While 21,895 people Russian citizens cast their votes in Latvia in the previous Russian presidential election, this time their number was down to 20,765 people.
Representatives of the embassy described the turnout as good, noting that the high number of voters even resulted in a necessity to provide additional ballot papers, which had to be approved by the Russian election authority.
A total of 20,667 Russian voters cast their ballots in the Russian presidential election at polling stations in Latvia. After the vote, 95 ballot papers were found to be damaged and three were declared lost.
As reported, support for incumbent Russian President Vladimir Putin among voters casting their ballots in the the Russian presidential election in Latvia was higher than the overall voter support in Russia, according to the data of the Central Election Commission.
Data from the three polling stations in Latvia suggest that 94.88 percent of votes were cast for Putin.
Communist candidate Pavel Grudinin was second with 2.32 percent of votes, followed by Vladimir Zhirinovsky from the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party with 0.92 percent of votes and Ksenia Sobchak from the Civic Initiative with 0.73 percent of votes.
Putin convincingly won the presidential elections in Russia, though the freedom of the campaign and the propriety of voting day practices attracted considerable international criticism and skepticism. No congratulations have been forthcoming from Latvian officials so far.
