The article deals with issues related to the emergence and functioning of electoral laws adopted during the years of the revolution and the civil war and regulating the conditions for holding elections to local self-government bodies. Analyzed and compared are the electoral laws existing in monarchic Russia, with the laws adopted by the Provisional Government, the Soviet government and the government of Admiral Kolchak. The article defines the principal differences between the laws of different governments in terms of age, degree of settlement, occupation, class and other characteristics.