Crimean status referendum: March 16, 2014

[Zuza]

It went 99.08% in Germany, 99.75% in Austria. I guess it won't be so high here, nearly everybody worldwide has stopped getting such results, they know it doesn't look too good.

Referendums are a different case, sometimes 99% results are possible, for example, in South Sudan 98.83% voted for independence and turnout was 97.58%.

Though in Crimea such thing can't happen (providing that results aren't rigged, of course) - not because it is impossible in principle, but because of large share of ethnic Tatar and Ukrainian population.

[Zuza]

The total number of voters in Sebastopol exceeds the number of residents - not registered voters, not those of voting age, but of all residents - who had been known to live there.

No, it's not true (obviously, even if results are totally rigged, those who held and rigged referendum aren't totally dumb). Official number is 274 thousands (89.5% of total voters). But one of referendum organizers mistakenly declared that 474 thousands voted (or journalists misheard him - and then spread his statement).

[Zuza]

Recently found this pre-referendum survey: http://avaazpress.s3.amazonaws.com/558_Crimea.Referendum.Poll.GfK.pdf.

What is interesting:
1. The younger age group, the lower number of those who self-identified as Ukrainians. This means that in Crimea Russians assimilate Ukrainians, not vice versa (not very surprising taking in mind overwhelming prevalence of Russian language and Russian culture).
2. However, in the oldest age group more people voted for joining with Russia, and if option "Leave status of Crimea the same as it was before February 2014" would be available, it would be more popular in the youngest age group and less popular in the oldest one. Nothing surprising too: elder people tend to be more nostalgic of Soviet past when Russia and Crimea were parts of a single country, and many of them were even born in Russia (then RSFSR) before Crimea was transferred to Ukraine, while those whom are 18-35 years were raised or even born in independent Ukraine and relatively larger number of them are ideologically liberal (i. e. pro-Western, pro-EU and critical of Russian political regime). And share of Crimean Tatars is very low in the oldest age group, it certainly contributed too.
3. Most of those who was polled were satisfied with only 2 voting options and believed that presence of Russian troops don't influence how freely people vote.
4. Results in Sevastopol, where Russian influence always was especially strong and Crimean Tatar population is negligible, aren't as different from other Crimea as I would expect. Difference between Simferopol and Sevastopol is less than a margin of error.

Unfortunately survey don't include data by age group, it would be especially interesting.