The Presidential Administration’s ingenuity when it comes to dirty tricks is astonishing. Look at the elaborate scheme they came up with to keep us off the ballot in Novosibirsk:
They realized that the signatures we submit will be flawless.
But they still need to knock us out over “invalid” signatures—and make sure those signatures really do become invalid.
The solution: plant “toxic signature gatherers” among us—people who collect real signatures from real voters, but change one digit in the passport details.
The election commission then decides to verify 100% of the signature sheets (which is exactly what it did today).
The Federal Migration Service database will show that some people have incorrect passport details.
And we’re barred from the election with the explanation: your signature gatherers messed up.
It really is a clever scheme, and we most likely would have fallen for it.
Fortunately, the Novosibirsk mayor’s office was tasked with putting it into practice, and not everyone there is a crook—there are decent people too, and they tipped us off.
The “Reaper” system quickly helped us identify the toxic gatherers, and for the past week they’ve been operating under our control. Basically, it was straight out of a detective story—an “operational game.”
We could have quietly thrown out those signature sheets and surprised the Novosibirsk election commission by showing that the names of the gatherers they needed weren’t on the lists—but we decided to make the whole thing public instead.
And not just make it public—this is a textbook case under Article 142 of the Criminal Code (falsification of election documents). An organized group, prior conspiracy, the whole package. We have names and evidence.
Today we are filing a criminal complaint and demanding criminal prosecution both for the “toxic gatherers” and for those who directed them, paid them, and so on.
Read it—Leonid Volkov tells the full story in detail.
While I’m at it, greetings to the crook Volodin, the crook Neverov (he is overseeing the Novosibirsk elections for United Russia), and the Novosibirsk election commission. We are going to submit flawless signatures after all.