It is unprecedented in the scientific community when one author (in our case this is Mikhail Filippov, a postgraduate of California Institute of Technology) is spreading all over the world a manuscript criticizing another author (in our case this is the author of the present reply), and when the other (criticized) author is unable to answer because he knows nothing about the circulating paper.

Thus, it is quite understandable that, after having known finally about the dispersed manuscript under discussion, the criticized author had written the following letter to his friend and co-author Professor Peter C. Ordeshook who was in Moscow just at that time.

II. Letter to Professor Peter C. Ordeshook, October 16, 1996

I have read the new version of the M.Filippov's and your paper (the old one, of January 19, I have seen when being in Caltech at the beginning of this year) and I am very disappointed again. But it is not the essence of your remarks which causes my dissatisfaction. I do not agree with the construction of the M.Filippov's and your paper.

It is a great pity for me that you, Peter, can't read in Russian. In all our publications we stressed constantly that the effects (or "anomalies") which we are investigating can not be considered as the proof of a fraud. But they indicate the fraud presence. Just as the deviation of the mineslaughter hand does not, of course, gives proofs of the mine presence but may indicate the mine presence only (see e.g. Sobyanin, Alexander, Edward Gel'man and Oleg Kayunov, 1993 in the list of the author's publications below).

As to the proofs of a fraud, they should be obtained from the recounting of ballots. And we had been appealing constantly in all our publications and public talks to include the procedure of the ballot recounting - at least, at a small percent of randomly chosen pooling stations - into our election laws. As a matter of fact, this our proposal was included this summer into the law "On the public control over elections" adopted by the State Duma just before presidential election. But both the President and the Federation Council have rejected this law.

We have two experimental proofs of the correctness of our methods. Just after the elections of the regional chiefs of administration in the Amur and Lipetsk regions in 1993 the ballot recounting has been performed in a number of the rayons of these regions and at the pooling stations indicated by us. And this ballot recounting gave exactly the same percentage of fraud as we predicted (see e.g. Sobyanin, A. and V.Sukhovol'skii (1995), pp. 66-71).

The appeal for recounting of ballots can be found also in my polemics with the Central Election Commission, published in "Nezavisimaya gazeta" (Sobyanin, A., 1994). It was repeated again this year in my reply to Ryabov's et al accusations (Sobyanin, A., 1996). And even my first "scandal" interview in "Izvestiya" (Vyzhutovich, Valerii, 1994) was caused by the danger of that ballots being destroyed since, according to the December 93 Presidential Decree, they had to be kept for only four months after the December 1993 election.

That's why, Peter, Misha Filippov's and your paper does not disproof our methods and says only that some other reasons may cause our anomalies beside the fraud. But we knew about these other reasons from the very beginning and wrote a lot about them.

Yours,
Sacha Sobyanin

III. The chronological list of the main author's reports, publication and interviews on the subject of fraud in Russia's elections (publications in English are marked)

Sobyanin, A., D.Yuriev and V.Sukhovol'skii (1991b), "The First Presidential Election in Russia. Volume II: Expert Conclusions on the Election Results and the Presumable Scales of Fraud for the All Russia's Regions and Rayons", Analitical Report to the President and to the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation, November 17.

Sobyanin, A., D.Yuriev and V.Sukhovol'skii (1993a), "The April 25 Referendum. Volume I: Political Results, Perspectives, Trustworthiness of Results", Analitical Report to the President of the Russian Federation, May 5.

Sobyanin, A., D.Yuriev and V.Sukhovol'skii (1993b), "The April 25 Referendum. Volume II: Expert Conclusions on the Election Results and the Presumable Scales of Fraud for the majority of the Russia's Regions and Rayons", Analitical Report to the President of the Russian Federation, May 5.

Sobyanin, A. and V.Sukhovol'skii (1994c), "The December 12 Election and Referendum. Political Results, Perspectives, Trustworthiness of Results", Analitical Report to the President of the Russian Federation, March 30.

