Gubernatorial election in Primorye Territory in September 2018

Gubernatorial election September 2018 - first round of voting
Tarasenko ( ER )			46.56%
Ishchenko ( KPRF )			24.63%
Tolmacheva ( RPPS )			10.80%
Andreitschenko ( LDPR )			9.27%
Kosizki ( SR )			4.83%

Gubernatorial election September 2018 - second round of voting
Tarasenko ( ER )			49.55%
Ishchenko ( KPRF )			48.06%

Result for Andrei Tarasenko (blue) and Andrei Ishchenko (red) in the first ballot (left) and in the second ballot (right) according to voting district

Election winner before cancellation, Andrei Tarasenko

The gubernatorial election in Primorye in September 2018 was the second election of the governor of the Primorye , a Russian federal subject in the Far East Federal District , following the reintroduction of direct elections in the gubernatorial election in Primorye in 2014 . The first ballot took place on September 9, 2018, followed by the second ballot on September 16, 2018. Serious suspicions of electoral fraud arose as early as the end of the count, and Andrei Tarasenko only caught up with Andrei Tarasenko shortly before the end of the count. As a result, the opposition candidate went on a hunger strike and called for the election to be canceled because of electoral fraud. The cancellation by the Primorsky Krai electoral commission took place on September 20, as the election fraud was too obvious to validate the election.

Electoral system

All citizens entitled to vote have one vote that they can give to one of the registered candidates. A candidate is elected if he receives more than 50% of the votes cast, i.e. an absolute majority . If no candidate receives this number of votes, a second ballot will be scheduled, in which the two candidates with the most votes from the first ballot will participate. In the second ballot, a candidate only needs to receive a relative majority to win the election. This case can occur because invalid ballot papers also take part in the overall result, so that both candidates receive less than 50% of the votes and, for example, 2% are invalid ballot papers. In the first ballot, the empty ballot papers also take up part of the overall result, where an absolute majority is required, taking into account the invalid ballot papers.

With this electoral system, Andrei Tarasenko would have become governor without being canceled after the second ballot, although he would only have achieved 49.55%, 2.39% of the votes were invalid ballot papers.

Survey

Institute	Period	Tarasenko	Ishchenko	Tolmacheva	Andreitschenko	Kosizki	invalid	no participation	draw
ZIPKR	August 26-28, 2018	31%	15%	15%	9%	5%	2%	7%	14%

Result

Results of the 2018 gubernatorial elections in Primorye

position	candidate	Political party	First ballot		Second ballot
			be right	proportion of	be right	proportion of
1.	Andrei Tarasenko	United Russia	206,300	46.56%	253.200	49.55%
2.	Andrei Ishchenko	Communist Party of the Russian Federation	109,129	24.63%	245,550	48.06%
3.	Yulia Tolmacheva	Russian Party of Pensioners	47,832	10.80%
4th	Andrei Andreitschenko	Liberal Democratic Party of Russia	41,066	9.27%
5.	Alexei Kositski	Just Russia	21,416	4.83%
valid ballot papers			425.743	96.09%	498,750	97.61%
invalid ballot papers			17.306	3.91%	12.198	2.39%
be right			443.049	100%	510.948	100%

In italics written data were after the election annulled.

There were 1,465,538 registered voters for the first ballot. 443,049 people cast their vote, resulting in a voter turnout of 30.23%. Of the 1,442,328 eligible voters registered for the second ballot, 510,948 people voted, resulting in a turnout of 35.43%.

Election fraud and cancellation

When 95% of the votes were counted, Ishchenko led 51.6% to 45.8% - a lead of almost 6 percentage points. Various media such as the Internet newspaper Meduza reported on the day after the second ballot that, after 95% of the votes were counted, there was no update of the counting results for over an hour. After that, 99% of the votes were counted and Tarasenko was ahead with 49.02% to 48.56%. If the number of votes of the candidates in a constituency is shown depending on the voter turnout in a constituency, a realistic bell curve can be seen from 20% to 45%, which has its apex at just under 30%. In the constituencies with a higher turnout, it can be seen that Tarasenko is clearly ahead of Ishchenko. In addition, with round voter turnouts such as 80% or 95% outliers from the normal distribution curve can be determined, which is an indication of invented results and election fraud . There Tarasenko has more than five times as many votes as Ishchenko. As with the Duma elections in 2011 , Sergei Schpilkin presented the election results in such a diagram to clarify the anomalies mentioned.

