It’s just math. Putin and his officials added up three numbers, understood everything, and that’s why they started going crazy. That’s my very short answer to a question I’m often asked in letters and Telegram messages. They ordered the Smart Voting website blocked. They demanded that Google and Apple remove the Navalny app. Yandex was instructed to return nothing for the search query “Smart Voting.” People ask: what is this hysterical “ban-block-hide-delete-ban-ban-ban” all about? Why this fit of panic, when it only draws more attention to Smart Voting? Take a piece of paper, a pen, and let’s do the math. A thief from United Russia goes into an election in a major city. How much will he get? Let’s say 35%, even though United Russia’s current rating in cities is no higher than 20–23%. But that’s enough to win, because the candidate in second place gets 20%, while the other five candidates split the remaining 45% into small chunks: 15%, 10%, 10%, 6%, and 4%. So 65% of voters cast their ballots against the United Russia candidate, but he still won. Is it hard for us to defeat a thief from United Russia? In fact, no. The candidate who came in second with 20% just needs another 16–17% out of that remaining 45% of the vote — the share that went, collectively, to the weakest candidates. So, as you can see, the goal of Smart Voting is not to win 40 or 50% of the vote. It’s simply to persuade 16% of those who are already going to show up, already going to vote against United Russia, not to waste their vote but, by coordinating, to give it to a single candidate — the one with the best chance. And it doesn’t matter who that candidate is. The task here is simply to take down the thief from United Russia. To show that people have to be reckoned with — otherwise they’ll throw you out of your comfortable seat. It works. In 2019, we were short by only 50,000 people to defeat United Russia in ALL 45 districts in the Moscow City Duma elections. So if you were in Putin’s place, you’d be furious too and calling for everything connected with Smart Voting to be blocked. Of course, there are 225 districts. They’re all different. In Chechnya, Smart Voting won’t work. They simply fabricate the results there. In Tatarstan, it’s very difficult too. But in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, and so on, everything can be changed. Right now, our only enemies are our own laziness and our lack of faith in ourselves. And the math is on our side 😉