Ukrainian Conflict

[konart]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

There is no NO vote. Literally, the vote at no stage permit them to reject Russian occupation. You should know this, this is mentioned two pages back. The referendum isn't rigged; because there is no referendum. If you are not allowed to say no on the ballet, then there is no vote.

There was an option to remain a part of Ukraine with more freedom from state. And there is an option for you to refuse to vote. If the majority of Crimea people had refused to vote - the result would be failed elections. If this was the case - there would be a valid reason to say that there was some kind of rigged elections or whatever.

It's pretty obvious that the whole situation was orchestrated by Kremlin and wasn't just a fair play by Crimea government, but this doesn't change the fact that the majority of people there voted for being part of Russia instead of something else.

the vote at no stage permit them to reject Russian occupation

You can't reject or forbid occupation in the first place, lol. That's point of occupation

[Haak]

Originally Posted by konart

There was an option to remain a part of Ukraine with more freedom from state. And there is an option for you to refuse to vote. If the majority of Crimea people had refused to vote - the result would be failed elections. If this was the case - there would be a valid reason to say that there was some kind of rigged elections or whatever.

It's pretty obvious that the whole situation was orchestrated by Kremlin and wasn't just a fair play by Crimea government, but this doesn't change the fact that the majority of people there voted for being part of Russia instead of something else.

Sorry but that isn't a fact. The same statistic that says most people voted, is coming from the same people who say 97% want to be a part of Russia. In other words there's not a shred of credibility to it. The idea that most of the voters voted for Russia is just as doubtful.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by konart

You can't reject or forbid occupation in the first place, lol. That's point of occupation

But one can resist. That is what make things really ugly.

Though I wonder how are they going to resist the missile boats in the Black Sea though. Operation Jaywick is a thing of the past.

[Tom Bombadil]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

There is no NO vote. Literally, the vote at no stage permit them to reject Russian occupation. You should know this, this is mentioned two pages back. The referendum isn't rigged; because there is no referendum. If you are not allowed to say no on the ballet, then there is no vote.

According to the wikipage

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_referendum,_2014

There are 1,233,002 people accounting for 80% of the registered voters who has voted for joining Russia. So the lack of another choice didn't seem to bother them.

The Wikipage also says:

1,274,096 people voted, giving the plebiscite an 83.1% turnout.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Tom Bombadil

I find all these nitpicking of number (85% or 92% ) is merely a form of denial because people refuse to recognized the irrefutable fact on the ground: that the MAJORITY of Crimean people are ethnic Russian and they voted to be with Russia.

The fact that we got numbers like this IS disconcerting. Only 58% of the Crimea is ethnically Russian. The rest is Ukranian/Tartar. And while huge numbers of them boycotted the polls...with an 80% turnout (and 40% by the Tartars), there should have STILL been noticeably less than the 95-96% pro annexation votes we've been seeing. This is especially suspicious with how local pro Russian elements have tried to keep allot of election observers out of the country. I mean, do you seriously not see anything suspicious about these numbers?


Though the principle reason this is disconcerting, is that it's not just Crimea getting annexed that's on the table. It's a very real possibility that parts of Eastern Ukraine where Russian's are a minority could get partitioned off to. And if this is the standard of democracy we're using, it's very possible that those regions to vote via referendum to join Russia despite ethnic Russian's being a minority population.

[Der Langrisser]

Russian government admits economy in crisis as Ukraine weighs
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...A2G0RF20140317

[kyp275]

Originally Posted by konart

There was an option to remain a part of Ukraine with more freedom from state.

Of which the their parliament already said that they’ll then join Russia anyway if that one won. There is literally zero difference between the two:

1: They vote to join Russia, Crimea will then declare independence and then apply to join Russia.
2: They vote for revert to the 1992 constitution, and then apply to join Russia anyway.

And there is an option for you to refuse to vote. If the majority of Crimea people had refused to vote - the result would be failed elections. If this was the case - there would be a valid reason to say that there was some kind of rigged elections or whatever.

As if there was any way that would’ve happened a referendum to decide whether one is to join a country, that is run by said country, while military of said country have occupied the place, where the only options on the ballot is yes, what do you think will happen if not enough people showed up to vote?

[konart]

Originally Posted by kyp275

Of which the their parliament already said that they’ll then join Russia anyway if that one won. There is literally zero difference between the two:

1: They vote to join Russia, Crimea will then declare independence and then apply to join Russia.
2: They vote for revert to the 1992 constitution, and then apply to join Russia anyway.



