Many were hoping for a throwback to the glory days of election rigging given he wasn’t even running against anyone else. One fan commented “he had a golden opportunity to land himself in the election rigging hall of fame, but he wasted it.”
When asked what they would have like to see one said a throwback to Liberia’s 1927 election where more votes than registered voters would have been a pleasant surprise. Another said “what’s the point of being a dictator if you can’t rig your elections in a more blatant way, it’s really the best part of the job, he didn’t even try to have any fun. No preselected ballot forms, no armed guards at the polling stations it really makes you wonder what’s the point. If you’re not going to blatantly rig an election, you might as a well have a real one and you know how boring they are’.
Despite this criticism from the fans of election Putin still has an approval rating of over 80% so he can at least still rig a poll..
