The referendum in Ukraine doesn’t look like a sham to me, but I will wait for the results and the international observer reports to form a final opinion.
But, obviously, my opinion doesn’t matter much. Should I conclude the referendum was invalid, what can or should be done about it?
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
https://digitaledition.pilotonline.com/html5/mobile/production/default.aspx?edid=8b2bcc15-ab72-4530-ba77-d1c7e213bab8
As a service to the beloved citizens of Donbas, armed Russian and separatist soldiers are delivering ballots to homes and waiting for the voters to fill them in.
Maybe our GOP can add this to their litany of zany new election laws. A real job for proud boys, no?
BTW this is real ballot harvesting.
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RE: “As a service to the beloved citizens of Donbas, armed Russian and separatist soldiers are delivering ballots to homes and waiting for the voters to fill them in.”
The video mentions this. The soldiers are going house to house to accommodate senior citizens who can’t or won’t leave their homes. Since the referendum is occurring in a war zone, it makes sense for the soldiers to be armed.
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Of course it does. No intimidation whatsoever. 😇
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No fantasy or innuendo, either.
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So, you are a “senior citizen” who hates Russia and hates Russians. There is a knock on your door and an armed Russian gives you a ballot and waits for you to fill it out. You are then supposed to give it to them to take away. There is, of course, no chance that your vote will be looked at and your name added to an “enemy-of-the-state” list. None at all.
By the way, what part of “the referendum is occurring in a war zone” do you not understand? Here is a hint – it is a place where the only people left behind to vote are the ones who did not leave when Russia seized their town.
Such is your idea of a “legitimate election” which we ought to recognize as such.
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RE: “Such is your idea of a ‘legitimate election’ which we ought to recognize as such.”
Your fantasy and innuendo don’t make the election illegitimate, nor does the video suggest that the assumptions you make are credible. As I wrote, “I will wait for the results and the international observer reports to form a final opinion.”
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Leaving aside that an election held at the point of guns in a warzone where the Nay voters have been murdered or driven away is inherently illegitimate, just who are the “international observers” that you are waiting breathlessly to hear from?
I will tell you.
They are from the SCO and BRIC countries only one of which (India) is even a functioning democracy. In other words, bringing in various dictatorships and its allies to observe the election adds ZERO legitimacy to the farce.
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…”where the Nay voters have been murdered or driven away”…
You left out “relocated”. How many thousands of those residents who were NOT supportive of Russia been moved to “camps” IN Russia?
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RE: “Leaving aside that an election held at the point of guns in a warzone where the Nay voters have been murdered or driven away is inherently illegitimate…”
That’s fantasy. You have no evidence to support it.
RE: “who are the ‘international observers’ that you are waiting breathlessly to hear from?”
Two are interviewed in the video. They are German.
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“That’s fantasy. You have no evidence to support it.”
“In a nation of 44 million people, about 2.6 million Ukrainians have fled the war in the east initiated by Russian-backed separatists”
https://www.usip.org/publications/2015/11/ukraines-invisible-crisis-15-million-who-fled-war-russia
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“In a nation of 44 million people, about 2.6 million Ukrainians have fled the war in the east initiated by Russian-backed separatists”
So what? That’s not evidence the election is being held at gunpoint.
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So what?
Do you really not understand that the result will be absolutely meaningless when 2.6 million people who would vote “NO” have fled for their lives from separatists and Russians? Maybe you don’t. I would not be surprised.
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I don’t know how the people who fled Ukraine would have voted. Neither do you.
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“I don’t know how the people who fled Ukraine would have voted. Neither do you.”
Yes, I do. They fled to Ukraine. Duh! They could have fled to Russia. They didn’t. But no matter how they would have voted, the election is not legitimate with so many interested and affected people forced to flee for their lives.
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RE: “But no matter how they would have voted, the election is not legitimate with so many interested and affected people forced to flee for their lives.”
So say you. I’m not buying it.
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“So say you. I’m not buying it.”
You don’t have to. You are absolutely free to display an amazing lack of common sense any time you want. Knock yourself out.
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I wasn’t aware that Biden had sent election advisors.
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