Look at these wonderful numbers. After this, you’ll be much less troubled by reports of Putin’s “high approval ratings.”
On November 19, referendums on self-taxation were held in Tatarstan in 872 rural settlements across 43 municipalities.
Self-taxation is when people agree to a voluntary tax to solve some local problem. For example: let’s all chip in 500 rubles (about $8 at the time) each and buy gravel for the road. Or improve the cemetery.
Such a decision can only be made by referendum, and it requires at least 50% turnout. People, understandably, are not thrilled about these referendums—they don’t understand why they pay taxes and still have to buy gravel out of their own pockets. And they are especially unwilling to chip in on equal terms with the wife of the republic’s president, Gulsina Minnikhanova, whose annual income is 2.351 billion rubles (roughly $40 million at the time).
In total, the republic’s authorities launched nearly 900 such referendums in different localities.
As part of preparations for the March elections, volunteers from eight campaign offices near Tatarstan and activists from the Golos movement (an independent Russian election-monitoring group) decided to serve as observers at these referendums. The key point is that if turnout is below 50%, the referendum is declared invalid.
The result was simply magnificent. Of the 43 polling stations where our observers were present, 41 had turnout below 50%. There was even one where only… 3.41% of residents voted. This is strikingly different from the figures reported by Tatarstan’s Central Election Commission. According to the official data, average turnout across the republic was 66.26%, and there were even 5 polling stations with 100% turnout.
In other words, turnout in referendums organized by the authorities depends solely and entirely on whether observers are present. No other factors have anything to do with it.
For example:
At two polling stations in the settlement of Vysokaya Gora, where there were no observers, turnout was 51%, while at others just across the railway crossing, where observers were present, it ranged from 5% to 18%. Or take polling stations No. 2386 (95.04% turnout) and 2392 (29.07%), both located in the same village, Koshchakovo.
And here is a wonderful chart from the village of Pestretsy, where one of the polling stations (2403) had no observers. Was the election commission simply shameless enough to falsify the results, or did it just not know that neighboring polling stations had monitors present?
Look at the next chart. The red line shows the average turnout in local referendums according to the Tatarstan authorities: 66.2%.
The blue bars show turnout at polling stations with observers. The average is 19.46%.
So we can safely say that 46% of the turnout in the republic’s referendums was simply made up out of thin air.
And wherever our observers were present, the referendums failed. But where there were no observers, people will be forced to pay an additional tax—even though they never voted for it.
Here’s something interesting: in the village of Usady, in Vysokogorsky District, such referendums were held three times.
(1) April 10, 2016 — turnout 11.04% — observers were present (invalid)
(2) November 20, 2016 — turnout 52.81% — no observers were present (valid)
(3) November 19, 2017 — turnout 24.23% — observers were present (invalid)
The moment there are no observers, turnout suddenly surges. Everyone, shoving each other aside, rushes to the referendum to vote for a new tax.
The result of our work: - referendums were declared valid in 858 settlements (turnout above 50%),
- referendums were declared invalid in 14 settlements (turnout below 50%). Our campaign offices had observers present at 10 of those invalidated referendums.
A huge thank-you to all our volunteers who took part in this effort.
We have once again clearly shown that the current authorities have no real public support. They remain in power only because of falsification and because there were no political forces willing to fight it. That is, there weren’t before. Now there are.
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