Confession: The Kremlin got the results it wanted

The results of the voting on the Constitution, which took place with large-scale violations, turned out to be approximately the same as the Kremlin had previously demanded from the regional authorities. Experts note: these figures do not reflect the real mood of citizens

IVL instead of KOIBs

The final day of voting on amendments to the country's Constitution has come to an end. According to the CEC, the turnout in the country was 65%. The amendments are supported, according to preliminary data, by about 20% of ballots, more than 70% of those who voted. This exactly coincides with the Kremlin’s instructions to the regions at the start of the campaign, which were reported by the media, in particular, Open Media: the results should be no worse than in the presidential elections, that is, the turnout is on average 65%, and the vote for amendments is level of at least 70%.

But many regions have exceeded this plan. The most significant result of those who supported the amendments was obtained in the Republic of Tyva - 98% with a turnout of over 90%. Politician Leonid Volkov comments on this result as follows: “To achieve this result in the republic, which is one of the regions most affected by the epidemic, they apparently guessed to use ventilators instead of KOIBs. Breathe? "Behind".

A similar result was shown by Chukotka, where about 80% of respondents were in favor. In the Jewish Autonomous Region, about 77% of voters supported the amendments.

The final results in terms of turnout and voting for the amendments are exactly the same as the Kremlin’s instructions to the regions at the start of the campaign: the results should be no worse than in the 2018 presidential election

Most of the turnout took place on the previous days, but on July 1, due to the fact that the day was officially declared a day off, many public figures chose it for their will. So, on the final day of voting, the leaders of the country also came to their polling stations. President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. Moreover, the latter openly declared that he was in favor of the amendments, and this was broadcast by all TV channels - although direct campaigning by officials is prohibited by the basic "Law on Basic Guarantees of Voters' Rights", and it has not been heard at this level before. But independent observers have already noted that the law is not written for this plebiscite.

At the same time, according to opposition activists and politicians, the real picture of voting is far from the official one. So the team of the movement "No" revealed such results for the two largest cities. Moscow: 47.76% - FOR; 52.24% - AGAINST. St. Petersburg: 38.2% - FOR; 61.8% - AGAINST. Similar data was shown by the exit polls of Yabloko.

Emphasis on electronics

The electronic voting on the amendments was completed the day before the main one, on June 30. It took place in two subjects - Moscow and the Nizhny Novgorod region. The final turnout for electronic voting was 93.02%. A total of 1,107,648 ballots were issued, of which 1,090,211 were accepted. The overwhelming majority, of course, voted in favor of the amendments.

Politicians and the media have exposed many vulnerabilities in this system. The media, in particular, wrote that since 2019 (the first experience of Internet voting), the technical capabilities of the organizers to influence the final result of the will have been preserved. Other media indicated that when voting on the Internet, many participants still had the opportunity to vote offline.

Despite all these problems, CEC Chairperson Ella Pamfilova stated that "the CEC of Russia will continue research work on remote electronic voting." Pamfilova promised: "We will take all the best from the accumulated experience."

Commenting on the quality of the Internet voting system, Sergei Sobyanin and other representatives of the city authorities called the discovered vulnerabilities not so critical, and called the critics of the system provocateurs. At the same time, the mayor of the capital proudly noted that the hackers had not been able to crack the voting system.

Violations at all stages

According to the Golos movement, on the last day of voting, as in the previous ones, attempts to influence its outcome did not stop. According to the map of violations, the law was violated at all stages of the will. For example, the St. Petersburg Commission 16640 issued more ballots to voters than it received. Some citizens were denied the right to vote - a resident of Tomsk, who was in quarantine, was denied, explaining that there were no means of protection for members of the commission. One of the high-profile stories took place in Korolev, near Moscow, where 43 people found out that they had already been voted for. Similar stories with voting without the participation of voters were recorded in other regions.

In some areas, due to obvious abuses, the results were canceled . In particular, this happened in the Moscow district of Ramenki.

In a special statement, the activists of the “Voice” movement wrote : “The rules of the all-Russian voting themselves do not allow revealing the free will of the people: the amendments are adopted in one “package”, the equality of the rights of supporters and opponents of the amendments during campaigning is not ensured, state, municipal bodies and even election commissions are campaigning for the amendments. The way voting is carried out does not meet either Russian constitutional or international standards for the expression of will.”

Following the results of the elections, politician Dmitry Gudkov wrote in his Telegram: “Now just imagine that the majority actually voted for the amendments. The joyful renewed president goes out to the people, they shake him in his arms, sing “God Save the Tsar”, drop him a couple of times, but pick him up and shake him off ... In general, the atmosphere of a national holiday. What about Putin? He drove the paddy wagons to the center of Moscow and St. Petersburg, set up the "cosmonauts" and hid back in the bunker. However, whoever remembers the inauguration of 2012 with a purged Moscow is not surprised.”

Protest minority

Protests took place across the country on July 1 in various forms. So, in Moscow, a group of activists held their action right on Red Square. With their bodies, 8 people laid out the number 2036 on the paving stones. The figure in this case symbolizes the date until which, after the “zeroing”, President Putin will be able to remain at the head of the country. The activists were detained, but the police released them from the police station without drawing up protocols.

Single pickets against the amendments were held on Pushkinskaya Square. On the same square, Open Russia coordinator Andrey Pivovarov called on Muscovites to discuss the voting results. As a result, many activists were detained.

Similar small actions were held in other cities - Novosibirsk, Blagoveshchensk, Voronezh, Khanty-Mansiysk. The largest "flash mob" of citizens took place in St. Petersburg. there gathered About 100 people . There were no clashes with the police and mass arrests.

The gap between these figures and the country is becoming too large, and it will be difficult to keep the country under the hypnosis of these figures, writes Grigory Yudin

The results of the elections do not reflect the attitude of citizens towards the constitutional reform, sociologist Grigory Yudin writes in his Facebook post. “The numbers that you will see tomorrow at the end of this crazy tea party will not reflect our sentiments and attitude towards this constitutional reform. However, the gap between these figures and the country is becoming too large, and it will be difficult to keep the country under the hypnosis of these numbers. This plebiscite is only a harbinger of more important events.” Yudin noted that this vote has become a kind of race for numbers among the leadership of different regions.

“For a week now, there has been a race between the officials of the Russian regions to see who will give the highest figures - it is already obvious that the official turnout figures will far exceed the most daring forecasts of the most optimistic political scientists, although these forecasts, to be honest, were not based on anything.”

Photo: Victoria Odissonova/Novaya Gazeta