Channel 4 News published this video item, entitled “Russia elections: crackdown on Navalny app promoting Putin rivals” – below is their description.
An app promoting smart voting was suddenly kicked off Google and Apple. Rivals with identical names and appearances are running against opposition candidates. State employees are allegedly being forced to turn out to vote.
This is Putin’s Russia, on the first day of voting in parliamentary elections, which critics are calling the ‘least free for 20 years’.
The authorities are already accusing ‘foreign agents’ of plotting to discredit the results.
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About This Source - Channel 4 News
Channel 4 News is the news programme from UK Channel 4 television. Channel 4 is a British public-service free-to-air television network headquartered in Leeds, United Kingdom. The channel was established in 1982 to provide a fourth television service to the United Kingdom in addition to the licence-funded BBC One and BBC Two, and the single commercial broadcasting network ITV.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is a Russian politician and a former officer of the KGB who has served as President of Russia since 2012, previously holding the position from 1999 until 2008. He was also the Prime Minister of Russia from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012.
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country located in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east, and from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea in the south.
Russia spans more than one-eighth of the Earth’s inhabited land area, stretching eleven time zones, and bordering 16 sovereign nations. Moscow is the country’s capital.
The Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991 and since 1993 Russia been governed as a federal semi-presidential republic. Russia is a major great power, with the world’s second-most powerful military, and the fourth-highest military expenditure. As a recognised nuclear-weapon state, the country possesses the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.
Voting is a method for a group, such as a meeting or an electorate, in order to make a collective decision or express an opinion usually following discussions, debates or election campaigns. Democracies elect holders of high office by voting. Residents of a place represented by an elected official are called “constituents”, and those constituents who cast a ballot for their chosen candidate are called “voters”. There are different systems for collecting votes, but while many of the systems used in decision-making can also be used as electoral systems, any which cater for proportional representation can only be used in elections.
In smaller organizations, voting can occur in different ways. Formally via ballot to elect others for example within a workplace, to elect members of political associations or to choose roles for others. Informally voting could occur as a spoken agreement or as a verbal gesture like a raised hand or electronically.