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The Russian government-sponsored initiative [ru] to increase public participation in policy-making through an online petition process[GV], was met with suspicion even before its launch[GV] in April. Now, almost two months later, opposition bloggers are crying foul, claiming that the process has already been corrupted.
Anonymous users of the Russian Public Initiative (RPI) forums[ru] first drew attention to the alleged falsifications, and the accusation was later picked up by e-Democracy specialist Leonid Volkov[ru], his friendAlexey Navalny[ru], and major online news outlets[ru]. Specifically, forum users noticed something odd about the way votes were being accrued to a popular public initiative. With 48,000 votes, the initiative, which calls for an end to zero-tolerance Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) regulations, is currently second in popularity only to Alexey Navalny's initiative to ban bureaucrats from purchasing luxury cars. Although it has enjoyed this position since the very start of the process, bloggers claim that this popularity is at least partially contrived.
Volkov and Navalny at a 2011 rally. YouTube screenshot. May 29, 2013.
The claim was first made on the RPI forums. A guest user wrote[ru] on May 16, 2013:
Между прочим, на сайте roi.f1p.net видно накрутку голосов по инициативе с отменой нулевого промилле (по моему предположению). Там видны очень четкие ступеньки, чередующиеся с ровными участками. [...] Ступеньки идут достаточно периодично, чтобы средняя скорость добавления голосов за час была без резких скачков.
By the way, on the roi.f1p.net website you can see the falsification on the initiative to repeal the zero BAC (in my opinion) [note: "in my opinion" was added later by the forum administrator]. You can see very clear steps, followed by flat portions. [...] The steps are fairly periodical, so that the average speed of vote accrual per hour does not jump around.
The website the user was referring to, roi.f1p.net[ru], is a public endeavor to monitor the RPI voting process, and keeps track of the top initiatives by recording vote data every 10 minutes. It allows users to graph this data in any degree of detail they want, and indeed, if one looks closely at a 24-hour period of data for the anti-BAC initiative, it sometimes exhibits odd patterns:
A look at what anti-BAC vote accrual looked like on May 4, 2013. From roi.f1p.net
The “steps” clearly visible above are not present in the graph of votes for Navalny's anti-luxury car measure, over the same period:
May 4, 2013 votes for luxury car ban petition. From roi.f1p.net
What are these mysterious steps? They lose all mystery when the data are graphed on a per-10-minute basis, rather then in aggregate, which is precisely what the anonymous Svetlana S. (presumably the same anonymous guest user that first called attention to the issue on the RPI forums) did earlier this month, sending her results to Leonid Volkov, who blogged [ru] about the story on May 28:
Screenshot of a May 4 graph posted by Volkov in his blog. The blue bars are votes for Navalny's initiative, the red bars are votes for the BAC initiative. The x-axis is on a 10 minute scale.
This chart makes it clear that the “steps” in the aggregate graph from roi.f1p.net are associated with a relatively large number of “extra” votes for the BAC measure, which take place all at once, roughly once per hour. (What is less clear is why Volkov decided to omit the axis with the actual number of votes the bars represent. I downloaded the data, available here, and corroborated this and other charts posted by Volkov. On May 4, 2013, the highest BAC peak was 26 votes. In general, if vote injections did take place, they numbered 20 votes each time. The same pattern holds true for an almost two week period that roughly coincides with the so called May-holidays in Russia, i.e. from May 1 to Victory Day on May 9. During the past week the “steps” have largely disappeared from the BAC-repeal initiative, although the data continue to exhibit a much higher degree of variance than the luxury car data.)
While something clearly shady is happening with the BAC petition, the big question is why. Both Volkov and Navalny generally agree with the original whistle-blower on the RPI forums, who wrote[ru]:
Вероятно, хотят побыстрее продвинуть эту инициативу, т.к. вопрос по отмене уже решен и можно безболезненно показать, как они учитывают мнение народа (по моему предположению). А заодно уязвить Навального, который хочет, чтобы именно его инициатива первая набрала 100000 (по моему предположению).
They probably want to push this initiative along, since the question of the repeal is already decided and they can painlessly show how they are listening to the voice of the people (in my opinion). And at the same time to stick it to Navalny, who wants his initiative to be the first to make it to 100000 (in my opinion).
In particular, Volkov is of the opinion that the push for falsifying happened after President Putin signaled a willingness to address the BAC question in his direct line Q&A session on April 25, 2013. Volkov also stated that the BAC petition is catching up to the luxury car petition, in percent terms, making it seem like Navalny's initiative is in danger of being overtaken. Both Volkov and Navalny used this fact as a way to drum up more interest in voting for Navalny's initiative.
