- Just before the December elections to the State Duma the population in Moscow had increased for 174,000 people and had decreased for the same figure on the eve of the presidential elections;

- The poll stations with the highest figures of support given to Dmitry Medvedev are not situated in the districts where “electronic urns” were used, while more than a half of the poll stations featured with the lowest level of supporting Dmitry Medvedev were situated in the districts where electronic urns were used;    

- At 345 poll stations out of 3,300 the turnout was 90%, and 164 stations reported of 100% turnout. Significantly, most part of the voters came to vote there during the last hour; 

- The number of “extra” ballot papers found in Moscow was 642,000. Almost all of them were filled in favor of the candidate supported by the Kremlin.  

According to the law, the electoral outcome data are published at the official sites of the regional elective commissions that are included in the Internet-portal of the Central Elective Commission. This is a good achievement by our electoral system. However, the volume of the officially published data has been decreased lately. For example, the real number of the registered people as of the moment of the beginning of the voting process has not been indicated since December 2007. Instead, only percentage of the turnout is pointed and it is not clear what initial figure this percentage was proceeded from.

Nonetheless, even the officially published information is enough to help understanding of what happens to the elections and what the new tools of the electoral administration differ with from the previous ones. We shall consider it taking Moscow as an example, the city that is believed by many – belief based on the previous Moscow achievements in this sphere - to be a standard of the Russian democratic freedoms. 

In reality Moscow stays in the first leading 20 Russian Federation territories in terms of “electoral controllability”. Slowly and permanently it is becoming more and more like Dagestan, Tatarstan and Bashkiria.  

The administrative resource in Moscow has proved to work perfectly this time again.

The interval between parliamentary and presidential elections was only three months. So the changes in the voters’ lists were to be minimal. However, if we look at the voters lists we shall see that Moscow population decreased for 174,000 people during the period from December to March. That means Moscow must be facing the loss of population in the number of 700,000 people a year! We are offered to believe that with general loss of population in Russia being 478,000 people per year (that’s the official data), the loss of population in Moscow only is 200-220 thousands people more.     

Well, it appears from the electoral figures that Moscow is experiencing demographic catastrophe! And that’s not only about Moscow. In St Petersburg the loss of population – calculating it from the figures in the voting lists – came up to 386,000, which is 10% of the December list figure! The Krasnodar territory has similar figure of 216,000. Significantly, exactly these three Russian territories mentioned were the leaders in terms of increased turnout that happened just within three months. In Krasnodar territory the turnout in March increased for 22.6%, while in St Petersburg the figure was 16.7%. 

Not wanting to disprove the official reports, we nevertheless dare to suggest an alternative hypothesis, just out of academic honesty. The turnout is calculated as a relative share of those who come to vote out of the general number of voters in the list. So turnout performance can be “improved” if we either increase numerator, or decrease denominator. The nuance is that at the Duma elections the deputy seats were distributed between territories in proportion to absolute number of the voters. That means, “additional” 174,000 votes in December allowed Moscow to get two extra seats in the Duma. This kind of reason is what might have caused the mysterious “growth” of population in Russia in the number of 1.6 million people that has happened within the period from July-December last year, which was noticed by E.Kolyushin, the member of the Central Elective Commission.      

As for the presidential elections, the stress was put on the turnout figure expressed in per cents, which was to prove wider people’s support given for Medvedev. As a result we had a huge “electorate pestilence” in Moscow, St Petersburg and in the entire Russia. 1.6 million people appeared from nowhere on 2 December and disappeared to where it came from on 2 March.    

What’s new about all that? It’s only unbelievable straightforwardness by the administration that is absolutely sure that its being so enthusiastic does not leave any “difficult” questions unanswered. 

As of 10 a.m. 2 March the turnout in some Moscow districts (Presnensky district, for example) was oddly 2-3 times as high as the average one, while three months before it was normal as of at the same time of the voting day.

Even more oddly looked the turnout in the Biryulevo Vostochnoe district. All 38 polling stations there registered the standard turnout of 7.3% as of 10 a.m. of the voting day (with deviation being plus-minus 0.3%). In Tagansky district all the poll stations had the turnout figure of 57% as of 5 p.m. of the voting day. Though, Moscow is still far away from Dagestan where such synchronism is a usual thing.      

