‘Shpilkin method’: Statistical tool gauges voter fraud in Putin landslide

Members of an electoral commission empty a ballot box to count votes after polling stations closed on the final day of the presidential election, Novosibirsk, Russia, March 17, 2024. © Vladislav Nekrasov, Reuters

As many as half of all the votes reported for Vladimir Putin in Russia’s presidential election last week were fraudulent, according to Russian independent media reports using a statistical method devised by analyst Sergey Shpilkin to estimate the extent of voter manipulation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed a landslide victory on Sunday that will keep him in power until at least 2030, following a three-day presidential election that Western critics dismissed as neither free nor fair.