United Russia’s calculation that we would be unable to quickly analyze and cross-check all databases for the 1,313 allegedly invalid signatures—and would therefore have nothing to say in response at the Novosibirsk election commission meeting—did not pay off.
After 30 hours of work by the entire campaign team, we managed to fully expose the fraudsters, and we are ready to do the same for every single signature.
Here, Volkov writes in detail about the verification and its results:
In very short form, this is what the mechanism for excluding the opposition from the elections looks like:
We submit a signature sheet for Ivanov from Lenin Street.
The election commission “checks” the signature by sending the following query to the Federal Migration Service (UFMS): Ivanoff from Lenin Street.
The UFMS replies: the signature is invalid; no Ivanoff lives on Lenin Street.
The election commission declares our signature invalid on the basis of a “certificate from the UFMS.”
They produced hundreds of lines like that and then claimed we did not have enough signatures. That’s all. And we had thought there would be some sophisticated scheme behind it.
The election commission meeting is tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. Novosibirsk time. Before that, we invite all journalists to our headquarters so they can see all of this with their own eyes.
The decision that will be made, of course, has nothing to do with the Novosibirsk election commission itself. This is the implementation of Putin’s new political tactic, being carried out by Volodin. Their problem is simple: it is no longer possible to prevent the opposition from getting into the parliaments of the largest regions. They have shut them out of television, cut off their funding, and still the support is there.
Accordingly, they have two options: a) take the risk and hold elections that are unfair but include all participants; b) keep the dangerous players off the ballot, and then “count honestly,” knowing that the result is not all that important—every deputy is under their control anyway.
I am sure these same scenarios and decisions will also be used in the 2016 State Duma elections.