Ida-Viru County is also the region of Estonia most affected by the constitutional amendment made in March, which strips voting rights from third country (non-EU) citizens.

The northeasternmost county of the country is home to the largest number of Russian-speaking residents, both in absolute terms and proportionately. Many from this demographic are Russian citizens ordinarily resident in Estonia, and when compared with the situation ahead of the last local elections in October 2021, there are 35,000 fewer eligible voters in the county.

One of the most coveted council seats, in terms of candidates per mandate, lies in the merging Jõhvi and Toila municipalities, the first local government reform since the wide-ranging 2017 redrawing of boundaries. 174 people are running for 21 seats, or 8.3 per mandate, in Jõhvi-Toila, compared with three candidates per seat in Sillamäe.

Sillamäe, population around 11,000, is also the municipality proportionately affected most by the constitutional change, with nearly half of former voters losing the right to vote.

In absolute terms, Narva lost the largest number of voters at close to 17,000, or roughly the population of Viljandi.

The number of candidates has similarly fallen: For instance current mayor Katri Raik is running an electoral list of 38, compared with 85 candidates in 2021.

What individual parties think of Ida-Viru County in terms of their electoral prospects can also be gleaned from how many candidates they are running. For instance, despite in June stating an action plan to be more active in the region, the Reform Party is only running candidates in two of the seven municipalities, namely Jõhvi and Narva. In 2021 the party ran lists in five Ida-Viru County municipalities (which pre-merger numbered eight).

The Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE) are running candidates in six municipalities, though only two in Narva and one in Sillamäe.

Much attention will be paid to the apparently resurgent Center Party's performance next month. While some pundits have said the party will not re-attain the overall majority it once held in Tallinn — until the 2021 elections — getting more than 50 percent of the vote in Sillamäe seems almost a certainty.

Much will also hinge on voter turnout. In 2021, turnout was 47.3 percent, compared with a nationwide average of 54.5 percent. The lowest turnout that time came in Kohtla-Järve (38.9 percent), with the highest coming in Narva-Jõesuu at 62.8 percent.

The final number of inhabitants with voting rights will be fully confirmed after September 19.

Provisional figures show 75,127 eligible voters in Ida-Viru County as a whole, voting for 849 candidates across 147 seats (5.8 candidates per seat), out of a total population of 127,344.

While Russian and Belarusian citizens cannot vote in the local elections, the so-called gray passport holders, residents with no citizenship, can do so, for the last time, this year. The rationale for the period of grace was to encourage people to take Estonian citizenship between now and the following local elections, at the end of the decade.

Nearly 9,700 people are running for the October 19 municipal elections. While various regions have their own distinctive issues, for instance wind farms on Saaremaa, this time around national matters are thought to predominate. Even in Tallinn, the issue of kindergarten fees which arose during a split in the coalition in summer, was mostly just that, a point of contention between parties rather than a change being called for by the broader voting public.

The right to vote was removed from third country nationals over fears of undue influence in Russian and Belarusian nationals being able to vote in the changed security situation.

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