Putin wins Russian presidential election
Outgoing Prime Minister Vladimir Putin claimed victory in Russia’s presidential elections held Sunday. Last night the Central Election Commission (CEC) reported that he had so far secured 65 percent of the vote, with about two-thirds of all precincts reporting (as of the writing of this article). - Turnout in Sunday’s election appears to have been substantial, with 64 percent of the electorate going to the polls. This number may rise as more votes are counted. If it holds, it would represent an increase of four percent over the parliamentary contest in December 2011, but a decrease of six percent from the 2008 presidential race. There have been thousands of allegations of vote fraud from various corners of the country, with upwards of 20,000 observers stationed around the country. According to the election watchdog Golos, so-called “carouseling”—the bussing of voters from one polling station to the next so they could vote multiple times using absentee ballots—was reported in Moscow, Vladivostok, Voronezh and numerous other cities. Other complaints include tampering with ballot boxes, the absence of ballot papers, broken surveillance cameras, the removal of observers from polling places, ballot-box stuffing, voting by proxy, and voter harassment.
Russia Today: Putin declared president-elect - Video
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