Invisible ink and ballot stuffing: Russians point to poll violations

VLADIMIR PUTIN has suffered a dramatic drop in popularity in Russia's general election - but his party has done enough to retain a majority of seats in parliament.

With 96 per cent of votes counted, the ruling United Russia party slipped to 49.5 per cent from 64 per cent in 2007. However, allegations of electoral fraud suggest it could have been far worse for Prime Minister Putin, who is expected to return to the presidency in elections next year.

The picture above shows the election coverage of the Russian channel Vesti24. Russians on LiveJournal noted how the results for Rostov province appeared to add up to an amazing 146.47 per cent. In Voronezh, meanwhile, the various parties' share of the vote topped 128 per cent.

Over on YouTube, The Guardian reports, a Russian user showed how pens were filled with 'invisible ink' - which disappeared after ballots were marked - at a polling booth in east Moscow. Other violations filmed by YouTube users included 'merry-go-round' voting, where groups of people tour polling stations in buses and cars to vote multiple times; ballot boxes in the Siberian city of Novokuznetsk, arriving at a polling station one-third filled with votes; and an election official at a polling station in Moscow seen filling out ballots at his desk.

The deputy head of the Central Election Commission, Leonid Ivlev, claimed the invisible ink trick was uncovered before any fraud took place and called the 'merry-go-round' tactic "hardly imaginable".

According to the International Herald Tribune, Heidi Tagliavini of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights compared the elections to "a game in which only some players are allowed on the pitch, and then the field is tilted in favour of one of the players".

Dmitry Medvedev, the outgoing president, appeared "shaken" according to the IHT. Nevertheless, he proclaimed: "Democracy is in action. The party performed worthily; it essentially represents 50 per cent of our population... and the result is real democracy." ·