Putin set to lose majority amid complaints of electoral violations

By Dilip -

Early exit polls showed United Russia would lose its majority in the Duma, or lower house, and fail to win an absolute majority of votes as in the past. VTsIOM gave it 48.5%, and the Public Opinion Foundation gave it 46%, when polls closed in Russia's westernmost region of Kaliningrad. These numbers are liable to change, not least because they were accompanied by widespread reports of polling irregularities.
Four hours after the polls had closed, the central elections commission on Monday said that United Russia had won 50.07% of the vote, with 61.64% of ballot papers counted.
Through the preceding day of voting, voters had taken to social media to report apparent violations, at times marvelling at their creativity. A YouTube user in east Moscow illustrated how the pens at booths in school #1114 were filled with invisible ink. In the Siberian city of Novokuznetsk, a user showed how ballot boxes had arrived at a polling site one-third filled with votes.
A Moscow user filmed an election official at polling station #2501 filling out ballots as he sat at his desk. Several users filmed buses, nicknamed "carousels", which appeared to be carrying the same people to various stations so they could vote over and over again.
"Today we have witnessed the dirtiest, foulest elections of the last 20 years," one opposition leader, said Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy premier. "We can't even call them elections – it's the theft of votes from the Russian people."
Liberal media outlets faced hacker attacks. The website of radio station Ekho Moskvy, web portal Slon, and weekly journal Bolshoi Gorod were inaccessible all yesterday. The website of Golos, the only independent election monitor, was brought down by a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack, after days of government pressure; it complained its volunteer monitors were not admitted into polling stations around the country.
"The government is losing popularity, so they're using the filthiest methods of theft," Nemtsov said.

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