page_title: 2011 Russian legislative election
section_title: Alleged foreign involvement
hierarchical_section_title: 2011 Russian legislative election / Conduct / Alleged foreign involvement
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Выборы депутатов Государственной Думы в здании 2 школы, Переславль. Избирательный участок номер 383. Некоторые люди получились нерезко из-за запрета от избирательной комиссии на изображение людей. English: Legislative elections in Pereslavl. Precinct №383. Some people are unsharp because the Election Commission prevented me from making photos of voting people.
context_page_description: Legislative elections were held in Russia on 4 December 2011. At stake were the 450 seats in the 6th State Duma, the lower house of the Federal Assembly. United Russia won the elections with 49.32% of the vote, taking 238 seats or 52.88% of the Duma seats.
  This result was down from 64.30% of the vote and 70% of the seats in the 2007 elections.
  The Communist Party of the Russian Federation received 19.19% of the vote and 92 seats, while A Just Russia received 13.24% and 64 seats, with the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia getting 56 seats with 11.67% of the vote. Yabloko, Patriots of Russia and Right Cause did not cross the 7% election threshold. The list of parties represented in the parliament did not change.
  United Russia lost the two-thirds constitutional majority it had held prior to the election, but it still won a majority of seats in the Duma, even though it had slightly less than 50% of the popular vote. The Communist Party, Liberal Democratic Party and A Just Russia all gained new seats compared to the previous 2007 elections.
context_section_description: In the pre-election campaign period the GOLOS Association watchdog was the largest organization independent from participating parties that reported on campaign violations. The online service it set up to collect reports recorded 5,300 complaints regarding violations of electoral law. Most of the violations were linked to United Russia and about a third of the complaints were from state employees and students who said they were pressured by their employers/professors to vote for United Russia.
  On 1 December 2011 prosecutors in Moscow served GOLOS with papers alleging that the organisation had portrayed an unnamed political party in a bad light. The unnamed party has been identified as being United Russia. On 2 November a Moscow court fined GOLOS 30 000 roubles (about US$1000) for violations of the electoral law of Russia.
  On 8 December the Life News portal claimed it had received access to 60 Mb of correspondence between GOLOS administration and USAID (a federal government agency of the United States), and correspondence between GOLOS administration and its activists. The correspondence showed reports to USAID on how USAID funds received by GOLOS were spent. Also, the correspondence showed that activists received money for working on every report about a violation.
  Earlier, on 2 December, NTV showed an investigative documentary film, "Голос ниоткуда" (Golos niotkuda, translated as "Voice from nowhere" or "Vote from nowhere"), accusing GOLOS of making propaganda paid for by foreign money, in particular from the United States.
caption: Election ballots in Pereslavl
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