Russian presidential elections are faked already.

[Serb]

Our government sucks, yes, we have huge problems with it. But we also don't bust out the "you lynch your negroes" retort like Russia has time and time again. Serb, why do you take personal offense to what is commonly regarded as fact within your own country - that corruption is a way of life in Russia.

Like it is not anywhere else. Welcome to the golden edge of capitalism.
But how corruption correlates with all those lies about our elections?
You propaganda machine just lies to you. Just like it lied about the Georgian invasion to South Ossetia. Just like it lied about Saddam's WMD. Lies, lies, lies and one more time lies. You repeat the lie a thousand times and it becomes true in heads of mindless zombies. And the bigger the lie, the sooner they'll buy it. That's how your mass-media works. Old good Dr. Goebbels recipes.

[Serb]

BTW Russia isn't the only place to have cameras in voting stations. Several US districts do the same including Washington D.C..

Do you read me at all?
WE HAD CAMERAS EVERYWHERE. AT EVERY STATION. EVERYWHERE ACROSS THE COUNTRY.
There was NO SINGLE voting station, NO SINGLE urn without a camera.

[Dinner]

You can rig them easily. Does it film vote counting too? I'm not saying Putin would've lost otherwise, everyone agrees that in this election he got 50%+ of the votes.

That's what I don't get. He would have won anyway so why do they bother rigging stuff as they do. Is it just so ingrained they can't stop themselves? Do the lower level party folks feel a need to show their loyalty by doing this? If you can win honestly and cleanly then why not avoid the problems of people claiming you cheated by simply running a clean election? Yet by all accounts there was ballot box stuffing going on all over, there was voter intimidation telling state workers they'd lose their jobs unless they not only voted for Putin but also took part in ballot box stuffing, and then their is the near universal state control of the mass media in Russia so that Putin got 24/7 coverage of what a great guy he was while the opposition doesn't get mentioned unless it's to bad mouth him.

I look at Russia and see a country which could be the greatest in Europe if it got its act together but instead of going forward it seems to insist on going backwards. Why do ordinary Russians embrace autocrats? Is it some sort of fear of the unknown or something?

[onodera]

Do you read me at all?
WE HAD CAMERAS EVERYWHERE. AT EVERY STATION. EVERYWHERE ACROSS THE COUNTRY.
There was NO SINGLE voting station, NO SINGLE urn without a camera.

You are wrong. The coverage was impressive, 96 percent or so, but it was not AT EVERY STATION, as you have so eloquently written.

[Dinner]

Do you read me at all?
WE HAD CAMERAS EVERYWHERE. AT EVERY STATION. EVERYWHERE ACROSS THE COUNTRY.
There was NO SINGLE voting station, NO SINGLE urn without a camera.

As the video of the ballot box stuffing shows they did little good in stopping ballot box stuffing. Hell, even with video evidence you still try to minimize it.

[Fake Boris]

Like it is not anywhere else. Welcome to the golden edge of capitalism.
But how corruption correlates with all those lies about our elections?
You propaganda machine just lies to you. Just like it lied about the Georgian invasion to South Ossetia. Just like it lied about Saddam's WMD. Lies, lies, lies and one more time lies. You repeat the lie a thousand times and it becomes true in heads of mindless zombies. And the bigger the lie, the sooner they'll buy it. That's how your mass-media works. Old good Dr. Goebbels recipes.

Serb, you do realize that no one has yet to be murdered in the US for doubting the WMD pretense?

[Fake Boris]

Spying = someone's watching you when you don't know about that. When you perfectly know that you are going into place which has cameras and other people will watch what are you doing there - that's monitoring.
Once again, EVERY polling station in Russia had at least 2 cameras (one for panorama and one right above the urn) which broadcasted LIVE the whole process (for a 14-16 hours). ANY internet user could see what is going on at ANY polling station at any moment of time.
HOW THE F*CK ONE CAN RIG SUCH ELECTIONS?
Idiots.

p.s. No other country has 95 thousands polling stations, but we did complete that project in an extremely short time frame. You have no god damn idea what kind of work was that. 95 000 polling stations across the largest country on Earth. Can you for a second imagine what kind of traffic was generated by 200 000 cameras bradcasting live for 16 hours and MILLIONS of users watching those videos. We are the first country whose elections was a REALITY SHOW. Completely transparent. And all this bull**** about fraud comes mostly from US of A - a country which DOESN'T allow foreign observers on their own elections (not to mention to show their ENTIRE election process and voice count at Internet LIVE)?

You f*cking kidding me?

I hope you understand the principle of vote confidentiality.

What was the turnout?

48%.

[Dinner]

Also the video cameras inside wouldn't have caught what the BBC did. People voting in multiple districts and being buses around so they can all vote multiple times.

Serb, you really should watch the BBC video because they do a good job following one bus around.

[Fake Boris]

You know Serb, there is some election fraud in Canada (usually minor), there is corruption and bribery too. Some Canadian mining companies have been involved in extremely dirty business in South America and Africa (bribery, use of paramilitaries to intimidate workers' rights movements, wanton environmental destruction).

I grant you the magnanimous permission to point it out to me without ever, ever mentioning that Stalin murdered 242^98 gazillion people in reply.

[Serb]

You can rig them easily.

Go ahead and still millions of votes when you been watched by millions of eyes. It's like saying "I can easily rob Fort Knox and their security cameras even won't notice that".
Are you an invisible man?

