MOSCOW, March 14. /TASS/. The chief of Russia’s Central Election Commission Ella Pamfilova will announce early returns from the presidential election in the morning of March 18. The CEC will start disclosing the results starting from 9 p.m. on March 17, Igor Borisov, a member of the CEC, has told TASS news conference.

"Pamfilova will announce early returns before lunchtime on Monday. I assume that at that point the figure will already be at least 90%. Let me say it again that we will receive data within the framework of the government-run automated system running on a new platform <...>. We will summarize the final results when we have all original reports from all constituent entities of Russia. Then they will be summarized in strict accordance with the requirements of the current legislation," Borisov said.

He noted that the CEC continued to improve the system of distance electronic voting.

"We will start summarizing the returns as early as 8 p.m., when the distance voting will be over in the whole territory of Russia, except for Kaliningrad. An hour later we will add Kaliningrad. And at 9 p.m. we will be ready to start disclosing early returns," Borisov said.

He pointed out that the distance voting returns and the results of voting with ballot papers at polling stations would be summarized in parallel.

The Russian Federation Council, or upper house of parliament, officially designated March 17, 2024 as the day of the presidential election. The Russian Central Election Commission (CEC) then announced that voting will take place over three days on March 15-17. Four candidates will vie for the top office, namely New People party nominee Vladislav Davankov; self-nominated candidate and incumbent President Vladimir Putin; Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) nominee Leonid Slutsky; and Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) nominee Nikolay Kharitonov.