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Three near-identical Boris Vishnevskys on St Petersburg election ballot

theguardian.com

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Re: Three near-identical Boris Vishnevskys on St Petersburg election ballot

#171

Post by sireat »

ABoredBirb wrote: post #170
sireat wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every election in Latvia if you check the Russian oriented ballots you will find some familiar last names in unexpected fringe parties. Unused ballots are good for bathroom reading :) When I say fringe these parties get less than 1% and are rarely in the news. So the tactic is not working. Here is just one example from 2010 elections. https://www.cvk.lv/cgi-bin/wdbcgiw/base/komisijas2010.CVKAND... Obviously that guy…

That's not the same thing at all. That is just someone with the same name as some celeb. The celeb is not running in the elections. What is discussed in the article are fake candidates with the same (changed) name (and appearance) as an actual candidate, in order to confuse voters and leech votes away from the actual candidate.

Agreed the practice is not as despicable as the St. Petersburg case. (amazing city btw)

Still the question is would this person be running in the election were their name not a match or similar to someone publicly known.

These names usually appear in the middle of the list - so are unlikely to be major players themselves.

I looked through our local candidate lists and found more suspicious cases.

There are instances of not complete matches but things like a security guard from a populist party with the same uncommon last name as the prime minister at a time.

Could be pure coincidence but I doubt it.

Re: Three near-identical Boris Vishnevskys on St Petersburg election ballot

#172

Post by sireat »

jgilias wrote: post #169
sireat wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every election in Latvia if you check the Russian oriented ballots you will find some familiar last names in unexpected fringe parties. Unused ballots are good for bathroom reading :) When I say fringe these parties get less than 1% and are rarely in the news. So the tactic is not working. Here is just one example from 2010 elections. https://www.cvk.lv/cgi-bin/wdbcgiw/base/komisijas2010.CVKAND... Obviously that guy…

Is there any indication that 'Maksims Galkins' has changed his name?

Unlikely it is not as bad as St Peterburg but again it is still a misleading practice.

These names are put in a middle of the list (meaning they have low priority for actual parliament seats).

If you are an uneducated and undecided voter, you see someone popular and you see, wow this person is in this party, let's take a flyer on this party.

Re: Three near-identical Boris Vishnevskys on St Petersburg election ballot

#173

Post by Diesel555 »

jaywalk wrote: post #122
fennecfoxen wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Barack Obama won his first election using a different procedural trick — he looked up his three opponents' ballot petitions, and challenged enough of the signatures on the petitions that they were all delisted.

Not sure why you're being downvoted, because what you said is 100% true: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2007-04-04-070403...

If you want more information on this from former president Obama himself, read The Promise Land. He discusses this issue and he narrates the book.

Re: Three near-identical Boris Vishnevskys on St Petersburg election ballot

#174

Post by pbaka »

gunapologist99 wrote: post #101
IAmEveryone wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's terribly hard to actually falsify the vote counts across thousands of polling places. In theory, someone observing the process, as should be legal everywhere, will notice the irregularities. It's not impossible, obviously–especially if you have full control of at least anyone important. But plausible deniability suffers rather fast, and that's a valuable assets at the Putin-level of dic(tator|k)ishness.

Usually only a few polling places actually determine an election. Based on historical vote data, you'd only flip votes in the few locations where it actually matters; for example, a few counties in a few swing states, or anywhere where the votes can be cured or recounted without being observed. It's strange that people really don't realize how easy it is to cheat; just a little bit of leverage in the right place can…

> It's strange that people really don't realize how easy it is to cheat; just a little bit of leverage in the right place can tip an election.

Something something "Fortifying elections"...

Re: Three near-identical Boris Vishnevskys on St Petersburg election ballot

#175

Post by dzhiurgis »

neonbones wrote: post #153
rsj_hn wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't know this. It's absolutely bizarre. I wonder why Russia even bothers with elections -- it's clearly not on the bandwagon for western liberalism, which seems fair enough to me, but then why go through the motions?

A majority of people there still support Putin. And he knows that, but if he won the election with 60% of votes, it would show that there are other candidates or political parties with tremendous support. Yeah, they can exist and even win in different states across the country for different political roles. Still, the idea that he wants to show to people is that he is supported by the majority and supported with over…

> A majority of people there still support Putin.

Majority of people are afraid to say otherwise. I've watched some deadpan comedian from Lithuania do some interviews in Moscow. People face change and they immediately walk away after mentioning Putin. Of course the best question was:

"What do you think Russia would look like if Putin was homosexual?"

Re: Three near-identical Boris Vishnevskys on St Petersburg election ballot

#176

Post by selivanovp »

dane-pgp wrote: post #46

Do Russian ballot papers not include the name of the candidate's political party? Ideally they would also include the parties' logos, which would be required to be distinct from previously-registered logos, so that people with literacy problems could still vote confidently.

Of course we have, and not only party, but a short summary of candidate achievements, place of work etc. So the trick may work only for a very busy people, not looking closely what they’re voting for.

Re: Three near-identical Boris Vishnevskys on St Petersburg election ballot

#177

Post by selivanovp »

ukoki wrote: post #32

I'm taking this as a pretty good sign. My poorly informed outsider's opinion of Russian local elections prior to this was that organised fraud was so endemic that resorting to such obvious measures would be unnecessary.

Despite a lot of propaganda, our elections are actually better organized with every year. Haters gonna hate, but not so many countries provide 24/7 recording webcams that allows to catch and put in jail fraudsters. A lot is made to prevent fraud, and specifically to mitigate the tactics with dopplegangers, our ballots have not only photos and names of candidates, ut a short summary of their career, place of work etc, so it’s pretty hard to vote for the wrong persone if you’re paying any attention.
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