Evil Russia has elections in Donbass

[Herodotus]

Meanwhile in Democratic Ukraine, parliamentary elections have been indefinitely delayed. . . .

 

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-local-elections-dcdce1c6fa131ddf331f70b352e62a81

 

https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-war-democracy-dilemma-elections/

 

Why is that? Why is the dictatorship having elections but the freedumb loving notanazis don't? 

[ICRockets2]

23 minutes ago, Herodotus said:

 

 

Why is that? Why is the dictatorship having elections but the freedumb loving notanazis don't? 

Because Russian elections are fraudulent and Ukraine can't conduct ones that are free and fair while under occupation.  

Sending people to the polls just gives Russia a bunch of big juicy bomb targets.

[Herodotus]

15 minutes ago, ICRockets2 said:

Because Russian elections are fraudulent and Ukraine can't conduct ones that are free and fair while under occupation.  

Sending people to the polls just gives Russia a bunch of big juicy bomb targets.

Something tells me that with all their indiscriminant shelling of those in the "occupied" territories that they don't care about free and fair elections. Same thing when you look at this fascinating crack down they have on opposition parties.  Also, keep in mind we had elections in 1862 and 1864, and in 1866 and 1868 when the Confederate states had seceded and later when they were under occupation during reconstruction.  

 

As for Juicy targets, well the Ukrainians shelled the polling stations today.  Also, again per the UN Human Rights Commission Russia has been very sparing of civilian lives.  Less than 10,000 so once again, much like the tranny thing and the desire you showed yesterday to torture animals, your feels and opinions do not correspond with reality.

[ICRockets2]

10 minutes ago, Herodotus said:

Russia has been very sparing of civilian lives.  Less than 10,000 

So more than double the civilian deaths in the Donbas from 2014-2022 in like 20% of the timespan?

[ICRockets2]

13 minutes ago, Herodotus said:

 keep in mind we had elections in 1862 and 1864

The Civil War, notorious for all those bombing runs by Confederate war planes

[Herodotus]

1 minute ago, ICRockets2 said:

So more than double the civilian deaths in the Donbas from 2014-2022 in like 20% of the timespan?

and about 3 to 15 times LESS than US victims in Iraq, Syria, Lybia, Yemen in a given year.  Your hatred of democratic process has been noted.  I bet you also condemn Russia for giving food and fertilizer to Africa free of charge because you  are a lying, authoritarian and racist sack of shit.

[Herodotus]

2 minutes ago, ICRockets2 said:

The Civil War, notorious for all those bombing runs by Confederate war planes

And you pull things out of context.  The game its tedious and boring

[ICRockets2]

"Ukraine must not care about democracy, as evidenced by the fact that they're not taking cues from a system that didn't let women or black people vote"

[ICRockets2]

Just now, Herodotus said:

And you pull things out of context. 

This is perfectly contextual.  War is different now.  Airstrikes weren't a big concern in the 1860s so it was easier to conduct wartime elections safely.

[Herodotus]

1 minute ago, ICRockets2 said:

"Ukraine must not care about democracy, as evidenced by the fact that they're not taking cues from a system that didn't let women or black people vote"

So you admit that neither the US or Ukraine are interested in democracy.  Well its a start

[Herodotus]

Just now, ICRockets2 said:

This is perfectly contextual.  War is different now.  Airstrikes weren't a big concern in the 1860s so it was easier to conduct wartime elections safely.

Not really, the technology has changed.  The cruelty hasn't

[ICRockets2]

Just now, Herodotus said:

So you admit 

I thought you said lying was bad

[ICRockets2]

Just now, Herodotus said:

Not really, the technology has changed.  The cruelty hasn't

The technology is what matters in this context.  

[Herodotus]

Just now, ICRockets2 said:

I thought you said lying was bad

I have never lied about Ukraine and you have never told the truth on Ukraine.  I research, you regurgitate.  An objective observer can see you are so full of shit its pathetic.

[Herodotus]

1 minute ago, ICRockets2 said:

The technology is what matters in this context.  

Not really

[ICRockets2]

Just now, Herodotus said:

I have never lied about Ukraine 

It's literally all you do, but in this instance the lie was about what I said

[Herodotus]

By the way, speaking of technology, why does Ukraine shell its own cities in "Russian occupied" territories if it views those as Ukrainian? Part of the reason the wonder weapons we give them and their offensive have done nothing is they use their new toys to bomb civilians.  Now stop lying and admit it.  Or keep talking and show yourself to be a fat fucking fool

[ICRockets2]

Just now, Herodotus said:

Not really

Yes really.

