Incidents involved green dye being poured into ballot boxes, the boxes being set alight and fireworks being set off inside polling stations, state media reported.
[…]
BBC Verify has so far verified footage of six incidents across Russia, including a video showing a woman throwing a petrol bomb near a St Petersburg polling station.
Other authenticated videos showed paint being poured into ballot boxes at various polling stations. In one, a woman could be seen pouring bright green liquid into a box in Moscow. Another showed a fire breaking out at a voting booth.
Russia has also enforced the vote in occupied areas of Ukraine - in the small town of Skadovsk, Russian-appointed officials said an improvised device exploded in a rubbish bin in front of a polling station, but no one was hurt.
The voting process is that all other serious contenders are thrown in prison and/or killed, international observers aren’t safe to verify the result, protests are forbidden, armed soldiers go door to door, and nobody trusts the secrecy of the vote
Have you noticed there’s an armed soldier inside the voting station?
Ballot secrecy only works if everyone is convinced their votes are secret and they won’t be punished for a “wrong” vote. It doesn’t matter if they can’t or won’t punish you, what matters is that people are afraid to cast an honest vote. Thus the vote is compromised, regardless of the mechanics of elections in a dictatorship.
It’s all a sham, it doesn’t make one iota of difference what’s on that piece of paper in a transparent box. That soldier is what this whole scene is about. That’s not a circlejerk, it’s being able to distinguish important from unimportant. You’re seeing straight up voter intimidation and your response is “I wonder if this is the actual ballot or an attendance sheet” lol
Jesus fuck this is on par with that talk show skit in v for vendetta with the audience clapping with shotguns to their heads. And that was an over-the-top joke.
Britain is also pretty far on the police state track, if you ask me. It makes sense that these novels are from there. How they are criminalising public protest, journalism (hi Assange!), etc. They don’t realize that “see it, say it, sorted” is creepy as hell like it was lifted straight from 1984
I just wish people would recognize “Freedom of speech isn’t freedom from consequences” is one of the most fascist things ever said.
Like, there are so many better ways to phrase the underlying thought that don’t sound like you’re about to sentence someone to the mines for insulting the state.
“Freedom of speech isn’t a guaranteed platform”
“Freedom of speech only applies to governmental censorship”
“Freedom of speech applies to more people than just you, chucklefuck”
I’m curious as to what you think about the actual meaning of those sentences, then. Do you think that there ought to be protection against consequences, regardless of what one says? Should there be any exceptions at all? What is the domain of applicability? Certain types of expression, certain types of topics, intended audience, etc?
Edit: oh and what about freedom from? Is there any situation in which a person has a right to shut someone down from “expressing themselves” to them without their consent?
Did we watch the same movie? Or read the same comic? From its wiki:
“V for Vendetta is a British graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd (with additional art by Tony Weare). Initially published between 1982 and 1985 in black and white as an ongoing serial in the British anthology Warrior, its serialization was completed in 1988–89 in a ten-issue colour limited series published by DC Comics in the United States.”
It was british in the comic…
Plot summary of movie?
“Following world war, London is a police state occupied by a fascist government, and a vigilante known only as V (Hugo Weaving) uses terrorist tactics to fight the oppressors of the world in which he now lives. …”
British in the movie.
Now, to be fair, the screenplay was written by 2 Americans who loved the comic and it was directed by an Australian. Your downvotes are coming from you jumping onto the “amerikkka bad” train without any real connection here.
Warms my heart how well Russia protects and looks after her new citizens during the act of voting.
Just look at this pic: If she were to make an error with her vote, those officials can point it out and correct her on time, before the ballot disappears in the ballot box. And if she happens to be an enemy of the state, she can be dealt with immediately before she has a chance of attacking the Russian democracy.
Shows you that Putin really does care in a way western leaders don’t.
I can’t imagine a worse insult to a dictator trying to preserve the illusion of free elections in his country than to congratulate him on his landslide victory before the election is even over.
They don’t give a shit. The elections are for ambitious people in Russia to think “if I’m the next Navalny, I can beat him!”. This illusion stops those ambitious people from an actual revolution and is a huge part of a dictatorship.
You’re right that they don’t give a fuck, but I don’t think the reasoning really runs that deep.
If you have an election, no matter how corrupt or coerced, then any assertion that you’re an autocratic dictator is an “opinion” requiring evidence to support it.
This way, it says democracy on the tin, so everyone will behave as though it is that, despite no one buying it.
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