State Duma Voting Opens Across Russia for Three-Day Election

Voting for Russia’s ninth State Duma opened nationwide on Friday and will run through September 20. The first polling stations opened at 8 a.m. local time in Kamchatka and Chukotka, with voting under way across the country by 10 a.m. Moscow time. Voters are choosing all 450 seats, split evenly between single-member constituencies and federal party lists. Central Election Commission chair Ella Pamfilova said surveys showed the three-day format was convenient for voters; the wider election period includes more than 2,200 campaigns and about 20,700 mandates and elective posts at national, regional and local levels.