When was the 1991 Soviet Union referendum held?
The official date for the ballot was Sunday the 17th of March 1991. The Supreme Council published Resolution 1910-1 on the 16th of January 1991 to organize this event.
The official date for the ballot was Sunday the 17th of March 1991. The Supreme Council published Resolution 1910-1 on the 16th of January 1991 to organize this event.
Armenia, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Moldova officially refused to participate in the central vote. Authorities in these six republics boycotted the count entirely while holding their own independence referendums instead.
Fifty-six point eight million votes supported preservation of the union out of 105,643,364 total ballots cast. Overall turnout across participating territories reached 75.44 percent of registered voters with invalid votes numbering 1.8 million.
Ukraine recorded 71.4 percent turnout despite adding sovereignty questions to its ballot. Voters there approved joining a Union of Soviet sovereign states by 81.7 percent after adding specific wording based on its Declaration of State Sovereignty.
Hardliners within the Communist Party launched a coup attempt in August 1991 that prevented the signing of the New Union Treaty scheduled for the following day. The political instability accelerated a series of independence referendums across individual republics leading to official dissolution on the 26th of December 1991.