Presidential Election - 2012. There is a vote! (Poll)

Four years ago, March 2, 2008, the Russians elected a new president. Voter turnout was 69,6%. In the presidential elections held in the Russian Federation eight years ago (2004), 64,38% of all voters showed up at the polling stations. Climbing even further into the past: in 2000, turnout was 68,64%, and in 1996-m - 69,81%.

Thus, if we plot, we get an almost straight line. In all the elections for the polling stations, about two thirds of Russians out of the total number of those who have the right to vote are present.

Today, March 4, 2012, at 10.00 o'clock in the morning Moscow time, voter turnout was already 12,2% (CEC data). This morning figure is higher than in the 2008 year (8,9%). Perhaps, the activity of voters-Russians today will increase. At least, I really want to believe in it.

After all, the data of past elections convincingly prove that a whole third of the population of Russia, having the right to vote, for some reason prefers to sit at home.

Political scientists have long been studying such a political phenomenon as absenteeism - political indifference, manifested in the election of representatives of the authorities, namely during the voting. An absenteeist prefers to sit in a room at the TV, drink a beer (or a seagull), while other citizens torment themselves with the difficult problem of choice. “Let them quarrel, let them argue about politics, about candidates, about where the country will go! My hut is on the edge. I’m confused about these choices! .. ”Approximately, any elected“ draft deviate ”argues. That's what he says to himself: “All these candidates are equally bad. Therefore, I have no need to decide which of them is better. I don’t trust any of them! ”

An absenteeist probably believes that his position is not at all evading a political decision (choosing one of the candidates is nothing but an individual's personal political decision), but a kind of protest against the elections as a form of influence on politics. “Since everyone is bad, since I don’t trust anyone, why should I vote? After all, there is no one to vote for. And let no one vote at all - then the elections will not take place! ”

But the elections will take place, as they say, in any weather.

A small turnout in the elections has already led to the fact that in Russia, with 2007, the turnout in parliamentary elections was canceled. Journalists immediately came up with the term - turnout. Let me remind you that 11 March 2007 about 55% of voters did not come to the polls. It came to absurdities: for example, in one village council of the Tselinny district of the Kurgan region there were thirty names in the voter list, but they came to the election of the deputy of the village duma ... two: a deputy candidate and his relative. The turnout threshold was canceled by law - and the candidate easily became a deputy. (A source: http://www.ura.ru/content/kurgan/12-03-2007/news/18681.html). With such appearance defect we will soon reach the point that future “servants of the people”, having easily adapted to very convenient absenteeism, will choose themselves completely bypassing the popular will. By the way, such “one-man” elections are the fruit of the absenteeism’s passivity, the result of their “protest” expressed with beer and chips at the TV.

Fortunately, the turnout for the presidential elections in Russia is traditionally higher than the turnout for parliamentary elections.

It should be noted that today's elections differ from all previous ones by a technical approach. First, webcams were installed at the sites (the head of the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media, I. Shchegolev, said that more than 91.000 cameras were installed in all parts of the country). Secondly, ballot boxes are transparent. (I have already voted, and I have seen such bins on my site). Undoubtedly, these two innovations will simplify the identification of possible violations, about which there was a lot of talk at last year’s Duma elections.

I think that the majority of visitors to the Military Review site are not of those people who do not care about the tick in the bulletin. Let's check if I made a mistake in the forecast.