On the statistical analysis of 2012 Russian presidential elections
As even non-Russians know by now, Vladimir Putin won the Russian Presidential elections. That much was a foregone conclusion. But what everybody was curious about was - by what margin.
Before all the votes were counted, I said that I believed that, even if the election was completely and utterly fair, Putin would have still won. As much as his popularity declined since the last time he ran for president, he was still popular enough to win a majority. But it would be a very slim majority. And, as I told westonian, having a slim majority wasn't enough for Putin - he had to get enough votes to plausibly claim that he has most of Russians on his side.
According to official data, Putin won 63% of the vote. But according to the statistical analysis conducted by statistician Sergei Shpil'kin for gazeta.ru (Russia's most popular online newspaper), the actual results are probably closer to 57%. That's still enough to allow Putin to win, but, like I said before, not enough to be able to claim popular mandate.
If you are a Russian speaker, I would recommend that you read the whole thing. For everybody else, I am going to try to sum up the most pertinent points.
Shpil'kin plotted out the statistics of how many registered voters actually participated in the elections based on the Russian electoral districts. In normal elections, as the voter turnout increases, the votes for all candidates increase for all candidates (though some candidates obviously get more votes than others). But according to statistics, at the election districts where turnout is above 65%, the votes increase disproportionately for Putin. For other candidates, the votes continue at the same level until they start to drop.
Shpil'kin goes on to write:
In the past elections, a candidate of the [ruling party] get the significant portion of its votes at the polling places with higher-than-average turnout, while other candidates almost don't get votes. This situation emerges naturally due to artificial increase of votes for one of the candidates in some of the precincts (it doesn't matter if it's by coercing voters to vote "the right way," ballot stuffing or simple rewriting of the votes)
Shpilkin also pointed out something very interesting about voting patterns for opposition candidates. He noticed that Mihail Prohorov, an independent candidate whose platform included political liberalization and the more business-friendly, more Western-orientated economic policy, got more votes in major cities than in other parts of Russia. Residents of major Russian cities tend to be more culturally and politically liberal than the rest of the country. It is no coincidence that most of the recent protests took place in major cities. the statistics suggest that, for the first time since the 2000 election, liberal support seems to actually be large enough to make a difference, propelling Prohorov to 3rd place.
(the 3nd place went to Gennadiy Zyuganov, the Communist Party candidate who has been trying to win the presidency since USSR collapsed. He won 17.18% - a surprisingly large number considering the last few elections).
I hope that this election is a sign of things to come, that support for Putin will continue to erode while the opposition support will continue to increase. I just worry that it's not going to happen quickly enough to make a difference when it matters.
Before all the votes were counted, I said that I believed that, even if the election was completely and utterly fair, Putin would have still won. As much as his popularity declined since the last time he ran for president, he was still popular enough to win a majority. But it would be a very slim majority. And, as I told westonian, having a slim majority wasn't enough for Putin - he had to get enough votes to plausibly claim that he has most of Russians on his side.
According to official data, Putin won 63% of the vote. But according to the statistical analysis conducted by statistician Sergei Shpil'kin for gazeta.ru (Russia's most popular online newspaper), the actual results are probably closer to 57%. That's still enough to allow Putin to win, but, like I said before, not enough to be able to claim popular mandate.
If you are a Russian speaker, I would recommend that you read the whole thing. For everybody else, I am going to try to sum up the most pertinent points.
Shpil'kin plotted out the statistics of how many registered voters actually participated in the elections based on the Russian electoral districts. In normal elections, as the voter turnout increases, the votes for all candidates increase for all candidates (though some candidates obviously get more votes than others). But according to statistics, at the election districts where turnout is above 65%, the votes increase disproportionately for Putin. For other candidates, the votes continue at the same level until they start to drop.
Shpil'kin goes on to write:
In the past elections, a candidate of the [ruling party] get the significant portion of its votes at the polling places with higher-than-average turnout, while other candidates almost don't get votes. This situation emerges naturally due to artificial increase of votes for one of the candidates in some of the precincts (it doesn't matter if it's by coercing voters to vote "the right way," ballot stuffing or simple rewriting of the votes)
Shpilkin also pointed out something very interesting about voting patterns for opposition candidates. He noticed that Mihail Prohorov, an independent candidate whose platform included political liberalization and the more business-friendly, more Western-orientated economic policy, got more votes in major cities than in other parts of Russia. Residents of major Russian cities tend to be more culturally and politically liberal than the rest of the country. It is no coincidence that most of the recent protests took place in major cities. the statistics suggest that, for the first time since the 2000 election, liberal support seems to actually be large enough to make a difference, propelling Prohorov to 3rd place.
(the 3nd place went to Gennadiy Zyuganov, the Communist Party candidate who has been trying to win the presidency since USSR collapsed. He won 17.18% - a surprisingly large number considering the last few elections).
I hope that this election is a sign of things to come, that support for Putin will continue to erode while the opposition support will continue to increase. I just worry that it's not going to happen quickly enough to make a difference when it matters.