Journalist Sergei Smirnov reported in 2012 that he was offered 2,000 roubles ($70) to vote four times for Putin in the presidential election.
[4] Smirnov also reported meeting people who said that they had been paid 5,000 roubles ($170) to vote in the previous year's parliamentary elections.
[4] The Just Russia's member of State Duma Ilya Ponomarev has said that the fraud in Russia's electoral system has been created due to the initiative of local officials who wish to please their superiors: "Vladimir Putin has a system in place in which provincial authorities are obliged to hold up the result of the ruling party.
[12][13] Many other leaders of the SNS including Aleksandar Vučić, president of Serbia, acknowledged and defended bussing phantom voters as legitimate.
[16] Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and European Union expressed concern regarding the legality of the election process.