FACTBOX: Single Voting Day in Russia

MOSCOW, September 18. /TASS/. On September 18, 2026, voting begins in Russia in the elections of deputies to the 9th State Duma, the parliament’s lower house, as well as in regional and local elections, which are held as part of the Single Voting Day (SVD). According to the electoral legislation, the SVD is held on the third Sunday of September and this year it falls on September 20. By decision of the Central Election Commission, voting will take place over three days: September 18, 19 and 20.

TASS Factbox editors have compiled key facts and figures about Russia’s Single Voting Day.

Introduced in 2005, Single Voting Day is the designated voting date in Russia for elections at various levels. The inaugural SVD was held in 2006. Until 2012, elections were held twice a year. Starting in 2013, that was cut to once a year. A total of 27 election campaigns were held within the SVD framework.

Since the 1990s, the Russian Federation’s entities have independently set the date of regional and municipal elections. As a rule, heads of regions were elected to serve terms of 4-5 years (in 2005-2012, no direct elections were held, with the exception of the Nenets Autonomous Region in early 2005). In October 2004, Alexander Veshnyakov, who was the chairman of the Russian Central Election Commission at that time, proposed to establish an annual Single Voting Day in March, with an additional "reserve" day for the month of October.

On July 21, 2005, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the law "On Amendments to Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation on Elections and Referendums and Other Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation." The document stipulated two equal unified voting days in regional and local elections: the second Sunday in March and the second Sunday in October in cases where officials’ terms are expiring. If the regional elections coincided with the federal elections (the presidential election and the election to the Russian Parliament’s lower House of State Duma), they were all held on the same day. That law took effect in 2006.

At a meeting with the Russian president on April 5, 2012, representatives of a number of Russian regions proposed an initiative to establish one Single Voting Day per year instead of two. The second Sunday in September was suggested as a possible date.

On October 2, 2012, the Russian president signed amendments to the laws on political parties and on basic guarantees of the electoral rights of Russian citizens. According to the signed amendments, the Single Voting Day was scheduled to be held annually on the second Sunday of September, when official duties of local and municipal officials expire. That date also stipulated aligning it with State Duma elections in election years. The document entered into force on November 1 of the same year. Therefore, since then Single Voting Day has been held once a year, in September.

Based on a State Duma initiative from November 3, 2015, a law was passed on postponing the federal parliamentary elections and combining them with the Single Voting Day in September (the State Duma lawmakers were elected previously to that date in the month of December).