Online voting in Russia’s constitutional plebiscite closes with 93 percent turnout

Online voting in Russia’s plebiscite on amendments to the constitution closed at 8:00 p.m., Moscow time, on June 30. In total, 93.02 percent of all voters registered to cast ballots online had voted by the closing of the online polls: of the 1,107,644 ballots issued for remote voting, 1,090,185 votes were received.

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said that not a single hacking attempt managed to affect the course of online voting in the capital. “We put up a two million ruble [$28,540] prize for hackers who [could] break into our system, but no one broke it. [We] had to give the developers the money,” he said.

Though Russia’s plebiscite is nationwide, online voting is available in just two regions: Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod. Roughly 1.05 million people registered to vote online in the capital and more than 139,000 people registered in the Nizhny Novgorod region.

Most in-person voting in Russia’s nationwide plebiscite on constitutional amendments (including reforms that could keep President Vladimir Putin in power until 2036) is expected to take place on July 1. The early voting period ran from June 25 to June 30.