TASS, September 27. Voting in referendums in the Lugansk People's Republic (LPR) and the Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions’ accession to Russia finished at 16:00 Moscow time on Tuesday. In the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), the Central Election Commission (CEC) gave the right to determine the cut-off time to local commissions depending on the security situation, so some polling stations will close at 20:00. Voting at the polling station organized for migrants in Russia’s Kaliningrad region will continue to work until 17:00 Moscow time. In Kamchatka, polling stations closed as early as 07:00 Moscow time (16:00 local time). After the closing of the polling stations, the tallying of votes begins, and the announcement of exit polls is allowed.
The election commissions of all four regions reported that preliminary results of the referendum will be available on Tuesday evening. Final results, according to the DPR and LPR Central Election Commissions, will be summed up within five days in accordance with the legislation of the republics. At the same time, in the Zaporozhye Region, as the head of its military-civilian administration Yevgeny Balitsky expects, the final results of the referendum may be known as soon as 09:00 on Wednesday.
The referendum is considered valid if more than half of all registered voters respond in the affirmative, the DPR and LPR reported.
In all four regions, the referendums were considered valid as early as on the third day of voting, when the turnout exceeded 50%. As of Monday evening, 86.89% of people had participated in the referendum in the DPR, 63.58% in the Kherson Region, and 66.43% in the Zaporozhye Region. By 12:00 on Tuesday, 90.64% had cast their vote in the LPR.
The peculiarity of the voting process is that, as the central election commissions explained, the final figures for voter turnout will be calculated based on the number of voters who had cast a vote. This is due to the fact that at the polling stations that are established outside the regions, the voter registries are compiled ‘from scratch’. Voters who show up to vote and present the necessary documents are added to the list. In addition, in the territories within the DPR and LPR liberated after February 24, the voter registries were tentative when the referendums began and are now updated as people eligible to vote at each particular polling station arrive and present their residence registration documents.
Initially, the Kherson Region’s CEC said they were counting on 750,000 voters. In the Zaporozhye Region, 500,000 people were included in the initial lists. Ballots were printed for 1.5 million estimated voters in the DPR. In the LPR, as of September 23, 1,360,768 participants were included in the lists.