As if there was any way that would’ve happened a referendum to decide whether one is to join a country, that is run by said country, while military of said country have occupied the place, where the only options on the ballot is yes, what do you think will happen if not enough people showed up to vote?

One more time - if they did differently to what they did (refused to vote, protested in any way, boycott the referendum etc) - there would be a room for talking. The fact is - the majority came and voted everything else is just a demagogue.

It's the same thing that happens in Russia over and over - a big enough part of the society which you can call anti-Putin cries about how the elections are rigged etc. But when it comes to voting - they just don't even bother coming. As a result - the majority (pro-Putin btw) comes, votes and guess what? Right - Putin wins with a decent gap between him and other candidats. The problem here is that if the came and voted - there would be a second round of voting and this is what Putin fears the most - you can't win in a second round if voting and be a leader in Russia

[kyp275]

Originally Posted by konart

One more time - if they did differently to what they did (refused to vote, protested in any way, boycott the referendum etc) - there would be a room for talking. The fact is - the majority came and voted everything else is just a demagogue.

One more time, this time in plain English as my rather apparent insinuations wasn’t obvious enough, taking ANY number released by the Russians as fact here would be naïve to the extreme, and that’s putting it nicely.

[Wigwams]

1) People not going to vote doesnt mean the "authorities" wont vote in their shoes. Its not unusual for riggers to take advantage of people boycotting the vote by voting in their place instead.

2) Having no "NO" choice means people who go to vote but disagree with both choices have to leave it blank, the riggers can then later add check marks to the blank choices and noone would see anything wrong since it was originally blank.

[Ithekro]

As a reminder: We still want for a "none of the above" option on US Presidental election forms.

[Fireminer]

So, what everyone disagree here is the true percentage of voters, right?

Any number from western media, instead of just statement?

[Ithekro]

The objection has two sides:

1. The lack of an ability to vote to remain part of Ukraine with no change.

2. The reported number of people voting.


Which to a largely apathethic American voters is way too many people actually voting, much less all voting for one option. Americans are now use to relatively low voter turn outs and high divides on issues.

[sneaker]

Not that 80% turn-out would be unrealistic for such an important referendum per se. Until re-unification voter turn-out on Bundestag elections in Germany have been 80%+ (90%+ in the mid 70s) and those are in comparison rather unimportant. Ukraine had 67.95% turnout in the 2010 presidential elections.

The actual results are much more questionable.

[Slayerx]

Originally Posted by konart

One more time - if they did differently to what they did (refused to vote, protested in any way, boycott the referendum etc) - there would be a room for talking. The fact is - the majority came and voted everything else is just a demagogue.

The Obvious flaw in your argument is that you actually BELIEVE the numbers are true. This vote had no monitorization and thus nothing to verify the results and the results themselves(as reported by the pro-russia authorities) DEFY all logic.

The most obvious example would be the Tartars. According to Crimea's authorities they voted in favor of joining Russia, but the Tartars have a long history of oppression by the Russians; Murder, oppression, and ethnic cleansing. Russia is the only reason why they are a minority in Crimea. They were only able to return after the soviet union fell and Crimea became part of Ukraine. It is illogical to think Tartars would want to be part of Russia. There are enough Tartars for them to make an ... its believable to think they might favor Crimean Independence, but not Russian annexation given their poor history with Russia. Its more likely they would want to maintain their current relationship with Ukraine just to AVOID getting closer to Russia; Ukraine has treated them much better

Such high turn out with such high number of "yes" votes is tough to swallow. Heck they didn't even bother reporting the numbers who voted for the second option. No group of people think overwhelmingly alike and their is always gonna be a good minority of people who will not vote for what ever reason. Wih Ukrianans and Tartars making up nearly 40% of the population having no reason to want to join Russia, and considering how their are bound to be a minority of Ethnic Russians that think differently from the rest, a 50% turnout is probably the BEST you could realistically expect. There are bound to be plenty who might be displeased with Ukraine, but would prefer the option for more Independence, and thus the results should not have been so high as their are plenty who would choose the second option. Heck their are tens of thousands of Russian protesting in Russian against Russian occupation of Crimea... If so many russians themselves speak out against Russian action in crimea, you can be certain their will be atleast a good minority within Crimea that would agree with them.

