Yes, I'll go and vote anyway. No, this won't change the outcome, but at least I'll be able to tell myself that I did my part.
Yes, I'll go and vote anyway. No, this won't change the outcome, but at least I'll be able to tell myself that I did my part.
It's not impossible, obviously–especially if you have full control of at least anyone important. But plausible deniability suffers rather fast, and that's a valuable assets at the Putin-level of dic(tator|k)ishness.
Sometimes, in some far-flung region, an election will end up being fair. Then they still find a way to ultimately "fix" the outcome — see what happened in Khabarovsk with everyone's favorite mayor Sergey Furgal. They found a court case on him from very long ago, arrested him, flew him to Moscow, then Putin dismissed him from mayorship "for loss of trust". Yeah sure, people elected him and had no problems with him, but it's lack of Putin's trust that caused him to lose his office against his and people's will.
It's strange that people really don't realize how easy it is to cheat; just a little bit of leverage in the right place can tip an election.