MOSCOW, March 18. /TASS/. Russia’s Far East continues to demonstrate the highest voter turnout in the nation’s presidential election on Sunday, local election commissions told TASS.

Voter turnout numbers here now surpass the figures seen in the 2012 Russian presidential election.

As of 3 p.m. local time (07 a.m. Moscow Time) voter turnout in the Sakhalin Region reached 48.34%. "The most active voters are in the Kuril Islands, in Iturup where 67.24% voted some 5 hours before the ballot stations’ closure. Some 47.21% voters cast their votes in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk."

As many as 54.69% of voters have cast their ballots in Kolyma, beating the record for the 2012 election. "The most active voters are in the Severo-Evensky District, where voter turnout there hit 73%," the regional election commission told TASS.

Eight candidates are running for the highest office in the Russian Federation. Among them are: incumbent President Vladimir Putin; Pavel Grudinin, director of the Lenin State Farm (nominated by the Communist Party of Russia); TV personality and socialite Ksenia Sobchak (nominated by Civil Initiative); Sergey Baburin, head of the Russian People’s Union party; Maxim Suraikin, chairman of the Central Committee of the Communists of Russia party; Boris Titov, chairman of the Party of Growth and Russian Presidential Envoy for Entrepreneurs’ Rights; Grigory Yavlinsky, head of the Yabloko Party’s federal political committee; Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR).