FACTBOX: Facts about Russia's presidential election
(Reuters) - Russians will vote on Sunday in a presidential election that President Vladimir Putin's favored successor, Dmitry Medvedev, is expected to win easily.
Here are facts about the election:
-- Polling stations will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. local time. Since Russia stretches across 11 time zones, the first polling stations on the Pacific coast will open at 2000 GMT on March 1 and the last stations will close at 1800 GMT on March 2 in Kaliningrad, Russia's westernmost outpost.
-- A total of 109 million Russians have the right to vote.
-- About 96,300 polling stations will operate. More than 350 polling stations will operate abroad.
-- Voters will be asked to place a tick next to their choice on a ballot paper that lists four candidates.
--The winner must win more than 50 percent of the votes cast to avoid a second round. Rules have been changed so there is no minimal turnout. Election officials say they expect about 65 percent of voters to cast ballots.
-- Voters who will be away from home on the election date, can request permission from their local polling station to cast their ballot elsewhere. In some remote areas, early voting started two weeks before the election date.
-- Russia has invited 300 foreign observers to monitor the polls. Europe's main election watchdog, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), will not monitor the vote. It cancelled plans to send an observer mission in February saying it was unable to reach a compromise with Russia on how many days its monitors would be allowed in Russia.
The organizations which have sent observers include the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly.
-- The results of exit polls will be announced soon after the last polling station closes.
-- The first partial election results start arriving in the Central Electoral Commission as polling stations close, but they are made public only after the voting ends nationwide.
-- For more on the Russian presidential election, read our blog "Operation Successor" at blogs.reuters.com/russia
(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge)
