Elections Russian-Style

Figures & data

TABLE 1 
State Duma Elections, 1993–2007

Date	Party list seats	Single-member constituency seats	Party list threshold (%)	Party list contenders	Party list winners	Turnout (%)^a
						‘Voted’	‘Took part’
12 December 1993	225	225	5	13	8	n.d.	54.81^b
17 December 1995	225	225	5	43	4	64.38	64.73
19 December 1999	225	225	5	26	6	61.69	61.85
7 December 2003	225	225	5	23	4	55.67	55.75
2 December 2007	450	–	7	11	4	63.71	63.78
Notes: ^ashows respectively those who ‘took part in the voting’ by casting a valid or invalid ballot, and the slightly larger number who ‘took part in the election’ by receiving a ballot paper but not necessary using it (which was the formal criterion for establishing the validity of an election until the law was amended in April 2007 and the turnout requirement was removed). In both cases slightly different numbers took part in the single-member constituency and party-list elections (in 2003, for instance, 55.3% of the registered electorate cast ballots in the single-member constituencies, but 55.7% in the party-list contest); the totals reported are for the party-list contest in every case. In 2007 voting was exclusively by party list so there was no discrepancy.
^b Vybory (1996, p. 52). The official communiqué reported the number who had cast a valid ballot in the party-list election, but not the number who had cast an invalid ballot or ‘taken part in the election’ by receiving a ballot paper. The turnout figure that was made public was for the number who had ‘taken part’ in the vote on the draft constitution and is the basis of the figure reported above, which must accordingly be regarded as no more than an approximation to the number who had ‘taken part’ in the Duma election: Byulleten' Tsentral'noi izbiratel'noi komissii Rossiiskoi Federatsii, 1, 12, 1994, p. 28.
Source: Official communiqués of the Central Electoral Commission, including subsequent revisions, a comprehensive archive is maintained at the Commission's website, available at: http://www.cikrf.ru/banners/vib_arhiv/.

TABLE 2 
Television Coverage of the Duma Campaign, 1 October–22 November 2007

	United Russia	A Just Russia	LDPR	KPRF	Others
State channels
First Channel	19	2	2	2	3
Rossiya	20	3	4	3	7
TV-Tsentr	32	5	5	2	6
Private channels
NTV	19	4	2	1	1
REN-TV	22	10	9	10	13
Note: based on an analysis of prime-time news between 1 October and 22 November 2007; other political actors (above all the president and Council of Ministers) account for residuals. Coverage was also classified as ‘positive’, ‘neutral’ or ‘negative’. First Channel, Rossiya and TV-Tsentr were largely or entirely state-owned; the state energy monopoly Gazprom was the main shareholder in nominally private NTV; 70% of the shares in REN TV were held by two Kremlin-friendly companies, Severostal' and Surneftegaz, and 30% by the RTL Group.
Source: adapted from www.memo98.cjes.ru/?p=3&sm2=on&reports=200711, last accessed 5 January 2011; rounded percentages.

TABLE 3 
Television Coverage of the Presidential Campaign, 2–25 February 2008

	Medvedev	Zyuganov	Zhirinovsky	Bogdanov
State channels
First Channel	32	3	3	1
Rossiya	26	7	7	1
TV-Tsentr	35	4	2	1
Private channels
NTV	43	1	1	0
REN-TV	21	21	22	6
Note: based on an analysis of prime-time news between 1 October and 22 November 2007; other political actors (above all the president and Council of Ministers) account for residuals. Coverage was also classified as ‘positive’, ‘neutral’ or ‘negative’. First Channel, Rossiya and TV-Tsentr were largely or entirely state-owned; the state energy monopoly Gazprom was the main shareholder in nominally private NTV; 70% of the shares in REN TV were held by two Kremlin-friendly companies, Severostal' and Surneftegaz, and 30% by the RTL Group.
Source: adapted from www.memo98.cjes.ru/?p=3&sm2=on&reports=200803, last accessed 5 January 2011; rounded percentages.

TABLE 4 
Election Violations according to Golos Observers

Over the campaign period	%	On polling day	%
Domination of the media by particular parties	47	‘Black PR’	19
Instructions to enterprises and institutions to vote for a particular party	32	Incitement of hatred towards other election participants and groups	18
Campaigning in higher education institutions, government offices and enterprises	30	State and municipal employees campaigning in working time	14
Public declarations by leading state officials in favour of a particular party	28	Difficulties for parties in distributing their publicity	14
Campaigning in favour of a particular party by government representatives and others	28	Pressure to vote for particular parties in colleges, state bodies and enterprises	13
Source: adapted from Golos (2008a, p. 61). Golos representatives also noted the following on election day: denial of media access to particular parties, and the bribery of electors (both 12%), damage to or destruction of election materials (11%), use of public resources by particular parties (10%), and the arrest of party candidates or activists (9%).

TABLE 5 
Non-Standard Forms of Voting in Duma Elections, 1995–2007

	1995	1999	2003	2007
Early voting	462,461	68,122	74,182	147,966
Percent of total vote	0.67	0.10	0.12	0.21
Absentee certificates	n.d.	441,588	572,965	1,169,149
Percent of total vote	n.d.	0.66	0.94	1.68
Mobile boxes	3,205,501	2,859,879	3,392,631	4,428,022
Percent of total vote	4.63	4.29	5.60	6.37
Source: adapted from Vybory (1996, 2000, 2004, 2008a).

Vybory . 1996 . Vybory deputatov Gosudarstvennoi Dumy. 1995. Elektoral'naya statistika , Moscow : Ves' mir .

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Golos . 2008a . Doklad po vyboram deputatov Gosudarstvenoi dumy Rossiiskoi Federatsii 5 sozyva. Materialy mezhregional'noi konferentsii 11 dekabrya 2007 g , Moscow : Golos .

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