Tolstoy, the difference here is significant:

- The Crimean voters were implied to have been coerced by armed gangs of pro-Russians, while Americans (hopefully) were not.
- American elected officials did not fabricate results reporting landslide victories, unlike (as it turns out) the fabricated results of the Crimean Referendum.

but people don't stand at poles with guns here....voting in america is an inalienable right,but too many people feel their vote doesn't count for anything(or just don't care) and don't show up to vote...the parallel to crimea is not there

Also, Tolstoy - at its lowest, US Presidential elections had around a 50% turnout of eligible voters. Winning Presidents have at worst 49% of the popular vote. So, at our worst, we have slightly less than a quarter of our population voting for the winner.

But this was a special referendum, held at a crucial crossroads in that territory's history. It would be more like the elections around the American Civil War, when a staggering 80% of eligible voters came out in the elections of 1860.

Also, two important points.
- No American President has claimed to win by over 90% of the popular vote
- Our elections don't have people with guns standing next to the voting booths

I believe Crimea will "vote" to be annexed again, mainly because the west will think that the cost for them to prevent Putin from messing around there won't be worth the ideal successful result--which is Crimea to hold a true election and for Putin to back off. The question here is, where will the west draw the line to finally say, "No we can't let Putin take control of (*insert whatever area here*)" and hold their ground.

haha kinda confusing, but basically what I mean is that the question is where the line will be drawn for Putin's expansion of his playground, and that the line will be based on cost/reward determined by the west.

Shirley, are you saying that Crimea will vote to be annexed ... so Putin doesn't become angry with them?

Well, consider this:

All the ballet-boxes are videotaped, not to see what the voters vote for (and thereby risk their anonymity), but to count the number of ballets inserted and watch for skewing deterrents (e.g. soldier with gun standing by the booth).
Then, still under camera, the ballet-boxes are transported to a central location and dumped into a main pile.
Under camera, the votes are read and recorded. The videos are then released to the internet for avid free-speech groups, governments, etc. to analyze them and determine if the election results are valid.

@Tolstoy
"I'm curious to know what you think this hand-wringing about the purported real results of the Crimean secession/unification vote means for the legitimacy of US Presidents and Congresscritters, since they are generally elected by a similarly minuscule percentage of the overall eligible voting population."
Not much. The minor percentage of actual support is of much lesser importance (indeed, on its own, isn't all that important at all) than the fact that it varies so greatly from the official results.

An important question to consider: is this Human Rights source credible? I know nothing about it and am casting no aspersions. I simply do not know.

Screen shot of the election result?

*50%, saying 15% just because on 30% voted is very misleading

It's not at all misleading. If 30% of Crimeans showed up to vote and half of them voted for annexation, then 15% of Crimeans voted for annexation.

Tolstoy asks a good question in turning us inward and applying the same standard to the US, but I don't think that detracts from the *serious* issue here -- that this election was a total sham, the Russians explicitly and grotesquely lied in representing the results of the election, and that the annexation of Crimea was in no way democratic or representative of Western ideals of self-determination.

Anyone who is familiar with te polling in Crimea from 1992 on and the election results (separatist parties have never cracked 5% of the vote ever, etc) and the demography of the region knew those results were fake as a three dollar bill.

30% turnout during a war at short sounds about right if no high. Strong support in Sevastopol (especially if Russian citizens were allowed to vote, and given the nudge up by not having "stay in Ukraine" on the ballot and the intimidation, harassment and kidnapping a of activists, plus the Tatar vote out together might have bumped the % vote up from the 30% range (where autonomy support has pegged for 20 years) could get nudged up to 50%. Those numbers are far more plausible than the laughable 97% figure

Barn3tt - I've looked for a source, but I can't find one. The links in the article go to English language cites that either a) Cite the Forbes article or b) are sites run by the Russian government (who kindly put it all in English for us).

There is one website with a bunch of stuff written in cyrillic that I don't understand, but I would imagine its Ukrainian. Can't find the source screenshot.

Within the article, it doesn't appear that author claims to have access to it either. That seems sketchy to me given the intense media war and the ongoing scrutiny that both sides are under.

No PSM I'm saying that the Crimeans won't truly have a choice in this election because it will be rigged. It's not hard for Putin to rig an election in an area that he has full control of.

The credibility of the Human Rights source is a good point to bring up, but considering the way Putin took it down so quickly almost can imply that it's something he doesn't want the world to know, so at least we can speculate. That being said, it's not as if Putin's election can be said to have much credibility either.

How the hell does HBO not get away with their accidental reveal from GoT episode 4, but Putin can get away with this?

Sigh, I know the answer but just venting that the Internet might be lying to me again. So far this one dude who is a professor and part-time Forbes columnist is the only one posting this information.