What a disgusting disgrace. These people simply cannot live without cheating and deception. I’ve received quite a lot of messages pointing out that the Russian Public Initiative platform, created so that citizens could promote proposed laws, and where signatures are being collected in support of RosPil’s bill to cap the cost of officials’ cars, is rigging the vote in favor of the initiative to repeal the “zero promille” rule (the legal blood alcohol limit set at 0.0‰).
This was completely obvious. We’re doing everything we can. I’ve probably already worn you out with all these posts about collecting signatures. From the traffic sources for the ROI website, it’s clear that we are bringing in the overwhelming majority of users:
Nevertheless, the gap between us and the “promille” initiative is shrinking. This was especially noticeable on Sunday, when I wrote a post about Natusik and BMW. It stayed at the top of LiveJournal all day, and the Facebook post was one of the most-read I’ve ever had—245,000 people. We collected several thousand new votes, but the rate of voting “for promille” was even higher throughout the entire day!
So where are the activists supposedly pushing this initiative so hard? Try searching for both initiatives on Google or Yandex. Ours:
Promille:
704 versus 13 Maybe it’s being heavily promoted on social media? I can see that thousands of people have shared only our recently created campaign website:
I don’t see any social media activity around “promille” at all. And here’s the answer: Putin-style petitions mean Putin-style vote counting! An analysis of the full dataset on voting dynamics makes it obvious that ballot stuffing is taking place:
Why, one might ask, run a campaign to promote an initiative if the nimble fraudsters from the Information Democracy Foundation can just toss in neat little bundles of votes? Why are they doing this? That part is actually quite clear. The ability to submit issues to the State Duma after collecting 100,000 votes was one of Putin’s direct—and very loudly advertised—promises. Of course, the crooks don’t want the first 100,000 to be collected by people who dislike the authorities, especially for an initiative that United Russia refuses to support. It’s much better for them to stage a little performance around “promille.” As you may recall, the idiotic initiative introducing the “zero promille” rule was proposed by the idiotic leader of the idiotic United Russia party. The idiotic deputies happily voted for it. As a result, someone who drank a glass of kefir could end up being ruled in violation. People were outraged: what idiots you are! And now United Russia is putting on a clown show demanding that the “zero promille” rule be repealed!!! Demanding it from whom, exactly? From yourselves? You’re the ones who introduced it two years ago. And now Putin, having “listened to the people,” is already saying that promille can be brought back. To complete the scam, only one small thing is missing: grateful citizens make use of the opportunity to collect 100,000 votes, and the National Leader and the All-Russia People’s Front meet the citizens halfway. The internet and the authorities are united. Constructive work has triumphed over mere criticism. “We can do it if we really want to.” Channel One (Russia’s main state TV channel) gushes with delight, explaining what internet users have shown they really care about. And then we came along with our proposal to ban expensive cars for officials. We collected signatures faster than anyone else. Now it has to go to the State Duma. The law is supported by 100% of the population. But the government and United Russia have no desire to climb out of their Mercedes S-Class cars. What to do is unclear, and it’s a scandal all around. So they resorted to their favorite solution: fake the vote. So what should be done about this? Help spread this post by Leonid Volkov. If you’re a programmer, mathematician, statistician, or just someone who likes working with databases, then check this yourself and write about it in your own words. Here is the ffile with ten-minute measurements of voting dynamics and daily histograms. If you’re a journalist, ask Massukh’s office to explain these oddities in the vote collection. We will also file a complaint with the prosecutor’s office, because what is being falsified here is not just some “internet poll,” but a formal procedure regulated by legal acts. And most importantly. It’s just like elections in our country. If you want to end up with 10% in the official tally, you need to win 17%. If you want to win with a formal result of 51%, you need 85%, so that it becomes impossible to “shave a little off” and steal the victory. The best response to cheating, deception, and fraud is to double and triple our efforts. Register on the government services portal and vote. Promote the campaign website among people who don’t read LiveJournal. PS And the good, very encouraging news is that this government has no real grassroots activist supporters. It has money, it has administrative leverage, it has television. But when it comes to voting, it has to stuff the ballot box.