Moscow [Russia], March 18 : Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is running for the country's top office again as an Independent, opened up a yawning gap over his rivals in the race as he was leading with 87.34 per cent votes based on the results of processing 50.02 per cent of the protocols, state news agency TASS reported.
According to the data published on the information board at the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation, more than 33.95 million people have voted for Putin.
The Communist Party of the Russian Federation's candidate, Nikolai Kharitonov, was in the distant second spot with just 4.11 per cent of votes, followed by the New People party candidate Vladislav Davankov, who got 4.01 per cent of the votes. Liberal Democratic Party of Russia candidate Leonid Slutsky was in fourth place with a mere 3.11 per cent of the votes, according to TASS.
Voting for the Russian Presidential elections was conducted over three daysfrom March 15 to 17, with online voting available in about one-third of the nation's regions.
The total in-person turnout in the Russian presidential elections across the country as of 8 pm (Moscow time) was 73.33 per cent, according to data on the information board at the Central Election Commission of Russia.
The data on the board read, "The voting progress is 73.33 per cent". However, it did not include voter turnout in remote electronic voting. By 8 pm (Moscow time), polling stations had completed their work in all regions of Russia, except for the Kaliningrad region, TASS reported.
Putin cast his electronic vote in the presidential elections on March 15.
Footage released by the Kremlin on Telegram showed the Russian President walking towards a computer in his office, casting his vote and then smiling and waving at the camera. A notification on the computer monitor then read that a vote had been successfully cast.
This was the first time that the presidential polls in Russia were conducted over three days, according to a TASS report.
Russian Central Election Commission Chair Ella Pamfilova, said people liked this format as it gave them more opportunity to cast votes in the presidential polls.
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