Why do Russians vote when the elections are rigged?

Question

An election recount is underway in one Russian district after President Vladimir Putin failed to win the vote there, according to local reports.

In fact, one of Putin's political rivals in the recent presidential election was recorded as gaining 10 times as many votes, reports said.

The polling station, in the city of Barnaul, in the southern republic of Altai, counted 763 votes for Communist Party candidate Nikolai Kharitonov, compared with just 73 for Putin, independent Russian news outlet Meduza reported, citing local sources.

The polling station is now undertaking a recount, after its results received considerable media attention, Meduza reported.

Officials say a data entry error led to inflated results for Kharitonov, the outlet reported.

A Russian district called an election recount after someone else got more votes than Putin, reports say

Why do Russians vote when the elections are rigged? North Koreans are forced to vote, because the state uses it to see if there's any dissenting people who are against the undemocratic regime, but in Russia voting is not mandatory, so why would the Russian people vote despite widespread electoral fraud?

Answer 1

First of all, most people don't know for sure that the elections are rigged.

As an election observer myself, only one out of the three election votings I directly watched turned out rigged. The elections of 2024 do indeed show signs of being the most rigged so far, but for a number of years the voting that were held in e.g. Moscow were reasonably fair. The Kremlin will change the rules every few years to make sure the odds are stacked in their favor, as well as curate the content of ballots, but they didn't always need to make the voting itself fake.

Secondly, people in many ways treat it as a public show (where they bring their children to) and as doing their civil duty, especially non-politicized majority which Putin has spent two decades creating. As I've noticed elsewhere, it's viewed as embarrassing to exhibit any political views in Russia. People in public roles have to do this as a part of their job. Otherwise, having loud pro-government or opposition views is seen as a slight personality defect.

Of course, Putin also has a core group of voters who will make effort to show up and vote no matter what. People retired due to old age also show up to the voting stations reliably - they watch TV which encourages them to, and it's not like they have too many things going on with them, though this may be changing in the future.

Answer 2

The Soviet Union had a long culture of punishing people for doing things that were permitted. For instance, going to church was formally permitted, but everybody knew it was way safer and much better for their career to be an Atheist. Numerous freedoms were guaranteed in the Constitution, yet not cared for at all. People learned to be careful.

Not so much time has passed. People who lived under Stalin are still alive. They will tell the next generation, be careful. The slave mentality is still here (known from the times from St.Peter denial and no nation is immune, do not take personally). And the biggest problem about this mentality is, fear forces genuine belief as the safest alternative. Due to that, I am sure Putin is genuinely popular. No doubt about this. Stalin is. Mao Zedong still is. Why not?

I agree V.Putin would have reached tens of percents anyway, but with B.Nadezhdin, let alone A.Navalny being his rivals, I am not so sure about the victory.

Answer 3

No elections are completely rigged.

As a matter of fact, Russian opposition used to have small victories here and there. Well, after each of these, the "loopholes" used were closed.

Even when one is determined to vote for change and there is no real opposition on the ballot, one can still make the ballot invalid or vote for the outsider that is usually present. At small scale it even happens that the outsider wins.

A lot of people are actually forced to vote

People on government payroll are particularly vulnerable. These are quite a few in Russia.

The "ability" to vote electronically means that a lot of people vote in the privacy of their manager's office. Or completely give away their credentials.

A great deal of people don't see anything wrong with rigged elections

Russia has an entrenched culture of selectively ignoring the rules at all levels. The average Ivan is tolerated taking something from his workplace, the president is tolerated rigging the elections. Fair.

There is a strong tradition

... from the USSR times when voting was obligatory (or almost obligatory) for everyone. It was as much pointless either (from the voter viewpoint), but not voting was detrimental.

As a rare oportunity to see other opposition supporters

Adopting @Kromster coment: Also worth mentioning that these elections were one of the very few not-punishable options for people supporting the opposition to gather and actually see each other (just like casting votes for Nadezhdin's campaign earlier)

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The Russian democracy fails at so many levels (not only elections) that discussing does Putin has some genuine support, or not, is completely moot. There is no viable alternative so one cannot simply ask, no matter how much confidentially, the average Russian on the street if he approves Putin, or someone else. There is no someone else.