Unfortunately, these arguments are faulty. First, if there is an ongoing attempt at inflating the vote for the BAC petition, it appears to only pursue the goal of matching the luxury car initiative growth rate, rather then its overall numbers. In fact, as you can see on the graph below, the relationship between the two appears to be fairly constant from before April 25, with a gap of approximately 15 thousand votes which does not grow or shrink (Volkov's point about the gap shrinking in percentage terms is thus misleading. In this case the smallest percentage a gap of 15,000 votes can “shrink” to is 15%.) On the one hand, the relationship is almost too constant — the two curves follow each other with uncanny precision, even given the fact that some people who vote for Navalny's petition also vote for other petitions — but on the other hand there is no evidence of an attempt to somehow beat Navalny to the punch:
Graph of votes for initiatives to ban luxury cars (orange) and repeal BAC laws (blue) trending together. From roi.f1p.net.
In response to a Twitter comment describing this issue, Volkov said[ru] that “maybe” the perpetrators are trying to keep the gap narrow in preparation for some kind of last minute push.
The other problem with Volkov's argument is also data related. It just so happens that the initiative to repeal BAC laws isn't the only one that exhibits the same strange stepwise curves we saw above. In fact, out of the top nine initiatives that the roi.f1p.net website keeps track off, all (aside from Navalny's) have the same issue. These initiatives include such disparate causes as burying Lenin:
May 4 data for initiative to bury Lenin.
and banning all cars besides for emergency services from using flashing sirens:
May 4 data for initiative to ban bureaucrats from using sirens on their cars.
Assuming that roi.f1p.net data are not faulty, the fact that all of the top initiatives (except for Navalny's) share this characteristic makes it less likely that the falsifications were undertaken because of Putin's tacit approval of the BAC repeal. Of course, one could argue that the other initiatives are merely there to make the BAC repeal initiative appear to be within a general trend. This line of thinking is probably closest to the truth — the most likely scenario is that Russian Public Initiative (a government contractor), faced with a relative lack of interest in its product, is trying to fudge its own statistics to appear more successful than it actually is. Navalny's superstar initiative provides them with a baseline which they can use to simulate organic growth for other initiatives, and this is what they have been doing. The remaining question is — why so sloppy?
Written by Andrey Tselikov · comments (0)
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Puerto Rico March Against Monsanto by villaorleanspr
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May 25, 2013. San Juan Puerto Rico. March against Monsanto. 35 of us went on a bus to San Juan from Mayaguez.
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| Time: 01:07 | More in Travel & Events |
If Puerto Rico were an independent country, today it would have surpassed the United States in the struggle for equality and fairness for the LGBT community (speaking of countries who have surpassed the U.S., the first gay ...
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10:52 PM AST on May 29, 2013
| 10:42 PM AST |
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Severe weather developed throughout the Great Plains on Wednesday. Tornadoes have been reported from the panhandle of Texas to central Nebraska.
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The list of towns that have seen two F5 twisters in history is small, but it just added three new entries.
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May 29, 2013
A river ice jam is causing major headaches for one town in Alaska.
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May 29, 2013
The Midwest could see major flooding if heavy rain comes in the wrong places this week, meteorologists say.
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May 29, 2013
The top five most intense U.S. hurricanes at landfall based on atmospheric pressure.
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Weather Underground midday recap for Wednesday, May 29, 2013. Another day of dangerous weather was in store for the middle of the country Wednesday as a Tornado Watch was posted from northern Texas through southwestern Nebraska. This means that severe thunderstorms could be accompanied by strong winds, large hail, heavy rain, and tornadoes into the late afternoon and evening. Residents in the Plains should monitor local weather conditions and be prepared to protect life and property. No tornadoes had formed as of this writing, but development remained possible into the evening. As the sun sets in the Plains, any tornadic development will become much more dangerous as the tornadoes will become much harder to see and track. Thunderstorms were noted as far north as Minnesota, further illustrating the size of the severe thunderstorm threat in the country. Meanwhile, moist Pacific air pushed into the Northwest and produced areas of light showers as far east as Montana. An area of thunderstorms did push through the Northeast, but most of this activity had cleared the area by the late afternoon. Some thunderstorm development remained a possibility into the evening. The Southeast rose into the 70s and 80s, while the Northeast saw temperatures in the 60s and 70s. The Southwest rose into the 80s and 90s, while the Northwest saw temperatures in the 60s and 70s.
