- “So what are we supposed to do about this?” exclaims Ella Pamfilova, the bewildered head of the Central Election Commission.
Indeed, there is nothing left to do here. All you can do is laugh. It turns out that the mass registration of migrants in the Barvikha elections—the cause of a nationwide scandal that led to the unprecedented decision to cancel the election—was completely legal.
And remember how much talk there was? “This time we will definitely punish those responsible and hold them accountable.”
It turns out you can do that. You can simply register 500 people from who-knows-where in a district with 3,000 voters. Given the turnout that is typical for elections like this, that amounts to 50% of the electorate.
United Russia brings in half the voters itself. And that is legal. You can do that.
Incidentally, a significant share of those 495 people received Russian citizenship only shortly beforehand. That too, one assumes, is legal.
So now elections are officially reduced to one simple thing: using administrative resources, you register “your own voters.”
You do not necessarily need 50%, as in Barvikha. But if you can round up Tajik migrant workers from construction sites and use them to stuff in—perfectly legally—an extra 5–7% of the vote to guarantee a winning result even in a large district, why not do it? That makes for a perfectly workable election tactic. It is rather foolish to invest in campaigning if you can invest instead in this kind of guaranteed voter.
And people are already investing in it. You will laugh, but in the new Barvikha elections—called to replace the canceled ones—the registration of “voters in rubber apartments” (addresses where large numbers of people are formally registered) is continuing:
There were 495 “legal migrants,” and another 250 “legal migrants” have now been added. To the 1,000 local residents who come to vote, 750 votes for United Russia candidates will be added.
Welcome to elections.