But, elections are still important - not because they can change anything, but because they test the whole system and show everyone that it works.

Answer 4

I don't know if you're aware, but Putin is genuinely popular in Russia and will likely win any election, even if they are "free and fair" under Western standards (which they will never be, because it is in Western interests to portray Russian elections as not free or fair). When you see statements like "the elections are rigged", keep in mind that the Western media (with a few exceptions) is trying to push the idea that Putin should not have won.

You can see indications of this in your original quote. 763 votes for Kharitonov, 73 for Putin makes it sound like the sky is falling for Putin, which is what the Western media is shooting for. But when you take into consideration that there were roughly 80 million votes cast, a difference of 700 votes will have literally no impact on the election results. It's not dissimilar from how Trump perpetually harps on a few hundred disputed ballots to "prove" that he should have been the winner in the 2020 US Presidential election.

Once you accept the idea that Putin is genuinely popular in Russia, then the answer is obvious enough: if you support Putin, why wouldn't you vote?

Answer 5

A fact rarely mentioned by Western mainstream media is that Putin’s approval rating rose instead of falling after the invasion of Ukraine.

Exit polls show Vladimir Putin winning a huge majority in Russia’s presidential election which had only one possible result. Polls suggest 71-year-old Putin has won the election with nearly 88% of the vote, and will overtake Joseph Stalin to become Russia’s longest-serving leader for more than 200 years. Putin was standing for the six-year term against three candidates from parties who have not criticised his rule nor his invasion of Ukraine.

but in 2018

Putin won reelection for his second consecutive (fourth overall) term in office with 77% of the vote. Vladimir Zhirinovsky from the Liberal Democratic Party was the perennial candidate, having unsuccessfully run in five previous presidential elections. Other candidates included Pavel Grudinin (Communist Party), Sergey Baburin (Russian All-People's Union), Ksenia Sobchak (Civic Initiative), Maxim Suraykin (Communists of Russia), Boris Titov (Party of Growth) and Grigory Yavlinsky (Yabloko). Anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny announced his intent to run in December 2016 but was barred from doing so due to a prior criminal conviction, which was widely seen as politically motivated,[1][2][3] for corruption. Consequently, Navalny called for a boycott of the election. He had previously organized several public rallies against corruption among members of Putin's government.

also see the trends :

Do you approve of the activities of Vladimir Putin as the president (prime minister) of Russia?

Answer 6

Russia is tricky. Reality is that Putin is actually more popular in Russia as the western leaders in their own countries. He does not really need to "finetune" the elections, he would win it anyways.

Note, case is similar about Kim Jong Un. About a third of the population dislikes him¹. That is a normal value for a stable, well-established, fairly elected government.

We can talk about, why is it so. Anti-Western explanation is that democracy in the form defined by the collective West, is simply not attractive for these countries. Another endless story, why is it so.

The pro-western explanation is that these people are the object of generation long brainwash.

You have your multiple views and you are free to choice between them.

¹_{There is no way to measure it. Info is from an escaped member of the North Korean internal police, afaik I have seen it on the youtube}

Answer 7

A substantial, perhaps a major, fraction of Russian people:

• Are pro-Putin.
• Are against the (perceived) Western-sponsored enemies of Putin (basically, all who oppose Putin's policies).
• Do not believe that elections in Russia are rigged.

There is evidence for this in numerous official and unofficial polls.

This phenomenon is helped by propaganda on the Russian state TV, other media, and the remaining social media. Again, plenty of evidence for this.

But whatever the reason, this sizable fraction of people have their (apparently rational to them) reasons to vote for Putin.

Note also that there was a strong (by Russian standards) opposition movement to cast the spoiled ballots on the last day of voting. This was designed to make it harder for the Russian government to fake the election numbers. But these people voted too - in essence, against Putin (by means of incorrectly filled ballots). This was widely covered at least on anti-Putin social media.