[elephantum]

The thing is, that it's all very time-sensitive. And I expect pressure was unreasonably high.

We have elections in Russia this weekend and Navalny app was used as a tool to coordinate protest voting. It is called "Smart Voting" by Navalny team and it is getting a lot of attention for upcomping elections.

If Apple and Google would just be a little bit slower and complied next Monday :)

Still there are more ways to coordinate Smart Voting. Google Docs with recommendations are published. There are youtube videos where Navalny team reads whole list aloud. There's a Telegram bot.

So I hope this action would just bring more attention to the matter.

[slim]

It's not clear what does the app do? What is protest voting and how do you coordinate it ?

[kurokikaze]

It's voting for the candidate most likely to win against the main party's candidates. The app's purpose is to concentrate protest voters on one candidate without spreading them over all of them.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

Isn't there a lot of evidence that Russia's elections are rigged?

Like turnout percentages have ridiculous percentages of ratios that end in 0 and 5 - as do growth in turnout.

[asats]

They are rigged, but not as fully as they were in e.g. Belarus.

Russia is a giant country with 85 "states" and around ~100k polling stations, so the process is very complex and involves different voting and administrative cultures. In some of those states they are fully rigged, with 95% turnout and 98% votes for the ruling party, but in some the elections are surprisingly fair. In a lot of others they can be made fair if any poll watchers are present. Overall the thinking is that they add themselves 10-15% additional votes across the country by straight up voter fraud.

The main way they rig the elections right now is by not allowing anyone who could win to participate and then throwing all of the state resources towards promoting their candidate. That's why consolidated voting for a single opposition candidate can work in this context.

[lostmsu]

To add to this: this elections are run independently in every region. The government's ability to rig them in one area does not affect the outcome in another.

[walteweiss]

A very nice explanation, thank you!

[dillondoyle]

Yes there is a lot of evidence. From blatent ballot stuffing to more tricks like changing names. This time they even shaved someones head to make them look like the candidate ;)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/06/three-near-ide...

A concerning development this year is they allow online voting? Which seems like the easiest way for them to flip just enough votes to win, without giving themselves 95% of the votes.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/03/19...

[codedokode]

Sometimes they are, but (mostly in large cities) people sign up as election monitors to prevent it. Sadly, most of 90 000 polling stations are not monitored by independent observers.

The main way to control elections now is not letting opposition candidates to get into the ballot. For example, on this elections many candidates were rejected because they are "linked" to Navalny's organisation that was admitted as an extremist organization by the court. Some people are rejected because the signatures they have collected are deemed invalid. Obviously you cannot win if you cannot get into the ballot.

There also is electronic voting (voting over Internet) which is difficult to monitor. It is also worth noting that while you can vote over Internet, you cannot collect more than 50% of required signatures for being added to a ballot this way.

[d0gsg0w00f]

Could the same thing be accomplished with rank choice voting?

[kilotaras]

Are you asking if Russia would allow alternative voting system in order to make it easier voting for opposition candidate?

[d0gsg0w00f]

It sounds like the app has a similar goal as ranked choice voting.

[jonathanlydall]

Russia doesn't presently use rank choice voting, so it's not an option for this weekend's election.

[jhgb]

Wouldn't you have to be in control of the government for that in the first place?

[srg0]

Given an address, the app provides the name of the suggested candidate in the corresponding voting district. The idea is to consolidate votes around only one candidate who does not belong to Putin's party.

In Russia, many potentially popular candidates are not allowed to run, were imprisoned, or otherwise persecuted, and in some cases killed. Those who remained are often spoilers or people you would not willfully vote for. So usually, people unhappy with the regime either did not show up for the election or spread their votes between many unpopular candidates. That is how Putin's party has support from 20-25% of the population according to various polls but commands 75% of the seats in the parliament. This, and election being rigged. So, the idea is to consolidate the votes of the people who are not happy with Putin's regime. If anything, just to send the message. And that's "protest voting".

The list of the candidates to support was published at the last moment to avoid the risk that they will be removed from the election. The app is the main channel to publish this list because it can auto-update and bypass Internet censorship. Normal websites are often inaccessible without a VPN. Google and Apple shut off this channel.

[machomaster]

It is a simple list of candidates recommended to vote for that, according to Navalny team's research, have the highest chance of defeating the Putin's candidates.

The idea is that instead of spreading votes and allowing the baddies to get the highest percentage (but not even close to 50%) and win, people would concentrate their votes.

If you are still in disbelief, that Kremlin would apply such an enormous pressure just to ban a simple list of voting recommendations, I want to remind you that this is exactly what happened last night: the recommendations were posted on Google Docs and Russia decided to ban the whole Google Docs service for that.

[Arech]

Please don't call it elections. Nothing even close.

[Dah00n]

Well, it's all in the eye of the beholder. As someone living in Scandinavia looking at the US that doesn't look like elections much either.

Pick your favourite animal:

A: Black horse

B: Brown horse

Z: Pony

[lotusmars]

Why do you always start talking about US when somebody talks about injustices in other countries?

Like really.

[Arech]

No it is not.

(if you really "living in Scandinavia") You literally don't understand what are you talking about, which is damn obvious when you comparing Scandinavia or even US to Russia. You basically comparing Tesla car to horse-drawn carriage and draw similarities on a basis that both have 4 wheels and therefore they are both great and safe transportation devices.

[jhgb]

I'm not from Scandinavia and the vast majority of US politicians look like interchangeable parts to me as well.

[ansible]

> I'm not from Scandinavia and the vast majority of US politicians look like interchangeable parts to me as well.

USA citizen. What's hilarious is that 10 years ago, I would have readily agreed with you. Both parties were too deeply beholden to special interests and corporate interests. There were some policy differences, but not that much, really.

In the last five years, however, one party has gone completely batshit insane. Norms, precedent, common decency, acceptance of basic facts, acceptance of basic common sense... these have all gone out the window. And been replaced with cult-like unwavering loyalty to a single man.

The other party, though still frequently dissapointingly inept and incompetent, now has my unhesitating support. It is not even close in my mind anymore.

[rurp]

Same here. I used to vote for a third party candidate in most elections since that was usually who my views aligned most closely with, but in recent years I've switched to voting for the least bad major party because of how awful and terrifying the opposing side has become.

[sershe]

The way I see it, one party has gone dumb, and the other party is obviously going evil (I am from Russia so you can guess what I think of leftism). The question is whether you prefer your government dumb or evil; I think dumb is... the lesser of two evils.

But I can agree on the timing aspect, I'd vote for Obama OR Romney over literally any politician prominent in 2021.

[Arech]

It doesn't matter. What matters are how many of them and their staff or supporters gets bullied by the authorities, forced to flee the country, found themselves or their relatives in the middle of absurd lawsuits, gets beaten, poisoned or killed?

[jhgb]

My point was purely about elections, and that elections only matter if you have a reasonable amount of choice. You're arguing about something completely different.

[mcntsh]

As someone living in Scandinavia you probably have a King.

Anyway, these law makers are still democratically elected in the US (more than we can say about the king of Norway), and these parties are more like coalitions anyway since they're so large and broad.

[jhgb]

The king of Norway is not a lawmaker, though. He's not even a minister.