Significantly, the poll stations featured with close attention by observers and journalists, those stations were not featured with the record topping high figures. On the contrary, at the poll station #105, where the members of the Russian government voted, the turnout even decreased from 41.1% to 39.9% during the period from 5-7 p.m. which is absolutely impossible! During the rest hours the figure there did not go up much and was one of the lowest in the city.        

Every tenth poll station (345 out of 3,300) reported about turnout of 90%, and 164 stations were even featured with 100% turnout, according to the protocols. It was mainly about closed stations situated in the hospitals or pre-trial prisons, or at the railroad stations. But some of those 100%-stations were usual ones, situated in residential areas. The numbers of those stations were ## 1504, 1706, 1243 and 1257.     

Looks like absolutely all registered voters came to give their votes and that was done mainly during the last hour! At the poll station #1504 the turnout was 55.2% as of 7 p.m. and by 8 p.m. it had come up to 100%. 1,000 people to vote within just an hour at a poll station? Of course no. The electoral administration just “adjusted” the number of the registered voters to the number of really coming –that’s 1,851 people. But this final figure does not add up to the number of 2,800 ballot papers received by this poll station, as it was pointed in the protocol. Usual practice is that the number of ballot papers issued for a particular station is a bit less than the number of the registered voters. Incidentally, in December the number of the registered voters at this poll station #1504 was 3,022 people. Well, it was explained above how such a mysterious disappearance of more than a thousand people can have happened.    

Moscow elective commissions also can raise the turnout figures not only through lessening the denominator. At the poll station #66 the turnout during last hour increased from 50.3% to 79.5%. Along with that 500 ballot papers were reported to be “carried away” there. The funny thing is that at the municipal elections that were held simultaneously with the presidential ones, there were no “carried away” ballots! One only may hope that those 500 “carried away” ballot papers were virtual and not real and they were not used at any other polling station.  

In some places they struggled for high turnout figures and for the “good” outcomes at one time. So besides the games with the voters lists and virtual ballot papers, “throwing into” of the “rightly” filled ballots was also used or protocols were re-written, which can be noticed if you examine closely the final statistics.   

85 polling stations developed turnout increase for 25% and more during the last hour. Along with that there was no signs of the lessening the registered number of voters. That means the voters were “added” and not “deducted”. 

Another story is about poll stations organized at the Vnukovo airport and railroad stations in Moscow. Officially they were intended for traveling voters who were to vote with absentee ballots. However, the protocols say it’s not only guests of our capital who voted at the Vnukovo airport – only 19.3% of the voters used the absentee ballots. That means at the period from 7-8 p.m. a crowd of citizens feeling their responsibility for the motherland’s destiny came to the airport, and most part of them were Moscow dwellers!     

Same story goes about the Kiev Railroad Station where only 17.9% of voters used the absentee ballots and the turnout figure increased for 19.1% just during the last hour.

Another “invention” was made in the Filevsky Park district where a poll station #3065 was organized. Interestingly, only 153 voters were registered there for municipal elections held simultaneously with the presidential ones. Those voters really live in the 14-floored sole block of flats situated in the area. However, for unknown reasons a number of 3,847 were registered at the same poll station to vote in the presidential elections. How can such a number of people be living in a one doorway building? Incidentally, according to the law a poll station cannot be intended for more than 3,000 people when it is situated inside the country. But the local elective commission at that place received officially 3,750 and 3,702 people “voted” there, out of which 3,272 people gave their votes for Medvedev. That’s the absolute record for the whole country. It’s equal to the figures shown by three average poll stations in Moscow. And the real contribution by real voters registered there was maximum 64 votes out of 153 people living in the above mentioned building. According to the protocols it’s exactly 64 people registered in the building who came to vote on that day. So their local turnout was just 41% instead of announced officially 96.7%.          

Then who could have supported Dmitry Medvedev so unanimously (88% as the official report says), with only 95 absentee ballots being registered at that station? Looks like a magic.  

One may mention among other electoral peculiarities the cases where amazingly different outcomes were registered in the neighboring poll stations or the facts like that established at the poll station #88 where no invalid ballot paper was found after processing about 1,400 pieces. That looks very oddly, as in reality 1-2 people out of 100 usually do some mistakes when filling out the ballots.   

Significantly, the polling stations equipped with Ballot Processing Complexes, or BPC (that’s computerized scanners connected to the State Automated System “Vybory”, or SAS) showed that the result by Dmitry Medvedev was considerably lower there, due to less opportunities of tampering.  Out of 20 Moscow districts with the lowest figures of turnout 15 were equipped with BPC facilities. On the contrary, no districts out of those 30 with the highest turnout were equipped with BPC system. Same applies to the figures of outcomes in support of Dmitry Medvedev: BPC facilitated territories were featured with the lowest figures of votes given for Dmitry Medvedev.  

