Election fraud at record rates – this is how Putin succeeded in securing the presidency

87 million Russians voted, and 87% of them chose Putin. This is what the official statistics say. According to the Russian Election Commission, the turnout and Putin's victory reached record levels. But election observers who have followed several Russian elections say that what is hiding behind all these numbers is rather a record high level of election fraud.

– We have never witnessed presidential elections so far removed from the law as happened this year, as stated on the website of the GOLO Organization, an independent organization for free elections in Russia.

Mathematical formula detects cheating

This is the mathematical method Kiesling Shpilkin Which was used to make election fraud visible. The method is based on analyzing official statistics from electoral offices about the number of votes for each candidate and the actual participation rate.

The graph shows the number of fraudulent votes obtained by the candidate with the help of extra ballot papers thrown into the ballot boxes. So it comes down to ballot papers being included in the result without anyone actually voting.

The Kisling-Shpilkin method is available to everyone, and when election observers and independent Russian media reviewed the election results, they came to the same conclusion: that Putin's associates rigged nearly a third of the votes.

The same mathematical method was used Analysis of the recent Russian presidential elections. Even then, experts concluded that those elections would have been annulled, meaning that Putin had not been the legitimate president of Russia for at least six years.

Widespread election fraud

An example of the amazing statistics can be found at Two electoral offices in Belgorod. It is stated there that the turnout was 100 percent and at the same time 100 percent of voters should have voted for Putin.

However, the fraudulent votes detected using the Kiessling-Spilkin method are only a small fraction of all the votes that can be examined. Those who voted online and in the occupied territories of Ukraine were not counted.

The Russian state leadership did not comment on election fraud.