Russians showed transparent monitoring of Electoral Poll

This is an excellent example for Singaporeans to see how elections must be transparent instead of SECRET as famiLEE LEEgime's unreasonable law made it.

It is necessary to monitor and be Transparent instead of Secretive  to ensure that it is free and fair and any potential violation can be caught and recorded. Recordings from nomination to polling to counting must be made and preserved for future verifications. Electorates are supposed to know exactly how his or her vote had been accounted. Sufficient clarity and time must be available. 

It is really 3rd world and far outdated here in famiLEE LEEgime that frauds and potential frauds are all hidden behind the screen of so called Vote Secrecy. The secrecy protected only frauds and violations particularly for famiLEE LEEgime's own.

I insist that web cameras & recording viewed by web is a good measure for all Singaporean polls & counts and nomination.

 

Russian English News URL

Vote and track down violations

March 4, 2012
Pavel Koshkin

Russian citizens went to the polls on March 4 to elect the country's new president. Vladimir Putin took about 63 percent of the vote during at Sunday’s presidential election; Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov came in second, with more than 17 percent, according to the preliminary data from the Central Election Commission. The rest of the candidates - Mikhail Prokhorov, Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Sergei Mironov - won no more than 10 percent. Putin avoided a run-off by winning more than 50 percent of the vote.

Russians electing the new president. Source: RIA Novosti

The 2011 parliamentary elections were reported to have seen a lot of falsifications and violations  which resulted in the public unrest that turned into a series of rallies held in central Moscow in support for honest elections. The alleged political fraud during the parliamentary elections encouraged civil activism among some Russians who decided to volunteer as observers during the 2012 presidential elections. 

Kira Tverskaya served as an observer from Golos, a grassroots organization aiming to combat vote fraud during the elections.  “We had to visit at least eight polling stations,” Tverskaya said. “What we had to do was to keep track of possible violations ranging from barring observers from doing their job at the polling stations to carousel practices. Actually we had to gather the information about the number of voters at a polling station, including those who voted from home and voters without permanents residence registration.  Nearly every polling station we visited recorded between 2,000 and 3,000 votes.”

When asked about violations at the polling stations, Tverskaya said: “I didn’t witness that any observers had been prevented from moving along the station, videotaping and taking pictures. But nevertheless some officials asked us to fill out a permission form to do recording at the poll. In addition, we saw some suspicious voters, young people who, as a matter of fact, didn’t have the right to vote at the polling station because they don’t have the permanent residence registration and they looked pretty nervous while voting which seemed to me a bit suspicious.”

Lesya Ryabtseva from the Russian State University for Humanities (RGGU) was an observer at polling station 1210. She was confused by the fact that some officers at her polling station gave two ballots to some voters who wanted to vote for their relatives. “Although the elections seemed to be honest I was a bit surprised when a woman came to the poll and said that she wanted to vote for her husband,” Ryabtseva said.  “And the officer of the polling election commission gave her two ballots. It looked pretty weird to me.”

Likewise, she was a bit surprised when 18 employees of a company located not far from the polling station voted together although they didn’t have the right to vote there. As the officers of the election commission explained, the leadership of the company asked the permission for them to vote at this polling station because they couldn’t interrupt the working process in the firm, Ryabtseva said.   

While observers were tracking down the probable violations, young Russian voters were casting their ballots. 

“I voted for Vladimir Putin because he proved to be a strong leader who fulfilled his pledges,” said Maksim Rudnev, 23, a student at Russia’s Academy of Law and Governance. “His words and deeds are never at variance. It was he who brought stability in the country and recovered Russia’s low profile”

“I elected Gennady Zyuganov from the Communist Party, because I find him the most eligible person from the Russian opposition who proposes the most adequate program and ideas,” said Ilya Overchenko, 21, a history major at Moscow State Regional University.

Artem Avtandilov, studying engineering in Kazan State Technical University voted for Mikhail Prokhorov. “Although he is not well-experienced enough in big politics I think that he is the only candidate who may bring positive changes into our inefficient [political] system.”

But some students didn't vote at all. For example, 24-year-old Airat Bagadtiunov, a student at the Higher School of Economics, refused to vote. “I couldn’t find any worthy candidates for Russia’s presidency,” he said. “Of course, there were some compromise options among them but, nevertheless, I didn’t vote.”

Likewise, Tatyana, a 21-year-old journalism student from Moscow State University decided not to vote because she found the election results too predictable. Tatyana doesn’t think that she will be able to change the situation. “Everything we witnessed during Election Day was nothing but well-orchestrated theatrical show,” she said. “Every candidate plays his own role on the stage.” 

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Exit polls: Putin wins Russia's presidential vote

By Agency Reporter 22 hours 34 minutes ago

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Putin

MOSCOW (AP) — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Sunday claimed victory in Russia's presidential election before tens of thousands of cheering supporters, even as the opposition and independent observers insisted the vote had been marred by widespread violations.

At a massive rally just outside the Kremlin, Putin thanked his supporters for helping foil plots aimed at destroying Russia, sounding a nationalistic theme that has resonated with his core supporters.

"I have promised that we would win and we have won!" he shouted to the flag-waving crowd, which responded with shouts of support. "We have won in an open and honest struggle."

Putin tallied 58-59 percent of Sunday's vote, according to exit polls cited by state television. Communist Party candidate Gennady Zyuganov received about 18 percent, according to the survey, and the others — nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, socialist Sergei Mironov and billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov — were in single digits.

