JRL NEWSWATCH: “Evidence of massive ballot stuffing emerges in Russia’s referendum on constitutional changes” – bne Intellinews/ Ben Aris

July 3, 2020 JRL Russia List Corruption, Law, Police, Courts, Crime, JRL NewsBlog, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections

“Evidence of massive ballot stuffing emerged in a mathematician[‘s] … statistical study of … the referendum on constitutional changes that would allow … Putin to remain in office until 2036. As bne IntelliNews reported before the vote …. Russian statistician Sergey Shpilkin … made a name for himself … highlighting vote rigging in past elections in Russia … studying … mathematical distribution patterns. Shpilkin found serious discrepancies in the number of people that had registered to vote online, even before the polls were opened. Russia’s new constitutional amendments passed with 77.92% … [vs.] 22.27% against. … [T]urnout and popular support for the amendments … were higher than when Russians voted to adopt the current Constitution itself in 1993. …”