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Monday, December 05, 2011

A Crowd Sourced Map Becomes the Symbol of Russia's Democratic Decline

The run up to the Russian parliamentary election was full of news stories saying Vladimir Putin's United Russia Party would lose ground to Kremlin-approved alternative parties.  Another widespread story was how the election was more or less rigged due to United Russia's control of the voting booth and Nashi and other ilk's vote fraud techniques.

United Russia denied the claims of voter fraud and laughed off anyone who challenged them.  The GOLOS Association tried a new technique to show/prevent fraud.  On their website they created a map which allows users to place and document voting irregularities.  The Kremlin responded with arresting the leader GOLOS and shutting down their vote monitor teams.

I would like to show you the map on GOLOS' website but that website is currently under cyber attack and is inaccessible and for all practical purposes destroyed due to the data loss.  The map itself was merely a documentation of voting problems, but its destruction has made it a symbol of Russia's democratic decline.

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