The Kremlin’s political bloc and United Russia’s leadership want more than 10% of Russian voters to turn out for the party’s primaries — membership is not required. Regional administrations have already been given turnout targets. The Kremlin is using the exercise to test the so-called “corporate mobilization” of state company and public-sector workers ahead of the State Duma campaign. Russians have already begun complaining on social media about being coerced into voting. Meduza correspondent Andrey Pertsev explains how the primaries work in Russia in 2026.

United Russia’s regional branches and local authorities have been assigned KPI targets for turnout at the party’s primaries, according to a source inside United Russia’s leadership, two regional officials, and two political consultants working on the party’s Duma campaign.

In regions the Kremlin considers “problematic,” the target is 10 percent. “If fewer show up, [regional party leaders] will be called to account at United Russia’s Central Executive Committee and at the Presidential Administration,” said a consultant working in one of the “problematic” regions of the Northwestern Federal District.

To vote in the primaries, citizens must register in advance through the Gosuslugi portal or the Mos.ru platform. Voting is available both electronically and in person at polling stations opened specifically for that purpose in the regions.

At the 2021 State Duma primaries, United Russia recorded turnout of around 10 percent. The figure exceeded 20 percent in Tuva, occupied Crimea, Bryansk Region, Chechnya, Dagestan, and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District — territories belonging to the so-called “electoral sultanates,” where authorities significantly inflate real turnout figures and the share of support for government-backed candidates.

This year, local authorities are “focused on working with a larger percentage of voters,” since they understand that “not everyone will ultimately show up at the polling stations,” the consultant from the Northwestern Federal District said. “To get 10 percent turnout at the end, you have to work with 15 percent of voters. Because if you limit yourself to 10 percent, only 5–7 percent will vote,” he explained. “Some will drop out on election day for various reasons — someone will fall ill, someone will be out of town.”

A political consultant working with the authorities said the KPI for an “average region” — one considered neither “problematic” nor a “sultanate” — is actually higher: between 12 percent and 14 percent. A separate consultant close to the Presidential Administration noted that “managed territories can deliver more,” adding: “It depends on the will of their leadership.”

The preliminary vote to select United Russia’s candidates for the State Duma will run from May 25 to 31.

A political consultant close to the Presidential Administration drew a contrast between United Russia’s primaries and the same process in countries such as the United States:

Republicans and Democrats select the strongest — those with the brightest charisma, who can put forward the best slogans, mobilize their supporters — which means supporters will come and improve the party’s overall result. With United Russia, the candidate who is supposed to win is determined in advance.

Those predetermined candidates are sitting State Duma deputies, regional officials being promoted to the federal parliament, and participants in the war with Ukraine who enjoy the patronage of the authorities. They are traditionally opposed by unknowns — often non-party members, who may also take part in United Russia’s primaries — who run no campaign and, in the same source’s words, “are needed to fill out the ballot.”

Both the consultant and a regional official described the primaries as a test of “corporate and budgetary mobilization” — a way to gauge what turnout among public-sector workers can realistically be expected at the actual elections. United Russia and regional administrations, the consultant said, “need to check the currency of their databases, the actual mobilization capabilities, identify territories where mobilization is lagging for whatever reason, and address those reasons.”

The official said party leadership and the secretary of United Russia’s general council, Vladimir Yakushev, “are pretending that the party is mobilizing its members and supporters,” but called that framing disconnected from reality:

In reality, public-sector workers will again be the ones going to the primaries, along with employees of enterprises owned by businessmen loyal to the authorities. And not because they are interested in the process or the competition (they already know who they need to put a tick next to), but because they were asked [from above]. We’re actually the ones who asked.

Two consultants working on United Russia’s Duma campaign said most such voters are expected not only to vote themselves but to bring three to five others to the polls, depending on the region. “These are the so-called ‘plus three,’ ‘plus five’ projects. You have to convince relatives and friends to vote. Teachers convince parents [of schoolchildren] — it’s all just like in regular elections,” one of them said.

Sanctions for failing to comply are almost never applied to public-sector workers, the source noted, but they generally follow the instructions to avoid conflicts with management.

A source who worked with the political bloc of Vladislav Surkov and now works with the Presidential Administration’s political management said the primaries originally had “a somewhat different meaning” and that “turnout was not particularly chased.” “The preliminary vote allowed campaigning to begin earlier than the period permitted by law. The primaries helped promote candidates and their slogans in advance,” he recalled.

Another consultant working with the Presidential Administration’s political bloc called the KPI of more than 10 percent turnout “not the most adequate for current conditions”: “The authorities’ ratings are falling, people are disappointed, exhausted. And now they’re being herded to a procedure that isn’t particularly clear to them. I hope they won’t go overboard with coercion and will simply draw whatever figures are needed. It’s a party platform — they do what they want.”

Reports of coercion are already emerging. In Krasnoyarsk Krai, regional leadership is distributing “instruction sheets” among public-sector workers for registering for the preliminary vote. Local political analyst Alexander Aksyutenkov wrote on his Telegram channel: “Some public-sector institutions are even planning to set up a room with a computer where, under the watchful eye of the person responsible for the preliminary vote results, public-sector workers will ‘voluntarily’ cast their votes.”

Teachers in St. Petersburg have received insistent requests to recruit “two or three reliable parents” of their pupils for the primaries, reported the outlet Bumaga. The rectorate of Omsk State Pedagogical University is demanding that 150 students from each department turn out for the primaries, according to the regional branch of the party “Rassvet.” The outlet Astra published a video in which a Russian public-sector worker named Yekaterina complained about being coerced into voting by her management. She said she is required to report back to her superiors about her vote, provide a photo or screenshots, and also recruit three acquaintances.

A consultant who works with United Russia but opposes the practice of herding public-sector workers argued that the primaries in this form do the party more harm than good, since “coercion provokes a negative reaction”:

Sometimes genuine competition arises in the primaries, and then they immediately become interesting. But most often this competition arises by oversight — it simply isn’t built into the mechanism. Everything is decided in Kremlin and party offices. Although, for example, a vote for the leaders of the party list could generate genuine interest. But it has never once been held.

Andrey Pertsev