No one can really be surprised that there's a certain amount of voter fraud in Russia. And the Russian leadership is not unsophisticated: of course they have a

No one can really be surprised that there's a certain amount of voter fraud in Russia. And the Russian leadership is not unsophisticated: of course they have access to mathematicians who could advise on how to avoid leaving these artifacts in the manipulated data. I'd conclude from this that they don't mind others knowing they manipulate the results. Perhaps they even want them to know, as a little fuck-you show of power. So why have elections at all? Because it gives Russia's international allies something to point to: they can claim to support democracy and human rights, etc, and pretend not to be convinced by this kind of circumstantial evidence, to an extent they would feel uncomfortable with if Putin were to decree "right, no more elections, no more constitution, I'll just rule for life". If you're really pressed and have to admit you find the evidence convincing, it only really demonstrates vote totals being manipulated by up to 1%. A tiny amount of the margin of victory and comparable to the levels of election fraud in large democracies like India or the US. This kind of plausible deniability is what international relations is built on, and the bigger a power you are, the less plausible your stories have to be. Russian troops fight in the Ukraine while on vacation. China needs airfields in the Spratly Islands to support local fishermen. Guantanamo Bay is run in accordance with the Geneva Convention and definitely no one gets tortured there.