Yea, no, elections were a joke in the soviet union. Pretty much everyone knew your vote counted for nothing and they started offering people food so they would show up to vote to give it some legitimacy. Unlike current Russia the soviet propaganda was mostly a laughing stock at the time.
Also the party members were basically picked by nepotism alone. Sure, you could have internal elections but the winner was always the one with most friends in the party. That’s kinda like saying north Korea is democratic because there are some internal elections while in practise it’s pretty much a monarchy.