Graph Shows Fraud in Russian Elections

gaika writes "A graph in the best traditions of Edward Tufte shows how the voting was rigged in Russian parliament elections. Initially some regions were showing higher than 100% attendance, but later on everything was corrected, or way too much corrected, as the correlation between winning party's vote and attendance now stands at 90%. I guess the people who have rigged the vote have never heard about Correlation Cofficient."

Comments

Well what did you expect?

[explosivejared]

I mean really! Dissident journalists have been murdered. A rival was imprisoned for political reasons. Gee, and I thought this election had a shot to be a fair one! Anyone surprised by this doesn't follow Russian politics at all. Putin doesn't play around. He used one of the most devious Russian reversals of all time. He found that in Soviet Russia corruption empowers you absolutely!

Detailed tests?

[Iwanowitch]

It certainly seems like the distribution of the red dots is different from the others from a graphical impression.. But can someone remind me on what the correct statistical procedure is to 'determine fraud' here? Nonparametric ANOVA, comparing the groups? I mean, noting that the correlation coefficient is 0.9 doesn't really prove anything, does it...
I've had some statistics but I was never really good at it... I developed a radar for lousy statistics, though. Hard numbers please.

Many Elections are rigged in Favor of Two Parties

[MrSteveSD]

In the US, UK and other countries with a "first past the post" scheme, the whole system is perpetually rigged in favour of two parties. Small parties find it very difficult because their support is spread thinly. Even if a new party comes along with some amazing ideas, it will likely never get a single seat due to the nature of the electoral system.

If the way of voting was always rigged to favour one particular party, we would be up in arms, but having a system rigged in favour of two parties is not much better.

Re:Why?

[ugen]

Why you ask? I'll tell you why!

Realistically, United Russia was going to win about %50 in "unrigged" elections. This is a simple majority, sufficient to pass regular laws. However, Putin needs constitutional majority (which is defined as 2/3 of the votes) to be able to pass constitutional amendments and various important laws related to status of Russia in union such as union with Belorussia. Now 2/3 for those advanced math majors is about %66 :) And, guess what, United Russia at this point has %64 of all votes which, what with rounding up and all, will be that magic constitutional majority. D-oh.

Re:Why?

[arivanov]

I suspect he did not. In fact I suspect none of his immediate surrounding did. As many people pointed out they had no need whatsoever to do it.

Now, cronies and henchmen in remote regions are a completely different story.

Realistically, the feudalism never went away in the Soviet Union (and Russia for that matter). Many of the remote places and nearly all of the so called "autonomous republics" and "autonomous areas" are ruled in a feudal manner. In fact usually the rule inherited from father to son.

It is essential for a vassal to demonstrate his true loyalty to the ruling feudal. In the middle ages it was the oath of allegiance. Now it is votes. This is exactly what is happening here. Chechnia, various tatar states and other fiefdoms demonstrating their loyalty to the king. Move along people, there is nothing we can do to fix it for at least a 100 more years. Old habits die hard. Really hard.

Also, they are a blip on the overall statistics radar. In total we are talking about less votes than Moscow and St Petersburg which were not rigged and had the highest opposition representation which were not rigged this way. In fact I would expect less than 2-3% of the overall vote to be subjected to such rigging (the fiefdoms in question are not particularly large).

The real killer was the strict prohibition on foreign funding.

There were anything between 30-200 million of American money behind every mid-right wing win in Eastern Europe for the last 15 years (I have personally seen some of it). Without this level of support none of the right-wing "blue" muppets would have gotten even close to winning an election in Bulgaria, Romania, etc. By yanking the plug and making sure that none of the local oligarghs gives money to the opposition Putin has guaranteed his win. The 7% was simply a topup just to make sure.