Weather Underground midday recap for Wednesday, May 29, 2013. Another day of dangerous weather was in store for the middle of the country Wednesday as a Tornado Watch was posted from northern Texas through southwestern Nebraska. This means that severe thunderstorms could be accompanied by strong winds, large hail, heavy rain, and tornadoes into the late afternoon and evening. Residents in the Plains should monitor local weather conditions and be prepared to protect life and property. No tornadoes had formed as of this writing, but development remained possible into the evening. As the sun sets in the Plains, any tornadic development will become much more dangerous as the tornadoes will become much harder to see and track. Thunderstorms were noted as far north as Minnesota, further illustrating the size of the severe thunderstorm threat in the country. Meanwhile, moist Pacific air pushed into the Northwest and produced areas of light showers as far east as Montana. An area of thunderstorms did push through the Northeast, but most of this activity had cleared the area by the late afternoon. Some thunderstorm development remained a possibility into the evening. The Southeast rose into the 70s and 80s, while the Northeast saw temperatures in the 60s and 70s. The Southwest rose into the 80s and 90s, while the Northwest saw temperatures in the 60s and 70s.
10:42 PM AST
80.0
7.0
77 °F
20% chance of precipitation
30.08in
21007000
METAR TJSJ 300156Z 07012G19KT 10SM SCT021 SCT070 27/23 A3008 RMK AO2 SLP184 T02670228 $
75
7.0
22.0mph
0.0
| Partly cloudy with rain showers. Low of 77F. Breezy. Winds from the East at 15 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%. |
| Partly cloudy with rain showers. High of 88F. Breezy. Winds from the East at 15 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%. |
| Partly cloudy with rain showers. Low of 77F. Breezy. Winds from the East at 15 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 20%. |
| Partly cloudy with rain showers, then thunderstorms and rain showers in the afternoon. High of 88F. Breezy. Winds from the East at 15 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 50%. |
| Partly cloudy with rain showers. Low of 77F. Breezy. Winds from the North at 15 to 20 mph shifting to the South after midnight. Chance of rain 20%. |
| Partly cloudy with rain showers. High of 86F with a heat index of 91F. Winds from the East at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 20%. |
| Mostly cloudy with rain showers in the evening, then overcast. Low of 77F. Winds from the ESE at 10 to 15 mph. |
Sunday
| Overcast with a chance of a thunderstorm and rain. High of 88F with a heat index of 95F. Winds from the ESE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%. |
Sunday Night
| Overcast with a chance of a thunderstorm and rain after midnight. Low of 77F. Winds from the ESE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%. |
| Overcast with a chance of a thunderstorm and rain. High of 88F with a heat index of 95F. Winds from the ESE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%. |
 | Overcast. Low of 77F. Winds from the ESE at 10 to 15 mph. |
| Overcast with a chance of a thunderstorm. High of 88F with a heat index of 97F. Winds from the ESE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%. |
| Overcast with a chance of a thunderstorm. Low of 79F. Winds from the SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%. |
| Mostly cloudy with a chance of a thunderstorm. High of 86F. Winds from the SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 20%. |
 | Mostly cloudy with a chance of a thunderstorm. Low of 77F. Winds from the SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50% with rainfall amounts near 0.3 in. possible. |
| Partly cloudy with a chance of a thunderstorm. High of 88F. Winds from the ESE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%. |
| Partly cloudy with a chance of a thunderstorm. High of 86F. Winds from the East at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%. |
| Partly cloudy with a chance of a thunderstorm. Low of 77F. Winds from the East at 5 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%. |
Sunday
 | Clear with a chance of a thunderstorm. High of 86F. Winds from the East at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 20%. |
Sunday Night
 | Clear. Low of 77F. Winds from the ESE at 10 to 15 mph. |
88 | 79 °F
20%
Saturday, 8
at 10:42 PM AST on May 29, 2013
| Partly cloudy with rain showers. High of 88F. Breezy. Winds from the East at 15 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%. |
| Partly cloudy with rain showers. Low of 77F. Breezy. Winds from the East at 15 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 20%. |
| 63 |
at 10:42 PM AST on May 29, 2013
| Partly cloudy with rain showers, then thunderstorms and rain showers in the afternoon. High of 88F. Breezy. Winds from the East at 15 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 50%. |
