I recently wrote about my vision of the elections we had in Ukhta, in particular, on my polling station. And what about the other stations? What if my station is special?
Watching the results on urban Territorial Electoral Commission, Gayzer’s rate is even higher than on my station, could I exaggerate the level of fraud? Could people really vote this way?
Let’s analyze the rates, I think it will at least partially provide a glimpse of reality. So let’s compare the voter participation, early voting, and their dependence on the result of Gayzer. We’ll take 5 last results with the maximum and minimum of Gayzer:
— 5 sites (№354, 365, 370, 387, 399), with a maximum of Gayzer: early — 12%, voter participation — 89.1%, the rate of Gayzer — 84.6%
— 5 sites (№360, 381, 389, 392, 403), with a minimum of Gayzer: early — 6.9%, voter participation — 51.9%, the rate of Gayzer — 57.7%.
How is this possible within the same city? How can a voter participation be 90% despite the fact that a half didn’t vote and may differ 2 times on the stations. So many questions.
As can be seen from Gayzer, things are much better there, where the rate of voter participation and early voting is high. Although I think these rates shouldn’t influence its outcome. Let’s take the station with the lowest rate, it’s №389, Gayzer has 54.4% there. What makes this station remarkable? Nothing. Common, typical, but there is one thing: one of the committee members is a well-known social activist Roman Khakimzyanov. Famous in the city, former mayor’s adviser, principal person, etc. I think the elections on his station were held as it should have been held. Remember, I wrote about the election on my station, where, I believe, was stuffing of 350 ballots. Let's take out these 350 votes from Gayzer’s rate and the total number of voters and, oops: 66% convert to 54%, doesn’t such coincidence seem strange?
Let’s take an in-home vote, there were 183 people on the site №359. I will explain what an in-home vote means. It’s when the elderly, infirm people write a statement saying that they can’t come and the field team is sent to them. On our site (№391) there were 28 such people, visiting committee spent 8 hours to go round them. I.e. it would take 50 hours to visit 183 people at the same speed, which is unreal.
I myself have voted on the station in the Forest College, or rather I didn’t vote, I took my ballot, and what do you think? The number of issued ballots and ballots in boxes is the same. So someone at another station took a ballot and stuffed it at mine, compensating it, or the counting was carried out formally, but the lacking ballot was simply put, in this case, I don’t have any confidence in the results on the station.
Than, a friend of mine worked as a member of the commission. All day long, watched the number of voters, as well as I did. And at the close of the station he had an approximate number of voters. Before counting he was assigned to a secondary task, and he was distracted away from the table with ballots for some time. Surprisingly when during filling of the final protocol, he saw +200 voters and couple hundred identical ballots filled in the same manner in a pack of Gayzer, and, by the way, there were not only those who voted for Gayzer in that pack, but he managed to stop it.
One more story of a young participant, also a member of the Commission of Sosnogorsk. About 100 people has passed through her a day, through other members of the commission (6 people) about the same amount. The result of Gayzer at this station is 1200. She didn’t understand at what stage the voices were added.
Let’s read the local forum:
— As one member of the commission told me, the number who came according to journal and the number of ballots almost doubled.
— ...With tears in their eyes (no exaggeration) they told that the votes submitted after the counting and the final numbers, published by the CEC, differed in their areas: around 300 and 500 votes from the total number of voters.
By the way, interesting information on the calendars there: all voters were given calendars, and the number of calendars is 46501, 58808 is the number of voters, a difference is about 12307. Personally, I don’t know any who have gone from the station without it, although certainly there were such, but not 12000.
Besides, there were very few really active observers and independent members of the commission. Many stations (or rather most) were just unchecked.
All I showed here is just my conjecture and assumptions, one won’t go to court with this, it can’t be proven, so think of it as of food for thought.
Past elections have shown that not everything in our kingdom is going on swimmingly regarding elections. The only thing that comforts, all these dances by and large didn’t affect the outcome. The next year, we are waiting for a much more interesting elections, the elections of representatives of the local government and elections to the State Council. The outcome will no longer be so clear, and fairness of the electoral process will be worth to fight for.
I will immediately imagine how these elections will be held, probably in the spirit of the latest trends, representatives of United Russia will be put forward almost on all stations, somewhere there will be representatives of National Front or independent (and in fact pro-government) candidates, who will not have any problems with the registration, neither with the collection of signatures, or with the election campaign. Communists, Just Russia and LDPR will nominate their candidates, but they will have a problem with a deficit of well-known people, so they will block not all stations; where their candidates will have a real chance there will be problems with the registration and also some problems with agitation. The other parties will confine themselves to a number of candidates with no chance of success. Although some "Pravodely" might be given the green light and, as in the last election, they will throw mud at the opposition. Really independent candidates that are configured on the victory will try to prevent elections, rejecting signatures and campaign documents. If this doesn’t help, then there will be wave of sleaze and lies. On most stations there will be one or more technical candidates for show of democracy and for pulling votes from the opposition, and they will also have no problems with registration.
Therefore, the main task in the next elections is to try to help the opposition candidates in the pre-election period, and importantly, to monitor the elections themselves. This will require hundreds of volunteers and observers who care about the fate of the region.