Russia's Upcoming 2026 Election: See the Fraud

In the Roman Republic, in the event of an emergency, the Roman Senate could appoint one man as dictator, giving him complete and total control over the city, the Republic and the army. That power was intended to be given up when the emergency had passed, and one of the most famous dictators was old Cincinnatus, who was appointed dictator not once but twice, and on both occasions surrendered the power and returned to his farm when the crisis had passed. One of our cities right here in the United States bears his name.

Later, another man convinced the Senate to appoint him dictator for a period of 10 years, and later, for life. His name was Gaius Julius Caesar, and he never surrendered that power; the Senate killed him, but his nephew and heir seized the mantle, ending the Roman Republic and giving rise to the Empire.

History doesn't always repeat, as the saying goes, but it frequently rhymes. In this case, we can look to Russia, where Vladimir Putin has effectively set himself up as Tsar Vladimir I, and this year's farcical Russian elections will just reaffirm him and his sycophants in their current ownership of Russia, as the 2026 Russian elections have likely already been rigged. In a column in Sunday's New York Post, columnist and scholar Andrew Chakhoyan presents his assessment, and he's likely spot-on.

In keeping with Russia’s imperial history, President Vladimir Putin will spend the next week erecting a countrywide Potemkin Village.

On Sept. 18-20, the man wanted by The Hague for war crimes will put on a sly smirk and attempt to fool the world with the country’s “elections.” All 450 seats of the Duma — Russia’s legislative body — will ostensibly be up for grabs, but the outcome is preordained. It will be a grotesque, choiceless farce.

The Kremlin will manufacture the numbers; in all likelihood, it already has. Russians will show up at the polling stations and turn in their ballots, but will be choosing nothing other than humiliation and indignity of living in a participatory autocracy. The majority of seats will go to United Russia, Putin’s war-loving party. Even the mildest dissent proved too much: Yabloko, Russia’s only registered anti-war party, was barred from running.

Remember our 2024 elections, when one party filed lawsuits like mad people, trying to keep a candidate from the other party off the presidential ballot in several states? Remember the 2020 elections, when several states miraculously flipped their vote counts in the middle of the night? Remember which major political party here in the United States is adamantly against any attempt to require people to show they are who they claim to be before casting a ballot?

This doesn't just matter to the country holding the elections, as the recent history of Putin's Russia demonstrated very clearly.

To vote is a revered right and duty of citizens worthy of self-rule. This is one place where Ukraine and Russia have long differed. In December 1991, as Soviet occupation of Ukraine drew to an end, over half a million people, or two-thirds of eligible Crimeans, turned out for the referendum to restore Ukraine’s independence. More than 54% said yes.

Russified by Moscow after the mass deportation of its native Kirimli population, Crimea chose a free Ukraine when its political will actually mattered. Two decades later, Russia came knocking again. Or, rather, kicked down the door.

Russia's elections are about as open, honest, and secure as Iran's elections, or Venezuelan elections in the Chavez/Maduro era, or the elections in any autocratic country, which is to say, not at all. And yet the farce will continue, to give the appearance that the Putin dictatorship will continue; and Tsar Vladimir I, being an old KGB apparatchik, is likely too wily to let the Russian Senate Duma serve him as Marcus Junius Brutus served Caesar. 

We remember, also, the hopes we had when the Soviet Union collapsed: Hope for honest elections, hope for Russia to join in full the modern nations of the world, but a burgeoning new democracy encompassing much of eastern Europe and Asia. But all those post-Cold War hopes are dashed now, and it's largely due to that one man, the man busily rigging yet another election so he can remain in power: Tsar Vladimir Putin.

Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.

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