"In the United States, previous elections were falsified through postal voting ... they bought ballots for $10, filled them out, and threw them into mailboxes without any supervision from observers, and that's it," Putin said, without providing evidence. Putin's opponents say the March election in Russia is no real contest as the president wields unchallenged power and his main rival, Alexei Navalny, is serving more than 30 years in jail on charges that Navalny says were trumped up. They say the use of electronic voting creates scope for authorities to manipulate the vote in Putin's favour without detection.

(Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin, running for a new six-year term in an election that his opponents say is a parody of democracy, said on Tuesday that past U.S. elections had been rigged by postal voting.

“In the United States, previous elections were falsified through postal voting … they bought ballots for $10, filled them out, and threw them into mailboxes without any supervision from observers, and that’s it,” Putin said, without providing evidence.

  • @UnderpantsWeevilEnglish
    3•10 months ago

    if it was a popular vote, the parties would apply entirely different strategies in elections,

    Sure. Strategies would change to appeal to popular opinion rather than focusing forever on maximizing campaign contributions.

    • @WilzaxEnglish
      4•10 months ago

      And speeches along the campaign trail would focus on broadly important topics instead of being individually tailored to the concerns of a few key districts that can swing entire states

      • @UnderpantsWeevilEnglish
        1•10 months ago

        Might be nice to revisit that whole “benefits of Open Medicare Enrollment” rather than going a full six months hovering around the Iowa Fair grounds and fixating exclusively on corn and soy futures.

        • @WilzaxEnglish
          2•10 months ago

          If our democracy ever got that functional, how would we fund our billionaire oligarch daddies?