Влияние массового редистриктинга на долю голосов за инкумбента на выборах в региональные законодательные собрания

Вестник Пермского университета. Серия: Политология. 2025. Т. 19. № 3. С. 61–70.

Devyatnikov V.

Redistricting, as the process of revising electoral district boundaries, can have a significant impact on electoral processes, including in autocratic regimes with electoral institutions. This article examines the political consequences of electoral reform carried out in several regions of Russia over the past few years. Using the author's developed web-scraping algorithm for the GAS Vybory websites, data on voting results in regional legislative elections from sixteen regions were collected. Between 2019 and 2023, the number of seats allocated under the majority voting system increased in these regions, requiring massive redistricting to create new constituencies. This created favorable conditions for studying the political consequences of large-scale redistricting. Using data on the results of elections to regional parliaments, the degree of influence that mass redistricting has on the electoral results of incumbents was statistically significant. Still, the scale of the effect is not enough to alter the outcomes of elections, so we conclude that redistricting did not have a noticeable effect on the electoral stability of incumbent parliamentarians.

Keywords: региональное законодательство, электоральные исследования, региональные выборы, regional elections, electoral studies, электоральная автократия, electoral autocracy, redistricting, incumbency effect, редистриктинг, эффект инкумбента

Publication based on the results of: Institutions, human capital and regional Development: historical analysis and contemporary challenges (2025)