It has already been half a year since the fraudulent State Duma elections, and unfortunately, almost everyone has unfortunately given up trying to punish at least some of the most obvious crooks. We, however, are still poking certain characters with a sharp stick. Here, for example, is a case being handled by our Dima Volov. You probably remember this video, which vividly illustrates where Chechnya’s famous 99.9% voter turnout figures come from.
Nozhay-Yurt District, Chechnya. Precinct Election Commission No. 236. A few amusing costume changes, and we get the standard Chechen result: a full 100% for V.V. Putin. We decided neither to forget nor forgive. These people committed a crime, so it was only logical to demand that the Investigative Committee for the Chechen Republic open a criminal case. What followed was 99.9% (just like turnout in Chechnya) reminiscent of the famous "Rafik is completely innotsent" (a meme based on a deliberately misspelled claim of total innocence). We received a ruling refusing to open a case, signed by investigator O.P. Gaivoronsky. Refusal ruling What is noteworthy here is not only the refusal itself, but also the detailed description of what happened at Precinct 236, which gives a sense of how elections are organized and conducted in the North Caucasus. The first thing that jumped out: Precinct No. 236 had unexpectedly moved from the village of Nozhay-Yurt to the village of Simsir. We still have no explanation for that. The chairman of Precinct Election Commission No. 236 was a certain S.P. Abdulmuslimov.
He states outright how he was appointed to the position: the head of the Territorial Election Commission of Nozhay-Yurt District told him that he was supposed to keep order at the polling station and remove unauthorized persons, and preferably also read a couple of laws. At the same time, he has no idea whatsoever about any official duties or instructions; nobody at the territorial commission told him about such sophisticated matters.
Besides him, the commission members were Alatbiev, Dzhonsuyev, and Dzhorlayev. Whether they know any laws other than sharia norms is unknown. Also present at the polling station were Ainailov, Sultanov, and Chalayev—members of a volunteer public-order squad, two of whom were also serving as observers—and Almagomedov and Nukhadzhiev, who were observers.
Most of the refusal ruling is taken up by a detailed description of the masquerade at the polling station, as told by the participants themselves. The hero of the day was a true *dzhigit* (a Caucasian term for a bold horseman or tough guy), Adlan Isayev, who voted many, many times.
He and the commission members who handed him the ballots explain this burst of civic engagement as follows: Isayev’s mother and father are elderly and ill, his wife is caring for a child, and he also has a brother and sister-in-law who wanted to vote so badly they could hardly eat, so they gave him their passports and instructed him to travel from Dagestan to Chechnya and vote. Needless to say, not a word about absentee certificates. Nor about the possibility of voting at home.
True, Dzhonsuyev himself—the commission member who gave Isayev the ballots—claims that he issued him a ballot for Isayev’s daughter-in-law, Malkan Dangayeva.
Whether she was a daughter-in-law one way or another probably makes little difference; families in the Caucasus are large and live closely together. The reason Precinct Commission member Dzhonsuyev gave several ballots to one citizen is also highly respectable: "it was his first time taking part in an election, and he didn’t know all the rules."
This violinist walked up to the heavyweight judokas himself and started staring them down insolently.
Besides Isayev, three other people also voted multiple times:
Yazman Avtayeva voted for herself and for her sister (who supposedly suddenly felt unwell right at the polling station and asked her to vote for Putin), and then handed her passport to a security guard, who voted using it.
It would seem the crime is obvious, but don’t worry—the investigators managed to establish that it really was the security guard’s passport, which he had simply forgotten at home; he asked his wife to bring it, and on the way she met Avtayeva, who was just then walking to the polling station with her still-healthy sister, and handed her the passport.
The judokas tell the violinist, “Please leave,” and then he starts hitting them.
Pola Girimbiyeva voted twice—for herself and for her brother, who wanted to vote so badly that he deliberately left her his passport and went off to study in Grozny.
Bukulova voted twice—for herself and for her daughter from Dagestan, who had asked her to vote for Putin.
This is the part they simply cannot wriggle out of.
The ruling repeatedly emphasizes that all these people voted for V.V. Putin, are perfectly satisfied with everything, and have no complaints against anyone.
It is completely unclear why anyone felt the need to say whom these respected citizens of the Russian Federation voted for and to disclose the secrecy of the ballot; that has no relevance whatsoever to the legal classification of the offense. Unless, of course, it was included specifically so that the higher authorities would clearly understand that "Rafik is not guilty of anything".
Overall, as you read the ruling, three lines of argument gradually emerge, laying the groundwork for refusing to open a case:
they didn’t know you weren’t allowed to vote several times, there were no instructions at all, and the laws—wow—are so complicated!
but they’re relatives, family, one teip (a Chechen clan or kinship group); how could anyone possibly refuse them?
and we all voted exclusively for V.V. Putin, which removes any suspicion from us.
Elsunkayev, head of the legal department of the Chechen election commission, who appeared in this case from who knows where, believes that "there is evidence of an administrative offense under Article 5.22 of the Russian Code of Administrative Offenses."
And the prosecutor’s office opened administrative proceedings against three commission members under Part 1 of Article 5.22 of the Code of Administrative Offenses. (For some completely incomprehensible reason, the people who actually cast the votes bore no responsibility at all.)
The Investigative Committee happily agrees with the prosecutor’s office and refuses to open a case, since the actions of the precinct commission members do not constitute the criminal offenses set out in Part 1 of Article 142 and Article 142.1 of the Russian Criminal Code, because "there are no elements of the objective side of the crime—falsification of election documents, falsification of voting results, falsification of voters’ signatures in voter lists, drawing up a voting-results protocol known to be inconsistent with the actual results, or knowingly incorrect determination of voting results."
Indeed, the Russian Code of Administrative Offenses provides for administrative liability for the unlawful issuance and receipt of a ballot for the purpose of voting multiple times. We do not deny that they should be punished for that, but the act described in Article 5.22 is limited to the mere fact of handing over and receiving the ballot. In our case, however, at Precinct No. 236 there were at least three elements of criminal offenses under Article 142.1 of the Russian Criminal Code: falsification of voters’ signatures in the voter lists—it is obvious that the signatures of absent people were forged; drawing up a voting-results protocol known to be inconsistent with the actual results—the protocol included unlawfully issued ballots; and, as a result, knowingly incorrect determination of the voting results. The reason these people are not facing criminal liability is extremely simple: in Chechnya, Russian laws have long been applied very selectively. Naturally, we considered the refusal to open a criminal case unlawful and unfounded, and we appealed it to the Prosecutor’s Office of the Chechen Republic. As a result, on May 16 the republic’s deputy prosecutor had no choice but to overturn the "refusal" and send the case materials back for additional review.
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-KzT7HxFwxeX0JVU29ic1lPQ2s Let’s see what decision they make this time. A new response should arrive soon. Obviously, Rafik is completely innotsent, but video footage is an important thing too. We’ll keep you updated on the progress of the case. We’re handling a couple more like this. And I also urge everyone who has some free time and the inclination to dig through recordings like these and make life difficult for at least some individual election falsifiers. They may be pawns, but this kind of corrective work is extremely important for all of us. Update: Here, people are doing excellent work in the Moscow suburbs