Official vote results from the far eastern regions where the count was already completed seemed to confirm the poll data. With about 30 percent of all precincts counted, Putin was leading the field with 64 percent of the vote, the Central Election Commission said.

If thousands of claims of violations made by independent observers and Putin's foes are confirmed, they would undermine the legitimacy of his victory and fuel protests. The opposition is gearing up for a massive rally in downtown Moscow on Monday.

"These elections are not free ... that's why we'll have protests tomorrow. We will not recognize the president as legitimate," said Mikhail Kasyanov, who was Putin's first prime minister before going into opposition.

Golos, Russia's leading independent elections watchdog, said it received numerous reports of "carousel voting," in which busloads of voters are driven around to cast ballots multiple times.

Alexei Navalny, one of the opposition's most charismatic leaders, said observers trained by his organization also reported seeing extensive use of the practice.

Evidence of widespread vote fraud in December's parliamentary election drew tens of thousands to protest against Putin, who was president in 2000-2008 before moving into the prime minister's office due to term limits. They were the largest outburst of public anger in post-Soviet Russia and demonstrated growing exasperation with massive corruption, rising social inequality and tight controls over political life under Putin.

Putin has dismissed the protesters' demands, casting them as a coddled minority of urban elites working at Western behest to weaken Russia. His claims that the United States was behind the opposition protests spoke to his base of blue-collar workers, farmers and state employees, who are suspicious of Western intentions after years of state propaganda.

"Putin is a brave and persistent man who can resist the U.S. and EU pressure," said Anastasia Lushnikova, a 20-year old student who voted for Putin in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don.

Authorities gave permission to Putin's supporters to gather just outside the Kremlin walls, and tens of thousands flooded the big square immediately after the vote ended. Some participants of the demonstration, including employees of state organizations, said they were forced by the management to attend it under the threat of punishment.

The authorities denied the opposition's bid to hold the rally at the same place Monday, but allowed them to gather at a nearby square.

Putin has given generous social promises during his campaign and also initiated limited political reforms in a bid to assuage public anger. His spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Sunday that Putin will seek to modernize the nation's political and economic system, but firmly ruled out any "Gorbachev-style liberal spasms."

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, has become increasingly critical of Putin's rule. "These are not going to be honest elections, but we must not relent," he said Sunday after casting his ballot.

Putin has promised that the vote would be fair, and the authorities apparently have sought to take off the steam out of the protest movement by allowing more observers to monitor the vote. Tens of thousands of Russians, most of them politically active for the first time, had volunteered to be election observers, receiving training on how to recognize vote-rigging and record and report violations.

Golos said monitors have recorded fewer obvious violations than during the December election, but they still believe that violations are extensive. This time, election officials are using more complicated and subtle methods, said Golos deputy director Grigory Melkonyants.

According to data based on official figures from polling stations attended by Golos observers, Putin still garnered some 55 percent of the vote, while Zyuganov won about 19 percent.

Zyuganov told reporters after the polls closed that he will not recognize the vote, calling it "illegitimate, unfair and intransparent."

His campaign chief Ivan Melnikov claimed that the authorities set up numerous additional polling stations and alleged that hundreds of thousands of voters cast ballots at the ones in Moscow alone in an apparent attempt to rig the vote.

Prokhorov said on Channel One television after the vote that authorities kept his observers away from some polling stations and were beaten on two occasions.

Oksana Dmitriyeva, a Duma deputy from Just Russia party, tweeted that they were witnessing "numerous cases of observers being expelled from polling stations" across St. Petersburg just before the vote count.

Unlike Moscow and other big cities, where independent observers showed up en masse, election officials in Russia's North Caucasus and other regions were largely left to their one devices. The opposition said those regions have experienced particularly massive vote rigging in the past.

A Web camera at a polling station in Dagestan, a Caucasus province near Chechnya, registered unidentified people tossing ballot after ballot into boxes. The Central Election Commission quickly responded to the video, which was posted on the Internet, saying the results from the station will be invalidated.

Web cameras were installed in Russia's more than 90,000 polling stations, a move initiated by Putin in response to complaints of ballot stuffing and fraudulent counts in December's parliamentary elections.

It was unclear Sunday to what extent the cameras would be effective in recording voting irregularities or questionable counts. The election observation mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe noted skepticism in a report on election preparations.

"This is not an election ... it is an imitation," said Boris Nemtsov, a prominent opposition leader.

But despite the increased resentment against Putin's rule among the rising middle class, opinion polls ahead of the vote had shown Putin positioned to win easily. He presided over significant economic growth and gave Russians a sense of stability that contrasted with the disorder and anxiety of the 1990s, when Boris Yeltsin led Russia's emergence from the wreckage of the Soviet Union.

"Under Boris Nikolayevich, life was simply a nightmare, but, you know, now it's OK. Now it's good, I'm happy with the current situation," said 51-year-old Alexander Pshennikov, who cast his ballot for Putin at a Moscow polling station.

The police presence was heavy throughout the city on Sunday. There were no immediate reports of trouble, although police arrested three young women who stripped to the waist at the polling station where Putin cast his ballot; one of them had the word "thief" written on her bare back.

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Jim Heintz, Lynn Berry, Maria Danilova, Nataliya Vasilyeva, Mansur Mirovalev and Sofia Javed in Moscow and Sergei Venyavsky in Rostov-on-Don contributed to this report.