“Around half of the votes for Putin were falsified”: independent Russian media denounce unprecedented electoral fraud

Vladimir Putin won re-election with more than 87% of the votes on Sunday March 17. But the veracity of this record result, hailed by the Russian president, is called into question by the independent Russian press. According to estimates from several media outlets, the fraud committed during the 2024 presidential election would be on an unprecedented scale. “Around 22 million votes obtained by Vladimir Putin were falsified,” says the investigative site Meduza. When the exile media Novaya Gazeta Europe mentions “31.6 million falsified ballots”. This means “that around 50% of all votes for Putin were falsified,” specifies the newspaper, which recalls that the Russian leader has 64.7 million votes – out of 76 million voters.

These results relayed by independent media come from analyzes by experts who attempted to assess the extent of electoral fraud. To do this, they rely on a method that has existed for more than ten years: the Shpilkin method, named after the statistician Sergei Shpilkin, which analyzes electoral results in Russia since 2007. This method aims to identify polling stations that present “abnormal” and “lag” results compared to the participation rate and the number of votes, deciphers Anna Colin Lebedev, lecturer in political science at Paris-Nanterre University. “The Shpilkin curves indeed show abnormally round results, with many 70, 75, 80 or 85% votes for Putin. But very few scores with numbers after the decimal point,” continues the specialist.

Concretely, these 22 to 32 million false votes in favor of Putin recorded by the Russian media are partly the consequence of “ballot box stuffing and rewriting of the results”, concludes Anna Colin Lebedev. The election observation organization Golos, banned from Russia before the election and whose leader is imprisoned, even speaks of “the biggest electoral jam in Russian history”. The perpetrators of the fraud - mainly teachers from the schools where the polling stations are located - therefore artificially inflated the president's score thanks to fictitious votes.

But this electoral fraud takes several forms, depending on the different elections. A large majority of the votes obtained by Vladimir Putin in the polling stations can be explained by increased pressure on voters. Especially on “civil servants, employees and companies linked to the State because they represent half of the Russian economy,” notes Anna Colin Lebedev. “The head of a local company which depends on state subsidies will, for example, receive instructions to encourage his employees to vote for Putin, with a photo of the checked ballot as proof,” illustrates the specialist.

She adds that this information comes from “numerous testimonies in business conversation groups”. The researcher thus describes these votes as “disingenuous” because they are real ballots, but motivated by pressure. This pressure is also exerted by the military and the police forces deployed en masse in the polling stations, also due to the holding of the “Midi against Putin” protest action, desired by Navalny before his death.

This practice of ballot stuffing has existed for a long time, but was “particularly intense this year compared to previous elections”, estimates Anna Colin Lebedev. According to the researcher, this is explained by an “excess of zeal” at the local level. “In general, the presidents of local electoral commissions do not receive precise numerical instructions to follow on the percentage of votes that Putin should receive. But rather: “Putin must not have less than this number of votes” or: “the participation rate must not be less than this number”,” she gives as an example.

Home voting has also been the target of falsification. It is mainly organized in the Ukrainian regions annexed by Russia with a person who comes to their home with a ballot box. “Nothing is controllable: neither the number of voters, nor the number of ballots,” points out Anna Colin Lebedev. “The authorities report a participation rate which exceeds 90%. However, these territories are largely depopulated, with part of the Ukrainian population in exile since the start of the war,” indicates the researcher.

As for electronic voting, used for the first time during a presidential election, no figures are yet circulating. But Anna Colin Lebedev does not rule out the hypothesis of virtual ballot stuffing. “The authorities tested this election during Covid and realized that it was a more effective way to control it,” analyzes the specialist.

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The holding of this presidential election took place more largely in “more intense lockdown conditions than in 2018”, with “no more opposition candidates, voices critical of Putin”, contextualizes Anna Colin Lebedev . “Two opposition candidates (Boris Nadejdine and Ekaterina Dountsova, Editor’s note) presented themselves, but their candidacies had not been registered,” recalls the researcher. As for the three alternative candidates to Putin, Nikolai Kharitonov, Leonid Sloutski and Vladislav Davankov, they were only “appearances” because “loyal to power”, she underlines. The investigative media Meduza also points out that the results of these other candidates would also have been falsified. Vladislav Davankov's votes would thus have been reallocated to Vladimir Putin so that no other figure emerges in public opinion.