I learned the results of Russia’s 2024 presidential election while standing in line to vote in it.
The polls hadn’t yet closed—at least not in New York, where I was casting my ballot at the Russian consulate this past March—but back in Moscow, then seven hours ahead, state news was already calling it for Vladimir Putin. Early exit polls projected a landslide—an unbelievable 87 percent—for an incumbent running virtually unopposed for his fifth term.
I can’t say I was surprised.
Growing up in Moscow in the late ’90s and early 2000s, I had seen plenty of these tightly choreographed performances that my home country dubs “democratic elections.” I remember the infamous 2011 parliamentary race when state TV, in what can only be described as a remarkable act of generosity, reported voter turnout as high as 146 percent in certain regions. The “orgy of falsifications,” as the Russian political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann called the 2008 presidential election, was still fresh in my memory, too. That’s when Putin—still worried about decorum and wanting to appear democratic—formally stepped down as president after serving his two terms, and Dmitry Medvedev was appointed the country’s nominal leader for the next four years. You want to talk about a rigged election? The number of fake ballots supporting Medvedev was the highest ever. Until 2024, that is.
Even for my cynical self, this year’s Russian election felt qualitatively worse. Never before had the scale of fraud been so staggering—amounting to some 22 million stolen votes, according to two separate independent analyses. In the past, I’d at least made it to the voting booth before learning the inevitable election outcome. This time, it felt as if Grigory Potemkin himself had grown tired, no longer bothering to put up even the facade of those fake villages before Catherine the Great’s arrival.
Still, I waited my turn, went through the motions, ticked off every box but Putin’s, and scribbled “No to war” and “Freedom for political prisoners” beside his name, before dropping my ballot into what I suspected was more likely to be a trash can than a ballot box.
On Tuesday, I’ll vote again. After years of observing and covering U.S. elections, I will get to participate in one for the very first time.
I moved to New York from Moscow in 2011, but only became an American citizen in August, just three days before starting my new job at The Free Press. The path to citizenship took 13 years, countless visas, five separate immigration statuses, and a mountain of paperwork.
When I first arrived here to go to college, I didn’t plan on staying past graduation. But by senior year, it was hard to picture my future anywhere else. I’d interned at what was then The Colbert Report and had a job offer from a production company working on HBO documentaries. Suddenly, everything felt possible. Here, hard work actually got you somewhere—even if English wasn’t your first language, even if you knew no one, and even if your legal status limited your job options.
When I got my first work visa, it felt like winning the lottery. And while becoming a U.S. citizen felt like hitting the ultimate jackpot, I didn’t expect my naturalization ceremony to be an emotional experience. After living here for over a decade, I imagined it as a routine formality, like tying the knot after a long engagement. But, standing in the courtroom with 96 other people from 38 different countries that August day, I was surprised to discover tears streaming down my face.
Perhaps I hadn’t realized just how much I wanted it, or how hard I’d worked to get here. Barely anything had changed about my status in this country, save for the newfound confidence that I will probably not get randomly deported during the next Russiagate. But in truth, everything had changed.
I was now part of an experiment that began 237 years ago with three simple words: “We the People.” That was the foundation of a nation unlike any other in history. One united not by race or ethnicity or place of birth, but by shared ideals. Freedom chief among them.
Freedom is an abstract concept until it gets stripped away. Back in Russia, people were getting arrested for writing the same anti-war slogans on their ballots that I so casually scribbled on mine. Many more were jailed simply for calling the war against Ukraine a “war.” Over the past two decades, some of Russia’s bravest, most principled citizens were either imprisoned, driven out, or, like Boris Nemtsov, Alexei Navalny, and others, murdered for the crime of telling the truth.
The ability to simply speak my mind, let alone report on any event of geopolitical significance, is both a privilege and a luxury so many others in this world do not enjoy. And as of that August day, it was also my right.
So is the right to vote in the presidential election.
I won’t pretend to be thrilled about the candidates in this race. Neither Kamala Harris nor Donald Trump inspire particular enthusiasm in me as the next leader of the free world. But as anyone who has lived under an autocratic regime can tell you, there’s a world of difference between a poor choice and none at all. Americans who complain about how long it takes after the election to determine the winner should try learning the results before reaching the voting booth. The fact that no one genuinely knows the next occupant of the White House until after the ballots are counted is a marvel of the American system. It means, on the most fundamental level, that those ballots, and the voices behind them, still count.
Some may contend that those ballots only count in a handful of swing states, and that in a deep-blue state like New York, where I live, a typical ballot holds as much power to change the outcome as it would in Moscow. But a predictable outcome does not mean a predetermined one. New York stays blue because most New Yorkers vote blue—not because the results are decided by others.
And that’s the point, as obvious as it is underappreciated: The purpose of voting is not only, or perhaps even primarily, to get your preferred candidate into office. It’s about the functioning of the system itself.
Perhaps because of my Russian background, I’m very aware that nothing about this system is natural. There is nothing intuitive about the peaceful transfer of power. If anything, history shows that leaders—like Putin—don’t usually give up control voluntarily. The American system only works, however imperfectly, as long as people continue to show up and participate in it. As long as that keeps happening, ballots will continue to be counted, and no candidate will be able to arbitrarily claim 87 percent support and call it a day.
Putin’s social contract with the Russian people has always been simple enough: Stay out of politics, and the government will stay out of your life. Give up your political voice, and enjoy the rising standard of living. That contract began to crumble on February 24, 2022, when Russian tanks rolled over the Ukrainian border, and it was completely shattered a few months later, with the announcement of a “partial mobilization” that saw hundreds of thousands of civilians swept into military service practically overnight. All to say: Staying out of politics never works out in the long term. Sooner or later, the government begins acting on your behalf without bothering to ask for your opinion.
That’s what I’ll be thinking about when I step into the voting booth. I’ll think about how lucky I am to be here, where my vote is not just an act of resistance, but a genuine opportunity to make a choice. When I step into the voting booth, about to cast my ballot in a state that will predictably go for Kamala Harris, I’ll be thinking about how, my entire life, my vote has never mattered this much.
Tanya Lukyanova is a video journalist at The Free Press. Read her article “Why Did Journalists Like Me Take Ryan Routh Seriously?”
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