MOSCOW. March 9 (RIA Novosti) - Elections to regional legislatures, scheduled for March 11, will constitute a dress rehearsal for the federal election in late 2007, Alexander Veshnyakov, head of the Russian Central Election Commission, said at a news conference Friday.

Russia will hold parliamentary elections in October in the wake of amendments to electoral legislation and the law on political parties, which raised the vote threshold for the lower house of parliament, and considerably increased membership requirements for parties, respectively.

Veshnyakov said that over 30 million Russians might turn out to vote in 14 Russian regions where elections are to be held.

Fourteen parties will be running for legislatures Sunday, with the number of party lists varying from five (in the Vologda Region) to eight (the Oryol and Tomsk regions).

The political parties have collected some 1.5 billion rubles for the elections, against some 624 million rubles for local parliamentary elections in 17 regions last year, the official said.

Veshnyakov said that although the Central Election Commission was satisfied with the election campaign in the regions, a number of violations had been registered in some regions.

Since 2004, elections in Russia have been held on two days during election years - on the second Sunday in March and the first Sunday in October - instead of once every three months, as before. This was done to cut election expenses and ease the burden on the population.