Europe — 2026-09-23

Russia Duma Election Results Show Massive Fraud With Up to 40 Million Fabricated Votes Across Controlled System

BLUFConverging independent analyses exposing up to 40 million fabricated votes strip the Kremlin's electoral mandate of credibility and reveal fraud embedded across every layer of the counting system.

Russia's Central Election Commission reported United Russia won nearly 58% of the vote in the State Duma election, with record official turnout of 59.32%. CEC chief Ella Pamfilova said violation reports covered less than a hundredth of a percent of the 91,000 election commissions nationwide 1. Novaya Gazeta Europe, applying physicist Sergey Shpilkin's statistical method and with two election analysts validating the calculation, found the cluster of fraud-free polling stations centered on 34% support for United Russia, roughly 1.7 times below the official figure 23. Analyst Boris Ovchinnikov reviewed 20,000 published protocols and told ASTRA that falsified votes accounted for about 55% of United Russia's tally, with turnout inflated or falsified at nearly 70% of polling stations outside Moscow 14. In Moscow, election analyst Ivan Shukshin documented tally sheets being altered after submission, citing polling station No. 2700, where United Russia's recorded share rose from 21.5% to 86.8% between the original count and the version entered into the GAS Vybory system 5. Statistical analyses put total fabricated United Russia votes at roughly 22-31.6 million, rising to as much as 40 million, about 46% of the reported electorate, once online voting and balloting in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory are counted. Analyst Roman Udot separately estimated about 20 million votes, or 23 of United Russia's 58 percentage points, as rigged 1.

Analysis
Convergence of Shpilkin's distributional modeling, Ovchinnikov's 20,000-protocol review, and photographed tally-sheet alterations at Moscow precincts indicates fraud spans the full data-collection chain, from ballot counting to GAS Vybory entry, rather than resting on one contested metric, undercutting the Kremlin's claim of overwhelming public backing for the war effort. Confidence is moderate: three independent analytical approaches corroborate each other, but verification relies on published protocols and precinct sampling rather than full national audit access, and sourcing traces to a single Novaya Gazeta Europe investigation that other outlets amplify rather than independently verify. Pamfilova's framing of violations as covering under a hundredth of a percent of commissions casts the discrepancies as isolated administrative error rather than coordinated fraud. The vote's completion converts pre-election concerns about the CEC's system vulnerabilities into documented fraud at scale, sharpening questions about the legitimacy underpinning Moscow's domestic mandate for continued war.

6 sources

Statistical Model Shows Putin's Party Won Just 34% of Real Vote in Russian Elections - United24 Media
Результат «Единой России», очищенный от фальсификаций, составляет около 34%, подсчитала «Новая-Европа» - Novaya Gazeta Europe
Novaya Gazeta Europe: United Russia would have won just 34% in State Duma elections without ballot stuffing - Meduza
"System's Agony": Every Third Vote May Have Been Rigged in the Elections to the Russian State Duma - UNN (Ukrainian National News)
Election analyst says Moscow precinct results being rewritten after State Duma election - Meduza
Inside Russia's 2026 parliamentary election: Banned opposition, rigging, and war - Kyiv Independent