Moscow's commission says the paper-ballot lists are "working stably"; The Insider says voters were refused ballots

The same roll, two accounts. Dmitry Reut, deputy chair of Moscow's city election commission, said on Sunday that large-scale external hacker attacks were continuing on the capital's electronic voting system, "including the electronic voter list, which is responsible for issuing paper ballots at polling stations", and that "at the moment everything is working stably". Interfax, Vedomosti, Regnum and Life.ru all carry him. The Insider reports Moscow voters describing a mass refusal to issue paper ballots caused by a failure of those same lists. No report we hold sets the two accounts side by side.

Three figures, three different things counted. All from Ella Pamfilova, chair of Russia's Central Election Commission, at one briefing on Sunday.

Pamfilova said the attempts came mainly from abroad — from Britain, Ukraine, Brazil and Mexico — and that hackers used artificial intelligence. She also said a representative of a "systemic party", one seated in parliament, tried to plant malware in Moscow's online voting system.

Not settled. Whether the roll failed. What one "impact" or one "wave" is, and who counted them. How the four countries of origin were established. Which party, and which person, she was accusing. No report we hold carries a check by anyone outside the commission, or a reply from any party.

What this is about. Russia voted on 18–20 September for the State Duma, the 450-seat lower house of parliament; Regnum reports Muscovites also voting for the Shchukino municipal district council. The argument here is not about who won. It is about whether the machinery that let people vote worked.

How it got here. Russia began running elections online in 2019, and Moscow has gone furthest with it. The city pairs a remote vote — ballots cast over the internet, with no paper — with an electronic voter roll at the polling station itself: instead of signing a paper register, a voter is checked against a database, and only then is a paper ballot issued. The consequence is the one at the centre of this story. If the electronic roll stops, paper voting stops with it. Neither the online vote nor the roll can be inspected by anyone outside the commission that runs them; there is no stack of paper to recount.

Who is involved. The Central Election Commission runs federal elections and has been chaired by Ella Pamfilova since 2016. Moscow's city commission runs the capital's vote, and Dmitry Reut is its deputy chair. "Systemic parties" is the standard Russian term for the parties holding Duma seats, as distinct from opposition groups outside parliament. Interfax is a Russian news agency; Regnum, Life.ru and Vedomosti are Russian outlets; The Insider is a Russian outlet that publishes from outside the country.

What is at stake. On the commission's account, a heavy attack from abroad was repelled and the vote held. On the voters' account, the system that gates the paper ballot failed on polling day in the capital, and the only record of it is what voters themselves said.

Where it stands. Sunday was the final day of voting. The two accounts were published 30 minutes apart, and neither side has answered the other in anything we hold.