Reuters photographed 17 Russians voting multiple times in the presidential election - check out the crazy photos
On election day in Ust-Djeguta, Sklyarevskaya arrived just after 5:30 p.m. local time, leading a group of eight other women and one man through the gates of polling station number 216.
Larissa Tekeyeva, head of the election commission for polling station 216, said after looking at a picture of a woman in a pink coat who voted at polling stations 216 and 217: "We all have the same mentality. We all look alike."
Zukhra Chomaeva, the head election official at polling station number 217, said she could not answer for what happened outside her precinct when asked about multiple voting. "How do I know if they're the same person? They might look the same."
This woman was even photographed voting three times.
Official results released on Monday showed the three polling stations had an average turnout of 81.5% and delivered a majority for Putin of 89.86%. National turnout was 67%, according to the central election commission.
Reuters reporters used mechanical counters to count everybody who cast a ballot at the 12 polling stations they monitored from open to close on Sunday.
In some places, the discrepancies between the official count and the Reuters tally were small, with local election officials putting it down to the margin of error. But in nine of the 12 polling stations, the discrepancies were 10% or greater.
The biggest divergence, as a share of the total vote, was in polling station number 265, inside a technical college in Simferopol, Crimea. Moscow annexed the region from Ukraine four years ago.
Reuters reporters saw 797 voters at that station, while the official figures state that 1,325 people voted on the day and in person.
Asked about the discrepancy, the chairwoman of the polling station's election commission, Oksana Mediyeva, said independent monitors had watched the vote and had raised no issues.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there were established procedures for reporting election violations. "If these reports from the respected Reuters agency are backed up by corresponding statements to law enforcement agencies from the observers who were at each polling station, then it's a worry. If they are not backed up, then it does not worry us at all."
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