A three-day vote began in 82 regions of Russia, during which 14 governors and deputies of six legislative assemblies will be elected.

The day before, the head of the Central Committee of Russia,

Ela Pamfilova

, said that this year's election campaign was "one of the calmest" in the last 10 years.

Pamfilova also noted that despite the scale of the election process, appeals and complaints are "less than ever" this year - about 1.4 thousand.

The team of Russian opposition politician

Alexei Navalny

announced the launch of "smart voting" at the municipal elections in Moscow: voting for the most popular opponent of the authorities.

According to associates of the oppositionist, the Moscow elections are the main political campaign of the year.

In September 2021, elections to the State Duma were held in Russia.

In Moscow at that time, many candidates from the "smart vote", who were leading according to the results of counting votes at polling stations, gave way to pro-government candidates at the very last moment - after the results of electronic voting were announced.

Ahead of municipal elections in September 2022, the authorities are using "smart voting" to remove independent candidates from the elections.

In particular, they blame the article on the demonstration of extremist symbols 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (the authorities consider, for example, the "smart vote" sticker).

The penalty under this article, which came into force, does not allow you to stand in any election during the year.

Initially, on September 11, the Kremlin planned to hold illegal and fake "referendums" on joining Russia in several occupied regions of Ukraine: in addition to the partially occupied since 2014 Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts (ARDLA), also in the occupied parts of Kherson and Zaporizhia Oblasts.

However, the situation at the front and the counteroffensive of the Ukrainian troops did not allow the Russian occupation administrations to implement this idea.