MOSCOW, March 15. /TASS/. More than 3.5 million people took part in online voting on the first day of presidential election throughout Russia, according to the e-voting monitoring portal.

As of 10:28 p.m. Moscow time (7:28 p.m. GMT), as many as 3,500,331 ballots were issued to voters in 28 Russian regions, who had applied for voting online. Thus, voter turnout on the federal platform of electronic voting was 73%

As many as 4.76 million people planned to vote via the federal platform. Residents of Moscow can vote on Moscow’s own platform and were not required to apply for remote voting beforehand.

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.