MOSCOW, September 23. /TASS/. Referendums on joining Russia as separate constituent members started in the Donetsk and the Lugansk People’s Republics as well as in the Kherson Region and in liberated areas of the Zaporozhye Region at 08:00 am on Friday.

Voting will continue until September 27, when counting of votes will begin. For security reasons, people in the four regions will be invited to vote near their homes, rather at polling stations, or rounds of citizens will be made, in the first four days of referendums.

On Friday, polling stations for refugees opened in a number of Russian cities.

The Kherson Region’s Central Election Commission expects some 750,000 people to take part in the plebiscite, with half a million people registered as voters in the Zaporozhye Region. Referendum ballots have been printed out for 1.5 million voters in the DPR.

For DPR residents, 450 polling stations are available in the republic and more than 200 in Russia. The LPR’s Central Election Commission has opened 461 polling stations in the republic and 201 ones across Russia. According to the Zaporozhye Region, 394 polling stations have been established in the region and another 102 in Russia, the LPR, DPR and the Kherson Region. Citizens of the Kherson Region can cast their vote at any of the eight territorial or 198 local election commissions, or they could do so in Crimea, Moscow or other Russian cities.