Invalid Votes in Dictatorships: Patterns in Putin’s Russia (1995–2016)

I uncover the predictors of invalid votes in one of the world’s most prominent dictatorships—Russia—and examine associations with political parties’ performance using data from six legislative elections. While existing scholarship predicts more invalid votes in more educated and urban areas and fewer in areas with greater effective numbers of parties (ENP), evidence from Russia suggests the opposite, with noteworthy nuances in the case of ENP due to a curvilinear relationship with invalid votes. Increases in invalid votes are associated with better electoral performance by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (Kommunisticheskaya Partiya Rossiiskoi Federatsii—KPRF) and poorer performance by United Russia (Edinaya Rossiya).