Annals of Russian Elections Fraud
Filed under: Russia
The Moscow Times reports that the Russian blogosphere has outed "president" Vladimir Putin as an elections huckster of unprecedented audacity and vulgarity: "The analyses by chemist Maxim Pshenichnikov and a LiveJournal blogger nicknamed Podmoskovnik offer mathematical proof of either election fraud or extremely anomalous voter behavior. Without the statistical anomalies, [Putin's party] United Russia would not have secured a constitutional majority in the Duma."
In most elections, one would expect the turnout to follow a normal, or Gaussian, distribution -- meaning that a chart of the number of polling stations reporting a certain turnout would be shaped like a bell curve, with the top of the bell representing the average, median, and most popular value. But according to Pshenichnikov's analysis, the distribution looks normal only until it hits 51 percent. After that, it begins spiking on round numbers, indicating a much greater number of polling stations reporting a specific turnout than a normal distribution would predict.
The same trend is seen in the analysis of United Russia's results conducted by Podmoskovnik. United Russia, for example, received 89 percent of the vote at 633 polling stations, according to Podmoskovnik's analysis of the results. But 927 stations reported 90 percent for the party, while 770 stations reported 91 percent. A suspicious voter might say polling officials stuffed ballot boxes to achieve a nice, clean 90 percent figure. Podmoskovnik found that the spiking on round numbers begins after United Russia's returns hit 55 percent. Taken together with Pshenichnikov's calculations, it appears that the higher the turnout, the higher United Russia's percent of the returns -- a correlation not seen in returns of the other 10 parties on the ballot. Furthermore, the spikes in both analyses coincide on several round numbers, including 75 percent, 80 percent, 85 percent and 90 percent.
The result was:
If the anomalies were smoothed out, turnout would have been 50.2 percent, rather than the official figure of 63 percent, Podmoskovnik said. Furthermore, United Russia would have secured only 277 seats in the Duma, he concluded. This would deny the party the 300 seats needed for a constitutional majority. Official election results gave United Russia 315 seats. The other parties represented in the Duma -- the Communist Party, the Liberal Democratic Party and A Just Russia -- took 57, 40 and 38 seats, respectively. According to Podmoskovnik's analyses, the three parties should have received 73, 51 and 49 seats, respectively.
The bloggers note that the only way these results would not indicate fraud would be if pro-Putin voters "radically differ in their social behavior from other parties' voters and are distinctly predisposed to collective voting for their favorite party when turnout is at its peak." The MT quotes Mikhail Delyagin, head of the Institute of Globalization Problems, who "said local election officials clearly decided in advance what the figures would be for turnout and United Russia's percentage of the vote" and observed: "As many human beings do, they were thinking in round numbers."
In a cultural exchange forum sponsored by the New York Times, an American reader asked: "What happens if Putin's "successor" doesn't win the election? Is there an opposing candidate?" A Russian reader answered: "Many things in this country, especially elections, are under 100 percent government controlled, so this option is simply excluded. Concerning other candidates (well, for example, if tomorrow Medvedev suddenly left for a village in the middle of nowhere in Siberia) -- they will always be found. In this regard every Yeltsin has his Putin and every Putin -- his Medvedev." Another stated: "It is more likely that our galaxy would explode than Medvedev not win." A third, perhaps a Kremlin operative who pays little attention to the Russian blogosphere, claimed: "There are four candidates. All are campaigning as much as they are able to. The vote is secret. You can vote for anyone. If Medvedev doesn't win -- then somebody else will. In fact, it is all very simple."
It's hard to say whether one should be encouraged or depressed by this Russian reporting. On the one hand, one can see that there are still brilliant and creative people in Russia who are willing to stand up to power on behalf of truth and democracy. On the other, there's no indication whatsoever that the mass population has any intention of listening to them.
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