The September 2021 Duma Elections: Mission Overdone?

Abstract

In the run-up to the September 2021 Duma elections, the Russian authorities employed a range of tools to increase the odds that United Russia, the main pro-government party, would retain its two-thirds majority in the Duma in a context of low public support. They sought to facilitate the administrative mobilization of loyal voters through electronic voting and multi-day elections while reducing incentives for opposition-minded voters to turn out by excluding Navalny, listing independent media as foreign agents, and cracking down on protests. These tools were apparently successful: as counting went on, the vote shares of United Russia and A Just Russia steadily increased, while the vote shares of other major parties declined. But the sweeping and unidirectional nature of this change prompted widespread speculation about fraud, which has hampered the authorities' search for electoral legitimacy.