Losing Golos Russia’s last independent election watchdog is shutting down. Here’s what that means for democracy in the country.
Golos, Russia’s only independent nationwide election-monitoring group, is shutting down after 25 years, following a court ruling that found its co-chair, Grigory Melkonyants, guilty of running an “undesirable” organization. The group said it made the decision to close after the ruling rendered even informal involvement with Golos — including simply seeking advice — unsafe. The independent outlet 7x7 looked back at the group’s work and what its closure means for Russian civil society. Meduza shares a translation of their report.
Without independent oversight, elections in Russia will become even more opaque
Golos was the only independent, nationwide movement in Russia that professionally monitored elections. The watchdog published findings from its observations, identifying trends such as mass home voting and tampering with precinct records. It also offered assessments of the legitimacy of elections and highlighted systemic issues, including the exclusion of opposition candidates, pressure on public-sector employees to vote, and the lack of transparency in electronic voting.
On its Telegram channel, Golos experts analyzed broader socio-political developments in Russia — from scandals surrounding municipal reform to the redrawing of single-member districts ahead of State Duma elections.
In 2025, Golos analyzed the results of the 2024 presidential election in two geographically distant regions: the Republic of Adygea and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. Focusing on turnout and the share of votes for incumbent Vladimir Putin, the group sought to understand what targets the authorities had set for local election organizers. They concluded that electoral fraud had become a kind of shared ritual, uniting bureaucrats and public-sector workers tasked with inflating results across the country. According to one analyst’s estimate, election commissions fabricated a record 22 million votes for Putin in 2024.
Without Golos, there will be no nationwide organization left to monitor, document, and publicly report on election fraud in Russia.
No one will be left to train or dispatch independent observers — meaning falsifications will go unreported
Golos’s core mission was training election observers. The group developed courses, produced manuals, and held workshops to teach people how to legally document violations, work with election commissions, and file formal complaints. Many regional civic monitoring hubs were built on this foundation. In a 2020 interview with 7x7, Golos co-chair Grigory Melkonyants said observers were the only real deterrent to electoral fraud.
Stanislav Andreychuk, also a Golos co-chair, worked as an observer in Russia’s Altai Krai in 2012, during local elections in Barnaul. At one polling station, observers noticed voters arriving with what looked like calendar inserts tucked into their passports. These slips turned out to be markers for “carousel voters” — people casting multiple ballots at different precincts. When observers confronted one such voter, a precinct official grabbed the slip and swallowed it. But the effort to hide the violation failed. The incident was captured on surveillance cameras, which were installed at polling stations at the time.
Looking ahead, even assembling a minimal network of election observers will be difficult. Beyond the risk of arrest or prosecution, there will be no remaining infrastructure or expertise to support this work. And the space for public oversight is shrinking: pro-government institutions like the Civic Chamber and loyal political parties are steadily claiming the role for themselves.
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The ‘Map of Violations’ will stop working, ending a key tool for public oversight
Since 2011, Russian citizens have submitted tens of thousands of reports to the “Map of Violations,” a platform Golos created to collect and document irregularities during elections. The tool became a cornerstone of large-scale public oversight: volunteers and experts from the Golos movement monitored submissions, categorized them, and, when warranted, drafted official complaints. But the map’s primary value lay in its ability to illustrate the scale of manipulation in Russia’s electoral processes.
During the September 2024 elections, the platform received 655 reports from 42 regions. One claimed that the general director of Chelyabinskgorgaz, a state-affiliated gas company, had issued an order requiring employees to vote electronically on September 7 and to provide proof afterward. This type of abuse of administrative resources was the most common violation reported ahead of election day.
In Ufa, medical workers were forced to vote in the Bashkortostan gubernatorial election under the pretense of a raffle and were required to report their participation to management on social media. Instructions on how to properly format their posts were circulated in internal group chats for medical staff. Supervisors had collected employees’ social media account details in advance, citing an order from the Health Ministry. Those who refused to share their information were threatened with having to submit written explanations.
Elsewhere, in Russia’s Orenburg region, residents reported that a gubernatorial candidate from the New People party had her car tires slashed. A copy of her campaign leaflet — with her image crossed out — had been jammed into the cut.
A vast archive of Russia’s electoral history will be lost
No other organization in Russia built such a systematic archive of election data. Its reports, analyses of electoral legislation dating back to 1988, rapid reviews, investigations, and original YouTube programming formed a unique body of expertise.
The disappearance of Golos from public life would mark the loss of an independent record chronicling Russian elections — from the rise of post-Soviet democracy to the collapse of democratic institutions.
The space for civic participation in Russia’s regions will shrink
For years, the presence of Golos coordinators in cities across Russia, along with their training sessions and events, served as hubs for engaged citizens. Monitoring campaigns, workshops, public meetings, and discussions offered entry points into civic life.
In 2017, participants from 35 regions gathered in Yaroslavl for the third Forum of Public Observers, organized by Golos. Government officials also attended, including a regional ombudsman, a member of the Central Election Commission, and a deputy chair of the Yaroslavl election commission. Golos co-chair Grigory Melkonyants, who would later be sentenced to five years in prison in 2025 for his work, was also present.
Other civic activists will be deterred from openly challenging the state
Since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine, the space for safe activism in Russia has shrunk dramatically. Election monitoring has remained a legal gray zone. Observers have been detained, beaten, and removed from polling stations, yet many people were still willing to learn and volunteer at precincts.
But the sentence handed down to Melkonyants sent a clear message: promoting the values of free elections is now treated as a criminal offense. As a result, activists must take greater precautions to remain anonymous, and it will become increasingly difficult to spread their projects — including online platforms for reporting election violations.