Really the ballot alone is enough to know how rigged this election was. There was no way for people to vote to maintain their current status with Ukraine. Only Russian annexation, and enough Independence that they would be able to enter Russia's sphere of influence and effectively become part of russia. That is why the ballot specifically mention the 1992 constitution, because back then Crimea had the Independence to make such decisions; they gave up that Independence however because they wanted avoid their former soviet masters from taking them over. They became a semi-autonmous part of Ukraine since it would make them close enough to Ukraine that Russia could not influence them without going through the much larger Ukraine first. That's why the ballot wanted to go back to 1992, so that the pro-russian government could go back to the time when they had the power to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. And they didn't want to give Crimeans and option to reject giving them that power... It was a choice between joining Russia, now or Later.

Also refusing to vote would not really invalidate the ballot. In elections the only thing that matters are the "yes" and "no" votes. Refusing to vote is pretty much a vote for "I don't care" and thus your opinion does not matter. It's why not voting isn't really an effective option. I mean take Egypt for instance; the referendum on their constitution had less than 40% turn out; but the vote was in favor of the constitution, so the constitution was approved... It didn't matter that 60% didn't vote; all that matters is the majority who did vote said "yes". A low turn out would only be enough to claim the ballot was not popular, but it would NOT invalidate it.

So having no "no" vote on a ballot IS a problem.

Originally Posted by sneaker

Not that 80% turn-out would be unrealistic for such an important referendum per se. Until re-unification voter turn-out on Bundestag elections in Germany have been 80%+ (90%+ in the mid 70s) and those are in comparison rather unimportant. Ukraine had 67.95% turnout in the 2010 presidential elections.

The actual results are much more questionable.

Yes, its the combination of high turn out with high "yes" votes that make it suspicious. 80% turn out is not unrealistic, though it is the highest you can usually expect. But people do not think overwlehmingly alike, so when you get such high turnout you usually get more even results. The opposite is true for low turnout; if the turn out is low, its not really a surprise to see A LOT of "Yes" votes, since the low turnout implies that many who were against the measure did not see a point to voting or didn't care. 80% turn out with 60% in favor would be believable; 50% turn out with 95% in favor would be believable; But 80% turn out with 97% in favor? Its essentially a statistical impossibility... and that's not even counting the fact that 40% of Crimea's population have no reason to be in favor of the ballot.

[Der Langrisser]

Obama imposes sanctions on 11 Russians, Ukrainians over Crimea move
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...A2D15W20140317

[konart]

Bill on a simplified procedure adoption of the new entity into Russian Federation recalled from the State Duma

http://translate.google.com/translat...tika%2F1053409

AHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA

Oh my

Waiting for Putin's word tomorrow. I expect major trolling

PS: A word of clarification - they recalled it, because it's not needed anymore (from their point of view)

Originally Posted by Slayerx

The Obvious flaw in your argument is that you actually BELIEVE the numbers are true. .

I do believe my relatives there (I'm half ukrainian with relatives in Poltava and Saky (Crimea)). But I wasn't talking about strict numbers. I was talking about majority. 60% or 90% - doesn't really matter in this case, does it?

[Hitenma]

Originally Posted by kyp275

As if there was any way that would’ve happened a referendum to decide whether one is to join a country, that is run by said country, while military of said country have occupied the place, where the only options on the ballot is yes, what do you think will happen if not enough people showed up to vote?

What will happen then?
Soldiers drag people out of their houses and force them to vote at gunpoint?

Originally Posted by Wigwams

1) People not going to vote doesnt mean the "authorities" wont vote in their shoes. Its not unusual for riggers to take advantage of people boycotting the vote by voting in their place instead.

2) Having no "NO" choice means people who go to vote but disagree with both choices have to leave it blank, the riggers can then later add check marks to the blank choices and noone would see anything wrong since it was originally blank.

If that's the case, will adding a NO option make any difference?

[kyp275]

Originally Posted by Hitenma

What will happen then?
Soldiers drag people out of their houses and force them to vote at gunpoint?

Not sure if serious

Why would they need to do that, when they’re the one who friggin have the ballots and controls the entire operation?

Why spend the effort to drag people out of their houses when you can just fill in as many ballots as you want in the back?

If that's the case, will adding a NO option make any difference?

The difference is symbolic, as the result have already been decided by Kremlin. It just goes to show how determined they are in stacking the deck – what Russia is doing here is essentially claiming it’s a fair match when they blindfolded their opponent, hogtied him to a chair, added cinderblocks to his feet for good measure, and then tossed him into the ocean, with a satchel of C4 strapped to his chest, you know, just in case

[risingstar3110]

The poll results were as expected...

Didn't follow the news past few days, any words on how Russia plan to deal with this situation? Annex Crimea, or simply just recognise Crimea as a independent nation like Abkhazia and South Ossetia?

It all started with Kosovo, it seems