The Russian presidential elections in March 2024 have left little room for suspense.
Although there was never the slightest doubt that Vladimir Putin would be re-elected to lead the country for
a fifth term
, the third in a row, the only unknown
was the score
by which the Kremlin's strongman would be re-elected.
At this point, the elections did not disappoint, producing
a result not seen since the end of the USSR
, effectively re-electing Vladimir Putin with 87.3% of the vote,
a "Soviet score"
that not even the Belarusian president regarded as the Europe's last dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, dared to reach in 2020 with "only" 80.1% of the votes.
"The biggest fraud in the history of Russian elections"
Given this result, the electoral observation organization Golos, considered by Moscow as
an "agent of foreigners"
, did not hesitate to affirm that the count was "the biggest fraud in the history of elections in Russia."
According to his calculations, about
22 million ballots out of a total of 76 million
were wrongly attributed to Vladimir Putin.
Other Russian media in exile, such as the Meduza site and the Novaya Gazetta newspaper,
reached the same result using the same calculation method.
A woman votes with her dog in the Russian-occupied Donetsk region of Ukraine.
Photo: AFP
To assess the magnitude of the fraud, analysts use
the "Shpilkin method",
a statistical model devised by a Russian mathematician of the same name and which has proven effective in several elections.
Based on the results of the 94,000 polling stations made public by the Russian Central Election Commission, the method developed by Sergey Chpilkine, who was also declared a "foreign agent" in February 2024 by the Kremlin, consists of identifying polling
stations with results considered "normal" and compare them
with those of other polling stations with an
abnormally high turnout
, which most of the time goes hand in hand with results favorable to Putin
with historical highs, with 80 to 90%
of the votes cast in these polling stations , or even more.
By calculating the difference between polling stations with normal results and those with more than suspicious results, analysts can
estimate the number of stolen votes.
"Each result must be better than the previous one"
In 2018, during the previous presidential elections,
fraud was estimated at 10 million votes,
so this time it has reached unprecedented levels, which does not surprise electoral expert and former co-president of Golos, Roman Udot, interviewed by the editorial staff. Russian RFI.
"This falsification
is unprecedented for a presidential election.
The system is set up in such a way that each result has to be better than the previous one," he says.
A man looks for his name in the registry in Saint Petersburg.
Photo: EFE
According to the analyst, Dmitri Medvedev's election in 2008 was "the most rigged to date."
But after opposition protests in 2012, Vladimir Putin had
to settle for 63.6% of the vote
to regain the presidency.
"In 2018, after the invasion of Crimea, and based on the systemic principle that everything must grow, there was no turning back. He was
re-elected with 76.7%
of the votes. This time, that figure had to be even higher and reached 87.3%," explains Roman Udot.
If Putin was able to score so high and the level of fraud was so high, it was also because
remote voting was used on a large scale
and the lack of transparency surrounding the way it is managed suggests that the results could have been been manipulated significantly.
Chpilkine's statistical method only takes physical ballots into account, so
it is very difficult to assess the exact level of fraud
, but it is very likely
higher than the announced 22 million stolen votes
.
Manipulation of results
Fraud was also facilitated by
the reduction in the number of observers at polling stations
.
Access to surveillance cameras was also restricted.
However, it was Putin himself who called for webcams to be installed in all polling stations in the country in 2011.
Unlike the last legislative elections in 2021, very few videos of ballot box stuffing have appeared, although some images have appeared here and there on Telegram.
For Roman Udot, the fact that it is no longer possible to access the polling station cameras "has completely freed the hands of the forgers who, before, were somehow tied by the fact that someone could observe them."
A woman votes in Moscow.
Photo: Reuters
But manipulations can go even further.
Ivan Shuskin, who carried out the statistical analysis of the results for Golos, claims that the liberal candidate Vladislav Davankov was demoted to third in the vote, behind the communist candidate,
when he should have come second
.
At some polling stations
, stacks of ballots in favor of Davankov were attributed directly to Putin
.
It was a way to put the liberal candidate, who was nevertheless loyal to the Kremlin, in his place and prevent
another figure other than Putin from emerging in public opinion.
459 complaints received by the CEC
For Roman Udot, quantifying the number of stolen votes is not enough in any case to understand the true magnitude of the fraud, which is nothing more than
the visible face of an entire system.
"Statistical methods do not take into account other very serious circumstances that affect elections as much as the falsifications themselves: ineligibility of candidates, censorship, control of the media, compulsory voting... Is it possible to establish real electoral preferences, at least approximate, under such conditions?" asks the former co-president of Golos.
The Kremlin, for its part,
obviously sees no problem in this and denies any form of fraud
.
On Thursday, March 21, the President of Russia's Central Election Commission made Vladimir Putin's overwhelming victory official.
"These have been historic elections
," declared Ella Pamfilova, who praised a "very clean" and "very responsible" electoral campaign, assuring that the CEC had only received "459 complaints in total about violations."
"That's nothing," she stated.
The author is a journalist for RFI