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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."
Putin's 7% cap on political parties pretty much annihilated most of the opposition. Why did they need to add votes? Out of habit?
"I guess the people who have rigged the vote have never heard about Correlation Cofficient."
And apparently neither has the person who wrote the summary.
Paul Grosfield - the quicker picker upper.
Ballots stuff you?
I guess the people who have rigged the vote have never heard about Correlation Cofficient.
You don't need brains to run a dictatorship, just a rampant willingness to fuck people over. Reminds me of some of our own leaders here in The West!
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!
I got a catholic block.
American Democracy is truly spreading across the globe.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
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.
One CS student VS 893 DOS games: Let's play oldies
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." Josef Stalin
As I understand it, Putin has been reasonably effective at crushing the Oligarchies that were running rampant throughout Russia, this has made him a bit unpopular with the current US government because a lot of those Oligarchs were business partners. Unfortunately, his method of stamping them out has been largely to just take over the businesses directly. This has been a boon for the government's bottom line, but in the long run it stifles growth, however the people love it because they're finally seeing some of their country's wealth and frankly I can't blame them. I have no doubt in a few years Putin (or his successor) will finally toss away the pretense of being a Democracy and really start putting the screws to the people, but in the short term they are way better than the previous owners.
I read the internet for the articles.
That graph was produced in Excel. I don't think Edward Tufte would like it.
Most likely from the GAS "Vybory" (short for State Automatized System "Elections") that is used to calculate preliminary voting results.
I worked for 9 years in the Central Election Commission of Russia, and during my time a lot of technical people had access to the database, and it's not really hard to grab a copy of the DB or a report. I quit that job some years ago, but somehow I doubt a lot of things changed.
This is not a security hole; the data is entered into the system straight from the signed protocol as soon as a lower level election commission does, and protocols are being made public right after they are signed. It also has no official status, at the data is only used for preliminary figures; the official results have to be delivered in paper form.
While we're at it, the site of the Central Election Commission is http://www.cikrf.ru/ and the present election results will be eventually posted at http://www.cikrf.ru/elect_duma/npa/index.jsp. This is in Russian however, so I don't know how useful that would be..
It's impressive to have better than a 100% turn out when so few vote in this country. With the help of our current administration and Diebold maybe we can do as well in the next election. Hell this is America we should shoot for 200% voting!
You might look at some of Steven F. Freeman's papers, like this one: Polling Bias or Corrupted Count? (pdf file).
Nope. Just the good old US corporate media. "Nothing to see here, just a bunch of conspiracy nuts on the internet"
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.
The tongue-in-cheek reply would be "old habits die hard". But it's something else. Blatant election fraud (and, pardon if I say it directly, I doubt they're so stupid to rig it so badly) serves only one goal: It's a statement. The statement says pretty much "Look. We can manipulate the election any way we want. And? Nobody cared. See? We will win. No matter what. So you better stop trying."
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
They need 2/3rds in the parliament to amend constitution.
God, I can't tell you how long I've been waiting to use that
I worked at the election committee for the last elections of Russian president. The head of the committee gave me 10 passport (which used as IDs in Russia) numbers to register. I never saw the passwords, I never saw the people. The head filled out the bulletins for those 10 people (all votes for Putin) and went into a voting booth.
I did not see much else, but I am sure it was not a unique case. Also, our district was rather small, in larger districts they probably used more "dead souls".
I am not at all surprised at the fraud in last elections. In fact, I would be surprised if there was not any. As for why - I think (and this is my speculation) each committee must report at least x% (x >> 50) votes for Putin in the last president elections or for Unified Russia in these elections to show a good work. Thus the fraud despite the fact that the elections were decided WAY before the votes were counted.
Yet, why would Czar Vladimir Putin go through all this trouble to produce an impressive showing at the polls? He is already quite popular. His party, United Russia, could have easily won control of the Duma without the election rigging.
"The Economist" has finally provided an answer to this puzzling question. "The answer almost certainly lies in the ever more vicious--and open--rivalry among the Kremlin's political clans. Perhaps Mr Putin upset so many rich and powerful people that the prospect of losing control over the transition of power may simply have been too dangerous for his inner circle, and for himself. For all his talk about foreign threats and domestic enemies, what Mr Putin really fears is his entourage and a war among the clans. Winston Churchill once described the Kremlin's political tussles as being like a fight among bulldogs under a carpet: outsiders hear plenty of growling but have few clues about the victor's identity until it emerges."
Renegade political factions (run by former and current members of the FSB, successor of the KGB) operate within and outside the Kremlin. Each faction is like a gang, and the gangs kill each other. They answer to no one. So far, Putin has used his power to keep the factions under control.
Putin needed an impressive showing in the election in order to demonstrate his political power -- to the siloviki. He controls the United Russia party. Since the party won more than 66% of the seats in the Duma (due to the rigged election), the party -- and Putin -- can alter the constitution at will.
Of course, Putin is gambling that his scheme will work. He may lose the gamble. One of the renegade factions may assassinate him.
In this context, you can understand the comments by Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev won the Nobel Peace Prize for releasing the Eastern Europeans from the yoke of Soviet oppression. He has criticized the steadily eroding freedoms that he initiated in Russia in the late 1980s, but he has refrained from directly criticizing Czar Vladimir Putin.
Putin is indeed a czar, but he is a far better ruler than one of the thugs in the siloviki. These thugs likely killed both Alexander Litvinenko and Anna Politkovskaya. Even if Putin wanted to solve their murders, he has no power to do so. If he attempted to find the killers, then he may be killed.
P.S.
"The Economist" seems to provide much better analysis of Russian politics than Washington provides. What exactly are our Russian "experts" in Washington doing?
I am from Ekaterinburg, Sverdlovskaya oblast, Russia.
Also, all government employees were forced to vote (e.g. teachers).
The Sunday was made a working day in some institutes (4 in our city) to make students vote right there.
Obviously, soldiers, prisoners and mental patients all voted for Putin's party.
I've seen a lot of things of this kind here.