Commission's goals: Putin meets with the updated CEC staff

The new composition of the Central Election Commission of Russia should focus on ensuring security during the State Duma elections in 2026. Vladimir Putin said this on April 1 during a meeting with members of the Central Election Commission. The Commission has already provided for additional forms of voting in emergency situations, such as the practice of forming extraterritorial polling stations and online voting, which is already in demand by Russians. Another issue is to help veterans of their military in collecting and preparing documents for nomination. According to the estimates of the head of the Central Election Commission of Russia, Ella Pamfilova, there will be significantly more candidates from the participants of the special operation in the upcoming elections than before. Who joined the new commission and how Vladimir Putin prefers to vote in recent years can be found in the Izvestia article.

Who joined the new CEC of Russia

On the evening of April 1, Vladimir Putin personally arrived at the Central Election Commission of Russia, where the head of state met with the new composition of the election commission, which will hold the upcoming State Duma elections, as well as the presidential campaign in 2030. This year, the composition of the Central Election Commission of Russia has been updated, but mostly the "old guard" remained in the ranks of the commission, led by Ella Pamfilova, who was re-elected to the post of chairman. She has set a record for her tenure since 2016: her predecessors Vladimir Churov and Alexander Veshnyakov led the commission for nine and eight years, respectively. Vladimir Putin congratulated the new staff on the start of work.

— I expect that experienced members of the Central Election Commission and those who have been given such responsible powers for the first time will act together, in one team, and set a high standard for almost 1 million of your colleagues who work in election commissions throughout our vast country. Competitive, democratic elections are an obligatory, irreplaceable, constitutional instrument for the formation of a strong, capable government," the President said.

The ninth composition of the CEC started its work just a few days ago — on March 30, the first organizational meeting was held. The CEC of Russia is formed on the principle of quotas: five each from the president and both houses of parliament. The Federation Council retained all current members, the State Duma reassigned only three and appointed Alena Bulgakova, a member of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, who is known for her work in the system of public observation and monitoring of elections. As well as State Duma deputy Vasilina Kulieva, an experienced lawyer who has served three terms in the lower house of parliament. The State Duma has already prematurely terminated her powers.

Vladimir Putin also introduced a new face to the CEC. Along with the current members of the commission from the head of state (Ella Pamfilova, Igor Borisov, Natalia Budarina and Anton Lopatin), Hero of Russia, Lieutenant Colonel, veteran of the Russian Military Anatoly Sysoev was among the presidential five.

After becoming a participant in the personnel program "Time of Heroes", he moved on to managerial activities, taking up the post of assistant to the governor of the Tver Region, and now he joined the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation. He has a lot of achievements at the front: in the face of incessant artillery fire, his unit evacuated civilians, equipment and personnel across the Dnieper River as soon as possible. Under his leadership, front-line laboratories began to be created in the engineering troops. Without waiting for orders from the rear, Sysoev's unit independently set up the development and production of ammunition for UAVs.

— Thank you for our colleague Sysoev. It is very important that we have it. He has a huge work front ahead of him, because we are dealing with different aspects of the participants of his work," said Ella Pamfilova.

Today, more and more combat veterans want to test their strength in civilian areas, including continuing to work in elected positions, the president noted. In these circumstances, Vladimir Putin asked the commission to assist such candidates, including in the issue of registration of documents for participation in the elections.

Ella Pamfilova promised that the Central Election Commission would do everything possible to ensure that its veterans would not have any problems during the upcoming election campaign to the State Duma. By the way, more than 1,000 veterans of the military were elected in the elections last September alone. "I have no doubt that their number will be significantly higher in the upcoming elections to the State Duma," she said.

How the Central Election Commission organizes election security in 2026

In 2026, federal elections will be held in the Russian Federation — Russians will again have to determine the new composition of the State Duma for the next five years. The elections will be held from 18 to 20 September. Moreover, the credibility of the new convocation will depend on the work of the CEC, the president stressed. The election commission should pay special attention to election security issues: law enforcement agencies have already been tasked with preventing interference in the electoral process, the president said.

— What the deputy corps will be like, how the factions will be formed, of course, will be decided by the people of Russia, only by them. <...> I emphasize: no one, no external forces should get a single chance to interfere, influence the course and even more so the outcome of the popular vote. We will stop any attempts to use the elections to destabilize society," he said.

The CEC has already provided for additional forms of voting, which can also be conducted under conditions of high alert, emergency or martial law. Among the innovations of recent years, for example, the practice of forming extraterritorial sites. There are high hopes for using data transmission based on the Russian low-orbit satellite constellation being created to organize voting in hard-to-reach places, said the head of the Central Election Commission, noting that this makes it possible to organize remote voting.

The Central Election Commission of Russia is able to work in the mode of attacks, drone arrivals, said Ella Pamfilova. According to the head of the Central Election Commission, the electoral system in the Russian Federation has proven its stability, reliability, flexibility, efficiency and security even in the most extreme situations. For example, the commission is developing remote expression of will in parallel with the traditional one — the head of state himself prefers to vote in elections online rather than at the polling station in recent years.

— That is, responding to the challenges of the times, of course, we are constantly improving the voting mechanism so that we can hold elections in any conditions — external pressure, interference attempts, cyber attacks, enemy drone arrivals, Internet restrictions — we can cope. I am sure that we will manage further," Pamfilova said.

Currently, the CEC is working in the field of monitoring the purity of election campaigns, they have extensive experience and a well-established reputation, political analyst Dmitry Yelovsky told Izvestia. This is important for protecting the Russian electoral system from external interference and influence, while helping to ensure the openness and legitimacy of the elections.

"Therefore, the current composition in this regard looks like it is quite optimal and formed on the basis of very clear transparent approaches that will ensure the openness, transparency and legitimacy of the upcoming elections to the State Duma," Dmitry Yelovsky believes.

Separately, Vladimir Putin drew attention to the rights of voters in Donbas and Novorossiya.: He instructed the CEC to draw on the experience of election campaigns in its area. The President also thanked the CEC staff working in the most difficult situation near the war zones. "Despite the shelling and provocations, and the personal threats they receive, which are common, they courageously fulfill their duty to the people of Russia," Vladimir Putin concluded.