For some constituencies, the first counting results were only available on September 17 at 6:41 am Moscow time , while there were no results at 6:35 a.m. In the six minutes, the count changed from 98.77% to 99.03%. These polling stations are located in the city of Ussuriysk , the city of Nakhodka and the city of Arsenyev . The election results are the most common in Arsenyev: Ishchenko is just ahead of Tarasenko in the polling stations and the turnout is around 35% to 40%. In Nakhodka, the results in the newly surfaced polling stations are mostly similar to those in Arsenyev, in some cases with an even bigger lead for Ishchenko. However, some polling stations in Nakhodka reported very high percentages for Tarasenko. In addition to many polling stations with around 40% for Tarasenko, there were a few polling stations with 78% to 85% for Tarasenko; there the voter turnout was around 80% to over 90%. It is particularly noteworthy that there are no polling stations with results for Tarasenko or with voter turnouts between the two voting patterns: on one side there are polling stations with a high voter turnout and outstanding results for Tarasenko and on the other hand there are polling stations with a voter turnout of 40% and one Ishchenko's lead. This does not indicate a natural voting behavior. It is even more noticeable in Ussuriysk, as all the new constituencies reported such high voter turnouts and approvals for Tarasenko. In some cases, Tarasenko received 97.7% with a turnout of 87.6%.

In addition, there were also some constituencies in Ussuriysk where the results were changed during the six-minute break. The example of the polling station number 2820 shows the effects: Before the six-minute break, there were 384 votes in the polling station. Of these 384 votes, 57.3% of the votes were for Ishchenko - he was way ahead of Tarasenko. After the break, for this constituency 91.1% were expelled for Tarasenko, Ishchenko then only had 8.9% with 1,076 votes. While electoral fraud was only very likely in the newly published constituencies, it is undeniable in the constituencies with changed results, as Ishchenko in the constituency described with 8.9% of 1,076 only had 96 votes, although with a lower count of 384 votes he still had 220 Had votes. That means that Tarasenko was not only given votes, which led to the high voter turnout, because Ishchenko was even taken away 124 votes in one constituency alone. Presumably 384 votes were the actual turnout, which is 30.2% of the eligible voters in the constituency, and 57.3% of which for Ishchenko were the real election results. After the updated election results, completely new election results were invented and so Ishchenko could lose votes from the first to the second count, since there were no two counts, but real and imagined election results. The constituency is therefore not an isolated case. At least eight other constituencies in Ussuriysk were falsified using the same pattern with fictitious election results. The election results in Artyom were also changed, but Tarasenko only increased by 10% to 20% and the turnout was only around 50% after the change, so that these election results could also be falsified, but they could also be real results act as the values ​​are not as extreme as in Ussuriysk.

In Ussuriysk, the building of the regional election control was cordoned off by the police and two members of the Communist Party, who sit in the Russian Parliament and in the Legislative Assembly of the Primorsky Krai, were refused entry. The reason was that the lock of the building was broken. In the regional election control of a district of Vladivostok, despite the lack of smoke or fire, the fire alarm was triggered and the fire brigade came to the building. The voting papers that were just being counted remained in the building, while the employees had to leave the building without the papers. Communist Party officials discovered election fraud in Vladivostok, Artyom, Ussuriysk and Nakhodka after the election. The statement is consistent with the irregularities shown.

On September 19, the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation unanimously proposed to the Primorsky Krai Regional Election Commission that the election result be annulled. The decision in gubernatorial elections is made by the regional election commissions. On September 20, the Primorsky Krai Regional Election Commission declared the election results to be invalid. In the December 2018 gubernatorial election in the Primorye Region , the first ballot and a possible second ballot no later than 21 days afterwards should be repeated.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Приморский край перед выборами губернатора. По материалам мониторингового опроса. Retrieved November 7, 2018 . 
2. ↑ Сводная таблица результатов выборов. Retrieved November 19, 2018 . 
3. ↑ Самые странные выборы 2018 года: коммунист Ищенко против единоросса Тарасенко в Приморье. Главное - Meduza . In: Meduza . ( meduza.io [accessed November 19, 2018]).
4. ↑ Infographic: Primorye’s election miracle . In: д ekoder | DECODER | Journalism from Russia in German translation | . September 17, 2018 ( dekoder.org [accessed November 19, 2018]).
5. ↑ Здание ТИК Уссурийска блокировала полиция . In: NEWS.ru . ( news.ru [accessed November 19, 2018]).
6. ↑ Артём КАБАНКОВ | Сайт “Комсомольской правды”: Выборы губернатора Приморья: во Владивостоке итоги голосования голосования голосована . In: KP.RU - сайт « Комсомольской правды » . September 18, 2018 ( kp.ru [accessed November 19, 2018]).
7. ↑ Russian Election Authorities Annul Results Of Regional Vote. Retrieved November 19, 2018 .