[7] Although the elections had been planned for 4 December 2016, deputies discussed the issue of rescheduling to an earlier date since the spring of 2015, with the second and third Sundays of September or October 2016 as possible alternatives.

On 1 July 2015, the Constitutional Court of Russia accepted the possibility of conducting early elections to the Duma in 2016 under certain conditions.

The initiative to transfer the date of elections had not been supported by the deputies of the Communist Party, who called it an unconstitutional decision.

The September elections were not satisfactory to the Communists in part because the debate fell in August, "when one will be in the garden, the latter on the beach, others with their children" said Zyuganov.

On 17 June 2016, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the appointment of the State Duma elections on 18 September 2016.

[9] From that day parties had the right to start the nomination process for deputies to hold congresses and transmit documents of candidates to the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation (CEC) for registration.

Out of 450 seats, 225 are elected by proportional representation from party lists with a 5% electoral threshold, the whole country forming a single constituency.

[22] The Central Election Commission determined that 14 political parties could submit lists of candidates without collecting signatures.

Throughout the day there were reports of voting fraud including video purporting to show officials stuffing ballot boxes.

[51] According to research by University of Michigan political scientists Kirill Kalinin and Walter R. Mebane Jr., the election results are fraudulent.