2 March no more than 3.5% of the population came to vote in Ingushetia – that’s a bit over 5,700 people. But according to official report the turnout was 92.3%. The former figure was communicated by the owner of local website Magomed Evloev who organized the action named “I Did Not Vote” after the Duma campaign. According to Evloev, independent observers were present at all the 160 poll stations and they counted everyone to come to vote. The only poll station not attended by observers was in the city of Magas. And according to official statement the turnout was 100% there. Whether such thing is possible a Novaya Gazeta correspondent asked Andrei Buzin, the chair of Interregional association of voters.      

“Well, what can I say? Mr. Churov (chair of central elective commission) says that evidence must be given. I think he must have sent his people there to see the voting done at the location. This was not done which proves the weakness of the system, like it is proved in case of non-admission of observers to poll stations”. 

Q: Is it possible technically to turn 3.5% into 92%?

A: Similar doctoring was done in soviet times at polling stations. Such a big discrepancy between official and unofficial data is only possible in case the bulletins were not counted at all. Doing so takes two conditions: elective commissions’ members must be subordinated and motivated and they need to feel protection by authorities and enforcement bodies. Technically, it is possible only when the needed number of voters is recorded without real counting. I don’t know if the commissions members signed in the lists of voters.    

Q: Can you remember a case with 100% turnout?

A: The 99.99% turnout was registered at the election to Supreme Soviet in 1979. And such a turnout is just impossible. 

Q: According to CEC information, 100% of the voters had polled in Magas district of Ingushetia by 7 p.m. 

A: This district was featured with same situation at the December Duma election. Significantly, all 100 percent of the voters went for United Russia. To my memory, there are 17,000 voters in that district. With such a number of voters, 100% turnout is impossible in principle. This means the situation inside that community does not allow any deviation from like-mindedness. It might be just fear or social cultural community of those people. That may be possible with 17,000 but when we speak about 100,000 it’s a sheer impossibility.

Q: And what are your impressions of the election in general? 

A: I do not doubt that Dmitry Medvedev won. But I think official data to be overrated. This means the past election cannot be recognized as meeting the Russian Constitution, electoral legislation and international standards. This distortion would be dangerous for a probable situation of real choice where these skills of making distortion could be used again.