Analysis: ‘He said we should vote for Putin, photograph the ballot, and send it to him’

A FEW days before Russia’s presidential election, Sergei Smirnov received a phone call from a man who called himself Mikhail and told him the terms of the deal: you will vote for Vladimir Putin four times and receive 2,000 roubles (about £43) in return.

The sum was promised to dozens of other young men and women who met on Sunday outside a fast food joint on the south-west fringe of Moscow, waiting to be taken to various polling stations in the province that rings the capital.

Mr Smirnov, a journalist, said Mikhail gave him final instructions when they met in a Moscow metro station on Sunday morning.

“He said we should vote for Vladimir Putin, photograph the ballot, and send him the photograph by phone.”

Mr Smirnov is one of several activists who infiltrated and followed a group of what he said were “carousel” voters – people who cast several ballots at different polling stations using documents reserved for absentee voters.

Critics say this has been used to rig ballots since Mr Putin came to power in 2000.

Mr Smirnov spoke outside a police station where officers were questioning his contact – Mikhail Nazarov, who told Mr Smirnov he was a student.

Mr Smirnov and others documented cars full of voters travelling to Vnukovo, a town outside Moscow, then to the village of Tolstopaltsevo, and then back to Moscow.

Mr Smirnov said he was put in a car with three others, one of whom was a friend who helped him access the group.

“The other two were saying that it wasn’t the first time they had done such a thing and that in the last elections they had voted at six polling stations and for that they paid them 5,000 roubles,” he said.

Natalia Pelevine, who worked with Mr Smirnov, said she and others caught another alleged member of the group handing out cash in a nearby metro station to women they had followed in cars from polling stations outside Moscow. Yulia Chelnokova was detained by police.