The Civil War was conducted primarily via land troops.  It was much harder for infantrymen in the Northeast US in November to interfere with election processes than it is for a much more missile-based military to interfere with them.

[Herodotus]

1 minute ago, ICRockets2 said:

It's literally all you do, but in this instance the lie was about what I said

Evidence? I post article after article that prove I am right.  You post easily refuted drivel.  You'd be better off talking about mutilating children, its the only thing you know how to do.

[Herodotus]

Just now, ICRockets2 said:

Yes really.

The Civil War was conducted primarily via land troops.  It was much harder for infantrymen in the Northeast US in November to interfere with election processes than it is for a much more missile-based military to interfere with them.

General Sherman would disagree with you.

[ICRockets2]

Just now, Herodotus said:

Evidence? 

It's right there for everyone to see, you flat out lied about what I said.

[ICRockets2]

Just now, Herodotus said:

General Sherman would disagree with you.

I guarantee he wouldn't.

[ICRockets2]

11 minutes ago, Herodotus said:

  You post easily refuted drivel. 

If this were true you'd be able to engage with me on the topic of Euromaidan.  You refuse to.

[ICRockets2]

1 hour ago, Herodotus said:

and about 3 to 15 times LESS than US victims in Iraq, Syria, Lybia, Yemen in a given year.  Your hatred of democratic process has been noted.  I bet you also condemn Russia for giving food and fertilizer to Africa free of charge because you  are a lying, authoritarian and racist sack of shit.

See, this here is a good demonstration the whataboutist fallacy.

I made a comparison of death tolls among the exact same population centers- the ones currently at war- and you deflected to the misdeeds of a completely different actor.

[HipKat]

Russia election: Putin's party wins election marred by fraud claims

Russian President Vladimir Putin's party has won a parliamentary majority following an election marred by reports of fraud.

For Russia's party of power, it's job done. United Russia is confident that it has retained its parliamentary majority, albeit with a slightly smaller share of the vote than last time round.

Judging by last night's celebrations at party headquarters, the party faithful are more than pleased with the result. United Russia insists it won this race fair and square.

But even before the first ballots were cast in the marathon vote, this election looked anything but fair. The Kremlin's most vocal critics had been barred from running - among them, supporters of Mr Navalny.

Then there was the voting process itself. Over three days of polling there were allegations of widespread electoral fraud, including ballot box stuffing and threats against election observers.

Video widely shared online showed people stuffing papers into ballot boxes.

Mr Navalny and his allies had called on Russians to vote tactically, in many cases for Communist Party candidates they believed could defeat incumbents from United Russia. But this has not prevented the Kremlin's party from securing a large slice of the new parliament.

The election saw a number of cities introduce electronic voting.

One such city was the capital, Moscow, where some Communist Party candidates lost leads when electronic votes were declared at the last minute.

"I know that such a result is simply not possible," one defeated Communist candidate, Mikhail Lobanov, wrote on Twitter.

Fake Parties and Cloned Candidates: How the Kremlin ‘Manages’ Democracy

The Russian authorities have used a variety of deceitful tactics to try to manufacture a big victory in parliamentary elections this weekend. Here’s how they do it.

Russia stages local and national elections like clockwork in accordance with its post-Soviet Constitution, but the results are nearly always the same: sweeping victories for President Vladimir V. Putin and the politicians and parties loyal to him.

In the parliamentary elections that begin on Friday and run through Sunday, there is little question that his governing United Russia party will win. For the Kremlin, which hopes to mobilize support for government policies and reinforce its legitimacy, the trick is to win handily while maintaining the plausibility of a contested outcome.

Here are several ways that the Kremlin tries to create the illusion of democratic choice while making sure it comes out on top.

Duplicate Candidates

Among the candidates voters will choose from in one St. Petersburg district are three men named Boris Vishnevsky, only one of whom is the real opposition politician.

Registering multiple candidates with the same or similar names as an opposition candidate is a tried-and-true Russian electoral tactic. Candidates with identical or similar names are registered in 24 of the 225 single-district races in this week’s election — about 10 percent of all races, the newspaper Kommersant reported.

Russia by no means has a monopoly on this ploy: It was used in a Florida State Senate race in 2020 — successfully, at least until the scam was uncovered.

In the case of the multiple Boris Vishnevskys, the doubles also assumed the appearance of the real opposition candidate, with the same salt-and-pepper beards, thinning hair and plain, button-down shirts.

“This is political manipulation,” the real Mr. Vishnevsky, a career politician and member of the Yabloko political party, said in a telephone interview. He said the others had legally changed their names this year and had probably mimicked his appearance with makeup or digitally altered photographs.

