This is the explanation of Rabbi Elector’s Lists given to Howard Margol
by Kaunas Archivist Vitalija Girchyte:
About the rabbi elections: The elections are of the so-called "state Rabbi" ("kazeny ravin" in Russian). I do not know if he had any religious functions, but he had to register births, marriages and deaths, keep these vital registers and issue birth, death and marriage certificates. As the registers were kept in both Hebrew and Russian and the certificates to be produced to various state agencies - in Russian, the main requirement for this state rabbi was to know Russian.
Officially he had to have certain education equal to 6 or even 4 classes of gymnasium in Russia, but it seems that in small towns of Lithuania they never managed to find so educated candidates and mere literacy in Russian was enough. He also had to be loyal to the government, have no criminal record - on the basis of the vital records men's age was established, they were drafted into the army, and some state rabbis were accused of forging vital records, helping men to avoid conscription, etc.
Each community had either a state rabbi or his assistant - their functions were the same, but state rabbi was in the main town of the uyezd, his assistants - in every community. Thus there was a state rabbi of Ukmerge and his assistants for Seta, Utena, Anyksciai, etc. In the elections of this rabbi could participate heads of households not younger than 25 years, but I am not sure if this meant all the Jews of the shtetl or only so called "settled town dwellers" – house owners, shop owners, craftsmen belonging to guilds.
In smaller communities the elections were direct, in larger communities with several synagogues, like Kedainiai, at first the representatives from each house of prayer were elected. As you may have noticed from our records, in the elections of the rabbi of the main town of each uyezd participated the representatives from all the communities of this uyezd, at least in the beginning of the 20th century.
The elections were held by the community, but under the control of local administration and police, and the results had to be confirmed by Kaunas guberniya administration - among the records of this Kaunas guberniya administration are separate files on these elections for various communities where we find these lists.
These files also usually contain various correspondences on this matter: reports of the local police on the candidates - usually they are said to be literate in Russian, having no criminal record, and are loyal to the government. In very few cases - their family lists, the results of the vote - how many votes were given for each of the two or, very rarely, three candidates, and the confirmation of the results by Kaunas guberniya administration. Not all such files contain lists of electors. In some cases there are also lots of other papers - the complaints about the results on the basis the elections were not fair, somebody is accused of forgery, etc.