Russian authorities have decided to scale back the use of remote electronic voting (REV), which is no longer seen as a priority project. According to the outlet Verstka, the system will not be widely deployed in the State Duma elections scheduled for 20 September 2026.

There are several reasons for that. Firstly, the Kremlin is reportedly concerned about the risk of cyberattacks amid the ongoing war in Ukraine. Secondly, the system has failed to gain widespread popularity among voters, despite billions of rubles invested in its development. Regional governments have also shown little enthusiasm: local political strategists cannot manipulate REV results on their own, as only officials in Moscow have the technical ability to adjust outcomes.

Verstka analyzed in detail why the remote electronic voting system has “failed to take off”. REM is publishing an abridged version of the article.

The failure of REV

Remote electronic voting will not be used nationwide in Russia’s 2026 parliamentary elections, three sources close to the Central Election Commission (CEC) told Verstka, a claim confirmed by another source linked to the presidential administration. Interest in the platform has already waned. In the 2024 presidential election, REV was deployed in 28 regions [not including Moscow, which runs its own system – REM], with 4.5 million people — around 4% of voters — casting ballots electronically. By that autumn, the system was used in only 25 of the 83 regions holding elections, with under 1 million people taking part, just 1.4% of the electorate. [Editor’s note: On Unified Election Day (UED) in the 2025 regional elections, REV was used in 24 of 81 regions, with 1.55 million votes cast electronically. Despite the absolute increase in comparison to 2024 UED, electronic ballots still accounted for only 2.8% of registered voters.]

A CEC insider recalled that initially, several years ago, the plan had been to expand REV “at full speed”, including in electorally sensitive regions, for citizens abroad, and later in occupied Ukrainian territories.

“[CEC chair] Ella Pamfilova genuinely believed she could make elections simpler and more automated”, said one source within the electoral system. “It’s now clear the project hasn’t achieved that. The public has not developed mass trust in REV, and she (Pamfilova) is constantly forced to insist she is against imposing it”.

Another reason cited by the source is the system’s technical shortcomings.

“At a time of war, when Aeroflot, airport systems, and energy networks have already been hacked, it’s impossible to argue that REV is a reliable electoral solution”, Verstka’s contact at the CEC added. The latter is also confirmed in the regions. A senior official in Kursk region told Verstka that local authorities had decided to abandon electronic voting altogether due to frequent connectivity issues, which often occur during Ukrainian drone strikes.

Technical problems and failures

Verstka noted that a week before the 2025 regional elections, all past results of REV, including the 2024 presidential election, disappeared from the official “Elections” government website. The data was later restored, but electoral analysts who rely on CEC digital resources regularly report errors and glitches.

[Editor’s note: On Sunday, 14 September, the main voting day of the 2025 regional elections, the CEC’s website was offline for six hours — from 12:20 to 18:22 Moscow time. Officials attributed the outage to network issues at the state-owned company Rostelecom, which provides network for the CEC. Later, Ukrainian media reported that Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) had carried out a “cyber revenge” hack on the CEC. The disruption made it impossible for observers to verify turnout data or monitor the upload of regional protocols, and also prevented some voters from locating their polling stations.]

The REV system itself has also suffered failures on election days, even without drone strikes or cyberattacks. For example, on the first day of the March 2024 presidential election, the system could not handle the load and placed users in a virtual queue, effectively blocking voting for long periods. Voters were advised to “try again later” or cast ballots late at night. Similarly, during the 2020 constitutional referendum, a surge in users triggered a short-term REV website crash, rendering the system unavailable for some time.

[Editor’s note: In 2025, the platform operated stably overall, though localized outages and mobile internet disruptions limited access for some voters.]

The most high-profile scandal involving REV occurred on Moscow’s platform during the 2021 parliamentary elections. In eight of the city’s 15 districts, opposition candidates — including several backed by Alexei Navalny’s Smart Voting initiative  — were leading based on paper ballots. Electronic results were withheld until the following morning, after which the final tallies dramatically shifted: in every district, candidates supported by incumbent Mayor Sergei Sobyanin were declared the winners.

REV and the governors’ concerns

Since the first use of Russia’s federal remote electronic voting system (REV) in the 2020 constitutional vote, its scope has steadily expanded. At the time, only two regions — Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod — participated, while Kursk and Yaroslavl used REV in by-elections to the State Duma. The following year, it was rolled out in seven regions, in 2022 in eight, and reached its peak during the 2024 presidential election, when 29 regions were involved.

In most regional elections, results obtained via REV were close to overall tallies, and the proportion of voters who preferred REV to the in-person voting at polling stations rarely exceeded 10% of the electorate. But there were exceptions, where election results indicated a consistent gap between overall vote totals and results obtained through REV. For instance, in the 2023 Voronezh gubernatorial race, United Russia candidate Alexander Gusev officially won 76.83% overall, but only 59.81% through REV. A year later, Kursk governor Alexei Smirnov recorded 65.28% overall compared to just 50.06% in REV.

Not all regional officials welcomed the system — partly because it deprived them of tools to influence the outcome. According to a source in one central Russian region, REV data bypassed territorial commissions and went directly to the Central Election Commission (CEC). The “black box” where results could theoretically be falsified was in Moscow, not in the region. As the source put it, this created an “uncomfortable” situation: large numbers of public-sector employees could be mobilized to vote, but how they actually cast their ballots remained unknown unless harsh pressure was applied, such as requiring screenshots of votes to be sent to supervisors.

“It also turned out to be impossible to ‘correct’ the results,” a senior United Russia official in one region told Verstka. A regional election commission member and a CEC contact both confirmed that regional authorities had no ability to alter REV outcomes.

This, among other reasons, explains the decision to hold the 2026 State Duma elections without widespread REV. For regional authorities tasked by Moscow with delivering the desired result, it is simpler to rely on traditional methods — administrative resources and tight control over paper ballots cast by state employees, a political consultant close to the Presidential Administration said.

A CEC official added that regional supervisors find it difficult to falsify voting results because of the Duma’s mixed electoral system: half of deputies are elected through federal party lists, half in single-mandate districts. For security reasons, regional election commissions do not have access to the federal REV network. Access requires a cryptographic key split into several parts — all of which remain with officials in Moscow.

Kremlin to make final call

The inability to alter REV results at the regional level is one of the key reasons why many regions are reluctant to adopt the system fully, a source in Russia’s election apparatus told Verstka.

He cited Kamchatka as an example: the region had successfully used REV in both local and federal elections, with 42,000 voters — around 18% of the electorate — casting ballots online during the 2024 presidential vote.

But during the 2025 gubernatorial race, Kamchatka officials chose to abandon REV, partly due to what was described as the region’s “high protest potential”. Polling ahead of the vote suggested that United Russia incumbent Vladimir Solodov could count on only 59% support, even without strong challengers. [Editor’s note: In the end, Solodov secured 63% — one of the weakest results among the 20 governors elected that year.]

Another source close to the Central Election Commission agreed that the nationwide rollout of REV was impractical. “Initially, many thought it was the perfect tool, that it would be easier to ‘adjust’ everything there. But let’s not forget that elections are also about process — grandmothers, benches, concerts, pies. The final decision will be made by the Presidential Administration, most likely at the end of 2025. For now, both the CEC and internal policy officials share the view that REV creates more problems than it solves”.

The Russian Election Monitor (REM) is a network of experts, election observers, and independent journalists, monitoring federal campaigns, regional elections, and grassroots resistance, delivering insights into elections in Russia for an interested international audience.

In August 2025, EPDE and REM formed a strategic partnership to deepen the understanding of the Kremlin’s methods of electoral manipulation and disinformation.

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