Sun rises on Russian voters: Nine timezones step into presidential vote

​Russians are going to the polls to choose their next president. Given its expansive territory, polling stations in some Russian regions are just opening, while in the most easterly areas the voting process already in full swing.

The 2012 election has been called the most transparent – and the most expensive – in Russia’s history, with its main feature being the installation of nearly 200,000 web cameras at polling stations across the country. The number of observers has also hit a record, reaching nearly a million. The measures follow opposition allegations that the December parliamentary vote, which handed a majority of seats to the ruling United Russia party, was rigged.

This time, anyone can log on to a website showing a live broadcast of Russians casting their ballots. RT's viewerscan watch it here.No serious violations have been reported so far, with only some minor problems reported, including difficulties installing a webcam in Blagoveshchensk, the capital of the Amur Region; and an Internet connection too weak to support online broadcasting at some stations in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) and the Amur Region. So far, observers have reported order at the ballots.

Russia’s Far East started voting at midnight Moscow time, with the Chukotka, Buryatia and Magadan regions joining gradually, followed by Siberian cities. The Urals joined the vote at 6 am Moscow time, with central Russia starting the voting process just recently.

Nearly half of the Chukotka Autonomous Region's registered voters cast their ballots in the first four hours of the election, according to the regional electoral commission. Voter turnout exceeded 50 per cent in the Chukotka and Iultin districts of the region, while the weakest voter turnout was in Anadyr, where only 40 per cent of registered voters came to the polls. A 100 per cent turnout was recorded in the village of Krasnovo.

The Khabarovsk Region's local electoral commission reports that approximately 73,196 people, or 7 per cent of the region’s voters, cast their ballots during the first two hours of the presidential election. This is 4.5 per cent lower than the turnout during the same period in Russia’s last presidential election, in 2008.

Over 5 per cent of voters cast their ballots during the first two hours of voting in the Jewish Autonomous Region, according to the local electoral office. That is 1 per cent lower than during the same period in 2008's election.

Presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov has already voted at a polling station in a small town in Siberia’s Krasnoyarsk Region.

Russian citizens are also voting abroad, with New Zealand, Australia and Japan the first to open polls. 

This is Russia’s sixth presidential election, and the first in which the country is selecting a president for a six-year term. Before a recent amendment to the Constitution Russia's head of state served a four-year term, and was permitted to serve no more than two terms in a row.