Russia’s elections commission has said it found “dead souls” among the more than 100,000 signatures of support submitted by Boris Nadezhdin, the sole anti-war candidate in next month’s presidential election, in a sign that he could be disqualified from a carefully managed ballot meant to deliver victory for Vladimir Putin.

Nadezhdin, a veteran politician who has associated with Kremlin insiders and the opposition to Putin, has been waging a last-minute campaign to get on the ballot for the election, with thousands of Russians standing for hours in the freezing cold to add their signature in his support.

While Nadezhdin has not yet been disqualified, Friday’s briefing at the central elections commission indicated that he could be removed in the run-up to the vote. He has been summoned to the commission on Monday for a review of the “errors” among his signatures.

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  • andrew_bidlaw
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    10 months ago

    A minor correction: His guys brought the max of 105 000 (from 200k+) signatures and the margin of error is set to 5%. Izbirkom spoke about two candidates at that time when they summoned them. Earlier a state official incorrectly stated that the ballot of 5 signatures can’t be brought with just one. Also, Izbirkom is said to use LLM to detect fake signatures lmao.

    Yet, they can make up everything and has all tools to do so. I’m just curious what would they pick. And a brief wind of hope they wouldn’t be able to, just for the sake of legitimization since that guy in the world news.

      • andrew_bidlaw
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        10 months ago

        And 2,5k limit per subject of Russian Federation meaning you need loads of money to collect them in every region or republic. This garden is walled just like a Gulag. It’s surprising he got them with all these barriers.

        What also makes me wonder is that Putin has a thing for running independent meaning he needs 300k. And there were many photoes of his signing posts remaining vacant. Still, no doubt he’d get there.

        • Allero@lemmy.today
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          10 months ago

          Nah I even believe Putin can genuinely get 300.000 signatures. Unlike other candidates, he’s already known to everyone in Russia (meaning 0,2% active support is enough), and sure as hell the signatures will be accepted.

          • uis@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            What he means is if Putin got 300k signatures there would be much longer lines to sign for Putin than for Nadezhdin. But there wen’t any.

            • Allero@lemmy.today
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              10 months ago

              There were way more points installed to vote for Putin than for Nadezhdin (the latter literally has one point for entire Saint Petersburg afaik). I’ve seen people signing for Putin, didn’t count the numbers, though.

              • andrew_bidlaw
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                10 months ago

                Won’t doubt or argue, since I can’t tell your lie from your truth on the internet. My observations were different. But in the end it doesn’t matter.

                Because Putin has all his state workers and clients to vote. Schools, prisons, psych wards, police, municipal bodies. There’s something like 3-5kk of cops, rosgvardia, siloviky. Even if no one would visit public bins, they’d make the bank.

                My amusement is caused by his relentless want to run as an independent and get this 300k. I think he has some thing for feeling he’s supported by his loyal people and measures the work of his governors by who brings more to the table.

                • Allero@lemmy.today
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                  10 months ago

                  Sure budget workers would be pressed to leave those if there would not be enough, and Putin’s gonna get his way anyway.

                  I think running this way makes his power appear more legitimate to some people, which is why he does this. Just one more minor point in his hold on power that doesn’t cost him much.