polling stations will open will be Thailand on the territory of the Russian Consulate General in Phuket.
The upcoming presidential election will also be the first in which voters will be able to cast their ballot electronically, with online voting available in 29 regions, including Moscow, which makes up one-third of the Russian Federation's regions. Voters were able to apply to cast their ballots online from 29 January to 11 March.
In total, more than 4.7 million people have requested to vote online. The results of the online voting will be announced on 17 March between 22:00 and 23:00 Moscow time.
TASS/gnews.cz-JaV_07
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