Smart Voting — An Electoral Strategy

The idea was simple: in every electoral district, identify the strongest non–United Russia candidate and encourage voters to support that person, regardless of party affiliation. The goal was to prevent opposition votes from being split between multiple candidates. The strategy emerged in response to a political system in which opposition parties and independent candidates ran separately, while many voters were unsure which candidate actually had a realistic chance of defeating the authorities’ preferred nominee.

Phase One: Launch and the First Major Campaigns (2018–2019)

The project was announced in 2018. Moscow became the first major test of Smart Voting on a large scale. During the 2019 Moscow City Duma elections, Navalny’s team published voting recommendations for every district in the city. The campaign proved highly effective: candidates endorsed by Smart Voting won in 25 out of 45 districts. That same year, Smart Voting was also used during municipal elections in St. Petersburg. In a system made up of many small districts, the project helped voters understand where opposition candidates had a genuine chance of winning. As a result, United Russia’s share of seats in St. Petersburg’s municipal councils dropped by roughly 20 percent.

Phase Two: Expansion to Regional and Local Elections (2020)

In 2020, Smart Voting expanded to regional and city elections across Russia. Its strongest impact was seen in major cities and regional capitals, where the recommendations helped consolidate votes against pro-government candidates. In Tomsk, candidates backed by Smart Voting won 19 out of 27 single-member districts in the city council elections. In Novosibirsk, United Russia lost its majority in the city council.

Phase Three: Nationwide Scale — The 2021 State Duma Elections

Ahead of the 2021 State Duma elections, Navalny published Smart Voting recommendations for districts across the country. The authorities attempted to block the campaign at every stage. The Navalny app was removed from both the App Store and Google Play, and the project’s Telegram bot was deleted as well. Despite this, the recommendations continued to spread through social media, Google Docs, mirror sites, and other channels. The elections were heavily manipulated, including through the use of remote electronic voting. But in many regions and at physical polling stations where vote counting was more transparent, candidates endorsed by Smart Voting often performed strongly or won outright.

Phase Four: Continuing After 2021

After 2021, Smart Voting continued to operate during regional campaigns and nationwide election days. Its core idea remained unchanged: helping voters coordinate their support behind the strongest alternative candidate in a given district or region in order to challenge the ruling party more effectively.