 

An election poster with three similarly styled candidates, shown on the cellphone of the real Boris Vishnevsky, a politician running for St Petersburg’s Legislative Assembly.Credit...Anton Vaganov/Reuters

Fake Political Parties

Unlike other authoritarian countries like Saudi Arabia and China, Russia has a multiparty political system that was entrenched when Mr. Putin came to power in 1999.

To deal with this, the Kremlin has hit on two strategies: fake political parties and several quasi-independent parties that it calls the “systemic opposition.”

After the opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny was poisoned in an assassination attempt a year ago, a party popped up that aimed to appeal to the discontented young professionals who form his base of support. The party, called New People, mimics many of his anticorruption messages but supports the continuation of Mr. Putin’s rule.

Parties making up the systemic opposition are more established and enduring than the out-and-out fakes. This grouping, which emerged in the mid-2000s under what was called “managed democracy,” includes the Communist Party and the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party. They participate in elections ostensibly as opposition groups, but once elected they vote in lock step with the United Russia party, creating a rubber-stamp Parliament.

Until last year, these parties coexisted with the “non-systemic” opposition that Mr. Navalny leads, and called for Mr. Putin’s removal from power. But over the past year, in anticipation of the coming elections, the government has cracked down sharply on the legitimate opposition, sending most of its leaders, including Mr. Navalny, to jail or into exile.

Crossing Off Names

If more subtle methods aren’t enough, there is the blunt instrument of knocking candidates off the ballot.

This summer, the authorities barred the vast majority of candidates — 163 out of 174 — who had applied to run for Parliament as independents. They accused them of things like keeping foreign bank accounts or faking signatures needed to get on the ballot.

Laws permitting such abusive practices have expanded over the years, beginning with Mr. Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012 after a four-year hiatus as prime minister.

A law allowing the designation of nongovernmental groups as “performing the function of a foreign agent” was passed in 2012 and then expanded in 2017 to cover news media organizations. Its application this summer squelched independent news outlets like Meduza, Proyekt and Dozhd television. A 2015 amendment to the law had allowed groups to be designated “undesirable organizations,” with additional restrictions.

This year, Mr. Putin expanded Russia’s strict anti-extremism legislation, first enacted as counterterrorism measures, to apply to opposition political figures in Mr. Navalny’s organization.

‘Walking-Around Money’

Following a practice once widespread in the United States of buying voters’ loyalty by offering “walking-around money,” the Russian government typically offers one-off payments to soldiers, public sector workers and retirees a few weeks before the election.

This year, members of the security services received 15,000 rubles, about $205, and retirees and parents of school-age children 10,000 rubles. The series of presidential orders behind them, signed in July and August, specified payments in September — on the eve of the vote.

The payouts have been glorified in pro-government campaign advertising. One ad, narrated by the girlfriend of a soldier, says that, “After our president signed a decree on one-time payments to soldiers, cadets and police officers, I feel confident about my future.”

Not-so-secret Ballots

Russia allows online voting, and numerous companies have arranged for employees to vote on computers set up by the human resources departments.

Critics say this intimidates voters by potentially making their choices known to their bosses.

Regulating the Internet

This summer, the authorities banned about four dozen websites affiliated with Mr. Navalny’s movement that were promoting his voting guide for the elections. The strategy, which he calls smart voting, essentially involves having opposition voters coalesce around the strongest anti-Kremin candidate in each race.

On Friday, those plans were derailed as the remaining app the Navalny forces planned to use was deleted from the Google and Apple app stores after the Kremlin threatened their employees in Russia with arrest.

Earlier, the Russian authorities had tried subtler approaches. Recently, for example, a company in southern Russia that sells wool registered “smart voting” as a commercial trademark.

It then sued Google and Yandex, a Russian search engine, charging that they had violated its trademark rights and demanding that they block sites showing Mr. Navalny’s voting guides. A Russian court quickly ruled in the company’s favor.

Opposition Countermoves

A high-stakes cat-and-mouse game has sprung up as the “non-systemic” opposition has sought to subvert the government’s tactics.

Opposition candidates who are in jail or prohibited by court rulings from attending public events have appeared instead as life-size cardboard cutouts. One jailed candidate, Andrei Pivovarov, has run entirely as a cardboard cutout propped up in his campaign office in the southern city of Krasnodar.

Mr. Navalny’s group had said that it expected its “smart voting” strategy to win a seat in Parliament for at least one opposition politician, and possibly as many as 20.

Now, with the deletion of the app from the Google and Apple stores, that goal would seem to be unattainable, keeping alive the Kremlin’s dubious record in elections: Since 2016, no members of the “non-systemic” opposition have served in the 450-seat body.