Does it film vote counting too?

YES.


And since it's obviously you have no idea about our election law I guess I should enlighten you that aside their own additional observers every candidate (or every party like in case with parliamentary elections) delegate their own representative into the election committee.

The election committee of every polling station consist of representatives of candidates and NOBODY ELSE.


After the voice count they sign a protocol and copy of that protocol is given to every representative of all candidates (to all members of the election committee).

IF AT LEAST ONE member of the election committee doesn't sign the protocol the results on this polling station are not valid.

So it's GOD DAMN EASY for every candidate (or every party) to make their own count and compare it with the final results.
If there are any significant difference - you just show your own copies of protocols from all polling stations (and those protocols are signed by representatives of other candidates) to prove there was a fraud.

IT IS SO GOD DAMN EASY TO PROVE IF THERE WAS A FRAUD.

I'm not saying Putin would've lost otherwise, everyone agrees that in this election he got 50%+ of the votes.

Good. So, he knew he will win it (according to all possible opinion polls before the elections) and he came with idea to install web cameras at every polling station to show our elections LIVE and still the western propaganda machine WHINES he is a cheater and the crowd of zombies buy that crap for granted. ****ing great. Total downfall of human beings. They have lost any ability to think logically. Why the **** the guy whom every opinion poll gave a clear victory before the election and who suggested to place cameras at polling stations to make these election as transparent as possible would cheat?
Where are your god damn brains, westerners.
Wake-up, you f*cking Neos.

[Fake Boris]

What makes you think that delegates can't be bribed or intimidated?

More importantly, what would have happened if Putin had lost the election?

[onodera]

That's what I don't get. He would have won anyway so why do they bother rigging stuff as they do. Is it just so ingrained they can't stop themselves? Do the lower level party folks feel a need to show their loyalty by doing this? If you can win honestly and cleanly then why not avoid the problems of people claiming you cheated by simply running a clean election? Yet by all accounts there was ballot box stuffing going on all over, there was voter intimidation telling state workers they'd lose their jobs unless they not only voted for Putin but also took part in ballot box stuffing, and then their is the near universal state control of the mass media in Russia so that Putin got 24/7 coverage of what a great guy he was while the opposition doesn't get mentioned unless it's to bad mouth him.

I look at Russia and see a country which could be the greatest in Europe if it got its act together but instead of going forward it seems to insist on going backwards. Why do ordinary Russians embrace autocrats? Is it some sort of fear of the unknown or something?

It's a complex thing (what isn't?).
1. It's a measure of your loyalty. Putin has always tried to stamp out regionalism and has replaced gubernatorial elections with appointments. How good your oblast or krai or republic votes for UR or Putin is an important unnoficial KPI for the appointed governors.
2. It's good for demoralizing the opposition. One one hand, they can claim the votes were rigged, but have to admit Putin would have been a runaway winner in any case.
3. On the other hand, their hopes have been dashed. They've basically been told: protest all you want, but we can do anything with the vote, and you still can do nothing.
4. Russian national character includes patience as one of the main traits. It's always been the same cycle: years of oppression, then rivers of blood. A lot of people prefer the former to the latter.

What we have to do in the following 5 years (if not sooner) is to prevent Mr. P from tightening the screws further. Ideally, all three main branches of protesters (socialists, liberal democrats and nationalists) should get enough airtime to popularize their agenda, but it's hard to do with all federal TV channels under state control.

[Serb]

You are wrong. The coverage was impressive, 96 percent or so, but it was not AT EVERY STATION, as you have so eloquently written.

I can tell you for my segment. In Omsk region (where live 2 million people and which is bigger than Portugal and Ireland combined) we had cameras AT EVERY station. That I can tell you for sure.
As for those 4% (and I don't know where you get it) I can only guess that were some kind of hunter or fisherman settlements completely cut-off from the civilization.

[Serb]

I'll give you some hints.

That's what I don't get. He would have won anyway so why do they bother rigging stuff as they do. Is it just so ingrained they can't stop themselves? Do the lower level party folks feel a need to show their loyalty by doing this? If you can win honestly and cleanly then why not avoid the problems of people claiming you cheated by simply running a clean election?

Indeed, why doing this if you gonna win anyway?
That rises another question - maybe your media is lying to you?

Yet by all accounts there was ballot box stuffing going on all over,

LIE

there was voter intimidation telling state workers they'd lose their jobs unless they not only voted for Putin but also took part in ballot box stuffing,

LIE

and then their is the near universal state control of the mass media in Russia so that Putin got 24/7 coverage of what a great guy he was while the opposition doesn't get mentioned unless it's to bad mouth him.

LIE

I look at Russia and see a country which could be the greatest in Europe if it got its act together but instead of going forward it seems to insist on going backwards. Why do ordinary Russians embrace autocrats? Is it some sort of fear of the unknown or something?

Or maybe it's a LIE that our rullers are autocrats, but not a democratically elected leaders?

[Serb]

As the video of the ballot box stuffing shows they did little good in stopping ballot box stuffing. Hell, even with video evidence you still try to minimize it.

OH ****. *facepalm* That was ONE single station OUT OF 95 000. The results there were canceled. That was a break of procedure due to incompetence of the local election committee (they have decided to throw ballots from the I don't know how to say that in English a "secondary urn"? into the main urn, which is a violation).

Don't you understand the people one that video KNEW they are filmed on camera?