Russians vote in parliamentary elections
The Golos election watchdog organization said callers reported about 1,000 elections violations on a telephone hotline while its website was under cyber attack. Russia's Interfax news agency reported that several other radio and newspaper websites had reported attacks.
The allegations came as voters cast their ballots in polls for the State Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament.
"It's a very important test for the ruling party," Dmitry Babich, a political analyst with Russia's RIA Novosti news agency, told CNN.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, recently tapped by his United Russia Party to be its presidential candidate next year, has accused the West of trying to influence the elections.
Analysts said his party would likely win less support than it did four years ago, but maintain a majority after Sunday's vote.
Currently, United Russia controls more than 300 seats in the 450-seat State Duma.
In campaigning ahead of the vote, opponents accused the ruling party of corruption and nepotism, RIA Novosti reported.
Putin said last week that his party had earned the support of "every thoughtful, objective, serious person who wants a better lot for himself, for his children and for Russia," the news agency said.
Russia's Interior Ministry opened three criminal cases and reported hundreds of other "electoral breaches," RIA Novosti said, citing the ministry's press office.
Moscow police said they detained about 12 people who were distributing political leaflets -- a practice banned on election day.
Golos said there was increasing pressure at the local level to block observers from accessing polls.
"It is clear that these actions are taken by authorities to undermine the achievement of our long-term goal -- to make the elections in Russia free and fair by impartial and independent monitoring," the organization said in a statement.
Maria Lipman, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center, told CNN Sunday that elections had become "increasingly farcical during Putin's leadership."
"The last time we had an election at the federal level without a pre-ordained result was '99," she said. "Since then all elections have pre-ordained results and were to maintain the political monopoly of the ruling elite."
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