| Partly cloudy with rain showers. Low of 77F. Breezy. Winds from the North at 15 to 20 mph shifting to the South after midnight. Chance of rain 20%. |
| 17 mph | 17 mph |
| 30 | |
at 10:42 PM AST on May 29, 2013
| Partly cloudy with rain showers. High of 86F with a heat index of 91F. Winds from the East at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 20%. |
| Mostly cloudy with rain showers in the evening, then overcast. Low of 77F. Winds from the ESE at 10 to 15 mph. |
| 30 | 30 | 30 |
at 10:42 PM AST on May 29, 2013
| Overcast with a chance of a thunderstorm and rain. High of 88F with a heat index of 95F. Winds from the ESE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%. |
| Overcast with a chance of a thunderstorm and rain after midnight. Low of 77F. Winds from the ESE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%. |
| 79 |
| 95 |
at 10:42 PM AST on May 29, 2013
| Overcast with a chance of a thunderstorm and rain. High of 88F with a heat index of 95F. Winds from the ESE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%. |
| Overcast. Low of 77F. Winds from the ESE at 10 to 15 mph. |
| 79 | ||
| 96 | 100 | |
at 10:42 PM AST on May 29, 2013
| Overcast with a chance of a thunderstorm. High of 88F with a heat index of 97F. Winds from the ESE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%. |
| Overcast with a chance of a thunderstorm. Low of 79F. Winds from the SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%. |
| 79 | |
| 10 mph | |
| 20 | 20 |
| 100 |
at 10:42 PM AST on May 29, 2013
| Mostly cloudy with a chance of a thunderstorm. High of 86F. Winds from the SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 20%. |
| Mostly cloudy with a chance of a thunderstorm. Low of 77F. Winds from the SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50% with rainfall amounts near 0.3 in. possible. |
| 79 | ||
| SE | ||
| 20 | 20 | 20 |
| Chance of a Thunderstorm |
at 10:42 PM AST on May 29, 2013
| Partly cloudy with a chance of a thunderstorm. High of 88F. Winds from the ESE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%. |
| 79 | 73 | |||
| 6 mphSE | |||
| 64 | |||
| 29 | 29 | 29 | 29 |
at 10:42 PM AST on May 29, 2013
| Partly cloudy with a chance of a thunderstorm. High of 86F. Winds from the East at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%. |
| Partly cloudy with a chance of a thunderstorm. Low of 77F. Winds from the East at 5 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%. |
| | 72 | | 73 | ||
| 78 | 78 | ||
| 29 | 32 | 38 | 41 |
| Partly Cloudy | Partly Cloudy |
at 10:42 PM AST on May 29, 2013
| | 73 | |||
| 9 mph | |||
| 36 | 32 | ||
| Partly Cloudy | Partly Cloudy | Partly Cloudy | Partly Cloudy |
at 10:42 PM AST on May 29, 2013
| Clear with a chance of a thunderstorm. High of 86F. Winds from the East at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 20%. |
| Clear. Low of 77F. Winds from the ESE at 10 to 15 mph. |
| | 73 | ||
| 11 mph | 11 mph | |
| 27 | ||
| Partly Cloudy | Clear |
Weather History & Almanac
| 82.9 |
| 11:22 PM AST (5/29) | 10:21 AM AST (5/29) |
| Waning Gibbous, 68% of the Moon is Illuminated |
1,616,107 photos uploaded!
7 hours ago
| 9:56 PM AST | ||
| 10:23 PM AST | ||
| 9:50 PM AST | ||
| Scattered Clouds | 9:50 PM AST |
| 12.0 |
| 62° |
METAR TJSJ 300156Z 07012G19KT 10SM SCT021 SCT070 27/23 A3008 RMK AO2 SLP184 T02670228 $
| 83 | ||
| Mets vs. Yankees | 7:05 PM EDT on May 29, 2013 |
| Chance of Rain, High 68° F/ 20° C | ||
| Girona vs. Almería | 12:00 PM CEST on June 01, 2013 | Clear, High 73° F/ 23° C |
| Partly Cloudy, |
| 17 | 10:06 PM AST | |||||||
| 80.0 | 7.0 | 10:42 PM AST | ||||||
| 81.1 | 4.0 | 10:51 PM AST | ||||||
| Río Bayamón, Bayamon, PR | 81.0 | 56 | 10:51 PM AST | |||||
| 80.8 | 9.0 | 10:51 PM AST | ||||||
| North 0.0 | 10:52 PM AST | |||||||
| 80.6 | 10:51 PM AST | Rapid Fire | ||||||
| 79.6 | 3.0 | 0.00 | 10:51 PM AST | |||||
| Colinas de Fairview, Trujillo Alto, PR | 82.2 | 61 | North 0.0 | 0.00 | 308ft | 10:52 PM AST | Rapid Fire | |
| 79.9 | NE | 0.00 | 10:40 PM AST | |||||
| 76.5 | at 3.0 | 0.00 / hr | 10:38 PM AST |
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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Two former officers with the Puerto Rico police have been convicted of attempting to extort a defendant and soliciting bribe payments of $50,000, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman of the Justice Department's Criminal Division and US Attorney Rosa Emilia Rodrguez-Vlez of the District of Puerto Rico.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Two former officers with the Puerto Rico police have been convicted of attempting to extort a defendant and soliciting bribe payments of $50,000, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman of the Justice Department's Criminal Division and US Attorney Rosa Emilia Rodrguez-Vlez of the District of Puerto Rico.
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