If we take the average turnout of 57.3% registered at the poll stations with BPC to be real, it will turn out that not 4,640,000 but about 4,000,000 citizens took part in the elections in Moscow. Though, even such a calculation seems to color the truth as some stations equipped with BPC still managed to show fantastic results of support for Medvedev along with unbelievable figures of turnout.    

If we use the BPC facilitated poll stations figures to be a kind of standard then we will have to admit that a minimum of 630-640 thousand ballot papers were “added”, which is 13.6% of the general number of the ballots found in the urns.   

Doing a recount on the basis of the average data for the poll stations equipped with BPC we can see that with a full electronic control provided Dmitry Medvedev would have got 642,000 votes less, or with the absence of any BPC facilities he would have got same figure more votes, which is about one fifth of the general outcome shown in the final protocol.    

Significantly, the number of “additional” ballot papers coincided with the number of “additional” votes given for Dmitry Medvedev at the poll stations not provided with electronic control facilities. All the ballots, that were intended to increase the turnout figures, were filled in his favor.

In case of Moscow elections being under full electronic control the outcomes would have been significantly better for other contenders. Gennady Ziuganov would have got more 40,000 votes to his official result.  

And if we take as a standard the outcomes at the poll stations where top officials voted and where control was even stricter the difference will be even more striking (see Table 2).  

Conclusions

1. If we agree that elections can be recognized fair and free in case the equal campaign conditions are provided, and the elections can be called honest when the ballots are counted honestly, then the presidential campaign in Moscow does not correspond at least to the latter criteria. As for the former one, it has been much talked about. 

2. We do not see any formal reasons to put in doubt the victory by Dmitry Medvedev. It seems that his real result in the city was 65% with the turnout of 55% (we do not consider here the problem of fair and free elections). But we wouldn’t like to get the true figures through indirect methods and calculations. We want to be told about the true outcomes by the electoral administration that exists on our taxes. So do we want too much? 

3. The number of “electoral oddities” in Moscow has significantly increased in the electoral cycle of 2007-2008 comparing it to all previous federal campaigns. Now we can speak about Moscow standards getting similar to those of Soviet Union or today’s Caucasian ones. Along with that it seems that the informal “decency limit” has been passed over: the thesis about tampering has never been supported more than now. The electoral administration has no fear of being held responsible by people. Unfortunately, they do have grounds for being careless in that respect.   

4. In the meanwhile, significant is presence of big differences in the protocols of similar poll stations. That means that much depends on such non-system factors as honesty of single elective commissions, presence of highly-qualified observers etc. There is a human drama behind the smoothed final protocol: there are people and elective commissions able to do honest counting. They are in minority and they feel out of it, as they have no support except their own conviction of what is right. Against this background, the hastily made statements by the “democratic public” about the elections being totally falsified are featured with ungrounded generalization.    

Instead of giving at least moral support to those few honest commissions, the liberals leave the battle field and come back to their “debates in the kitchen”. Is it so difficult to make an enquiry about the real outcomes at your local poll station and to give your polite opinion to the local commission chair and members, considering that they live or work in the neighborhood? 

Or that must be done by someone else and not by you personally? By the authority? Well, it’s doing it already, but it always does it to observe one’s own interests. Where are you, people, who like to speak about civil society? The number of real citizens who are present in the electoral commissions is similar to those among all us – there are very few real citizens among us. But still they exist and they have enough courage to resist the pressure by the system. 

5. The question of trust to the electoral procedure itself and to people securing it is becoming to be substantial one. Today any citizen who wishes to be loyal towards one’s own state is made to face an abnormal choice: you must be either an idiot who does not understand how the outcome is made, or you must be a scoundrel who sees everything but keeps silence. Of course, the members of the establishment are also located between these two options. Most of them, though, have already made their ethic choice.  

They call it patriotism, serving to the Motherland, moral duty of an orthodox believer and so forth. Well, let them go on. At least today people get to understand better who speak about all that and what their words really mean.


Table1. Outcomes of the presidential elections in Moscow (%)




Table 2. Interpretation of the poll results based on the data from the poll stations equipped with PBC facilities (%)