Paul Goble
Staunton, Oct. 5 – As the Putin regime has tightened its control, not only have elections become ever more fraudulent but ever more Russians have become complicit in this fraud, making it less likely that this fraud will be exposed and certain that it will cast a dark shadow on Russia even after Putin leaves the scene, Egor Sokolov says.
In the first years of Putin’s rule, the regime did not have the control it does now. Journalists were freer to cover what was going on, and election observers were numerous and active, the Russian historian who just competed his studies at the University of Oxford. As a result, fraud was both easier to expose and less common (themoscowtimes.com/2026/10/05/the-kremlins-election-fraud-works-because-thousands-are-complicit-a93869).
Now, however, Sokolov says, the press has been gelded; the observers have been blocked from doing their work; and genuine opposition parties like Yabloko have been prevented from running. And at the same time, the state has mobilized ever more people to work in election commissions which are tightly controlled.
According to the Russian historian, this last move is especially disturbing in its consequences. Not only does it make electoral fraud “easier, it also corrupts tens if not hundreds of thousands of their members who either participate in the fraud or, at the very least, turn a blind eye to it.”
The number of people involved is so large because “Russia has almost 50,000 election commissions, each of which consists of between three and 16 members.” Moreover, Sokolov continues, many of those now working on these commissions are teachers given that voting takes place most often in schools.
That in turn means that the impact of fraud will spread to their pupils as well as having an impact on their future behavior, something that those concerned about creating an honest electoral system should be worried about given how difficult it will be to remove these twin nefarious influences from Russian life.
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