Municipal council candidate accuses Moscow government of rigging election in her favor

Russian Communist Party (KPRF) candidate Daria Bagina, who officially won a seat in her district’s municipal council in an election that ended on September 11, announced Tuesday that she does not consider the results legitimate. On Twitter, Bagina, who ran in Moscow’s Akademichesky District, accused the Moscow Mayor's Office of using the city’s remote electronic voting (DEG) system to stuff ballots in her favor.

“A lot of people are congratulating me, but there’s nothing to congratulate me for. The Mayor’s Office despicably stuffed ballots for me on the DEG,” she wrote. “I won’t recognize the results of that kind of vote, and I don’t consider my mandate legitimate. I still have a lot to figure out before I know why they did it or what my next steps will be.”

Moscow’s municipal elections were held from September 9 to September 11. Voters were given the option to cast their ballots either remotely or in person. The city’s Public Election Observation Headquarters reported that candidates from Russia’s ruling party, United Russia, won more than a thousand of the 1,417 available seats.

By Meduza’s estimates, pro-government candidates won more seats in Moscow this year than in the city’s last municipal elections, which were held in 2017. This year, many pro-government candidates were affiliated with the My District movement rather than with United Russia.