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Major Media Bashing
On December 4, New York Times writers David Herszenhorn and Ellen Barry headlined, "Majority for Putin's Party Narrows in Rebuke From Voters," saying:
United Russia "suffered surprisingly steep losses in parliamentary elections on Sunday....The three minority parties....all made strong gains....""Critics of the government have said for weeks that they expected widespread campaign abuses, and reports of electoral violations streamed into online social networks during the early morning hours...."
On December 5, Russia Today (RT.com) reported that on election day, a Russian Internet site claimed an alleged United Russia scheme "to conduct an illegal throw-in of ballots at one of the polling stations in Moscow."
It said "some obscure political specialists had gathered a group of about 40 people, described as 'drunks and low-lifes,' and handed them special secret pockets and packs of filled ballots, marked United Russia."
In fact, three of the 40 were undercover reporters. When the alleged group arrived, they claimed fraud. Other reports about throw-in ballots also surfaced. A top Central Election Commission (CEC) official admitted some violations occurred.
CEC's Leonid Ivlev mentioned "invisible ink, illegal propaganda, and the so-called 'merry-go-round' false voting" by specially prepared people.
However, the invisible ink scheme was uncovered and stopped. "Merry-go-round" fraud was grossly exaggerated. Minor violations only occurred. They're common everywhere in contrast to major US electoral fraud.
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