By early afternoon on Tuesday, Russia’s state news media had reported what it described as preliminary results showing gigantic levels of support for joining Russia. The RIA state news agency reported votes of 98.19 percent in favor in Zaporizhzhia and 96.97 percent in Kherson in the south, and 97.91 percent in Donetsk and 97.82 percent in Luhansk in the east.
What's up with Kherson? Less than 97% in favor of joining the motherland? What kind of unpatriotic bastards are these guys?
Guess they decided to go Old School and provide unrealistically high percentages. But my guess is that everyone's mind is made up on the legitimacy of these vote results, so why not Go Big!
We also saw an unrealistically high percentage (97.47%) in the 2014 referendum in Crimea. Pre-referendum polling indicated majority support for Crimea joining Russia, so it seems like Putin believes in cheating even when he doesn't have to.
+80% of the Belarusian presidential vote share for Lukashenka
Russia at it’s finest.
Who knew it would be so close?
Did they use dropboxes?
No fraud riddled drop boxes or mail-in ballots. Just good old fashioned men wearing brown shirts and carrying guns who go door to door “asking” you for your ballot. Safe and secure and probably the soon to be adopted Republican model for voting in the near future.
+1
RE-joining the motherland, please, let's get this totalitarian lingo thing right!
What's up with Kherson?
They're soon to sacrifice themselves in the bombardment for the Motherland, so here they have the great opportunity to illustrate the patriotic duty of verisimilitude, by which great and selfless action no one will think they're faking.
Of course they didn't bother to actually count the votes. Just make up the stupendously high yes vote. This fake vote is a sign of Russia's weakness.
If Russia thinks they can conscript Ukrainians in these oblasts and have them fight against their own countryman they are delusional.
I don’t know that they had to falsify the counts. I imagine only 1-2 out of every 50 voters would dare to vote No when the guy behind the Yes campaign hired many guys with guns to collect all the ballots. I certainly wouldn’t vote No in such a scenario - better to bide your time and GTFO ASAP if/when things settle down.
Like when all the East Germans voted overwhelmingly to keep the Communist Party in power just months before streaming into West Berlin after the wall fell… Eastern Ukrainians’ real sentiment will come out when ceasefire occurs and they can safely vote with their feet.
Millions of Ukrainians had already fled the Russian-occupied areas. Putin didn’t send them absentee ballots.
Putin on the phone with Boris Raffensperger, top elections official in Kherson: “I just need you to find another 11,780 votes, which gets you to 97%. Got that, tovarish?"
In the epic battle between democracy and autocracy, at least the autocrats feel the need to pretend to support democratic outcomes, even if it's unclear what the whole charade is supposed to accomplish. The men of Russia who are breaking their own legs to stay out of the army remain unpersuaded.
this is the republican/trump version of a free and fair election
Could only have been more GQP had the Russians run a fake Green or pro-pot candidate to split the opposition vote.
"What's up with Kherson? Less than 97% in favor of joining the motherland?"
Hate to be the GOTV guy for Kherson. Next stop, the Russian Front!