Sobyanin, A. (1995a), "The Mystery of the December 12 Elections", Analytical Report to the State Duma Deputies, February-March.

Sobyanin, A. and V.Sukhovol'skii (1995b), "How has the Control Over Elections To Be Organized?", Evraziya Press, Moscow, pp. 1-86; see also Literaturnaya Gazeta, November 15.

Sobyanin, A. (1995h), "Fraud: Types, Scales, Geography", in "Russian Political Almanac", ed. by McFall, M. and N.Petrov, Moscow Carnegie Institute, pp.40-44.

Sobyanin, A., E. Gel'man and O. Kayunov (1994), ), "Political Climate of Russia's Regions: Voters and Deputies, 1991-1993", The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review, 21, No. 1, pp 63-84. (in English)

Sobyanin, A. and V. Sukhovol'skii (1994a), "Results of the December 12 Election and the Future Federal Election Law", East European Constitutional Review, 3, No. 1, pp 1-12. (in English)

Lubarskii, Cronid and A.Sobyanin (1995a), "The Fraud - 3", Novoye Vremya, No. 15 (2595), April, pp 6-12.

Myagkov, Mikhail and A.Sobyanin (1995), "Irregularities in the 1993 Russian Elections: Preliminary Analysis", California Institute of Technology, working paper, January 20. (in English)

Sobyanin, A. (1995f), "Two Thousands of Precinct Reports", Novoye Vremya, No. 37 (2616), September, p 11.

Sobyanin, A. (1995d), "The Mystery of the December 12 Elections", Otkrytaya Politika, 4 (6), pp 20-30.

Sobyanin, A. (1995e), "Have Democrats a Chance?" ", Otkrytaya Politika, 5 (7), pp 2-10.

Sobyanin, A. (1995h), "Parliamentary Elections in Russia at the Beginning and the End of the Century", Otkrytaya Politika, 7 (9), pp 88-91.

Lubarskii, C. and A.Sobyanin (1995b), "The Central Election Commission Bothers That Its Gunpowder Would Be Dry", Novoye Vremya, No. 36 (2715), September, pp 15-17.

Sobyanin, A. and V.Sukhovol'skii (1996a), "Landscape After the Battle", Otkrytaya Politica, 1-2 (11), pp 2-6.

Myagkov M., P. Ordeshook and A.Sobyanin (1996a), "The Russian Electorate from 1991 to 1995", California Institute of Technology, working paper, May 10. (in English).

Petrov, Nicolay and Sobyanin, A. (1996a), "Weak Candidate Filtration: A Lot of Money or A Lot of Friends", in Presidential Election in Russia", Bulletin of the, Moscow Carnegie Institute, ed. by McFall, M. and N.Petrov, No.1, pp.22-23

Sobyanin, A. (1996b), "Election Fraud and the New Law on the Public Control over Elections", in Presidential Election in Russia", Bulletin of the, Moscow Carnegie Institute, ed. by McFall, M. and N.Petrov, No.2-3, pp.20-21

Sobyanin, A. (1996c), "The 1996 Election: Struggle for the Law on the Public Control over Elections", in Presidential Election in Russia", Bulletin of the, Moscow Carnegie Institute, ed. by McFall, M. and N.Petrov, No.4-5, pp.23-24

Sobyanin, A. (1996d), "Fraud Problem in the Foregoing Election", in Presidential Election in Russia", Bulletin of the, Moscow Carnegie Institute, ed. by McFall, M. and N.Petrov, No.4-5, pp.28-32

Petrov, N. and Sobyanin, A. (1996b), "Hot Traces Thoughts", in Presidential Election in Russia", Bulletin of the, Moscow Carnegie Institute, ed. by McFall, M. and N.Petrov, No.10, pp.3-10

Sobyanin, A. (1996e), "Aces in Sleeves", Novoye Vremya, No. 24 (2653), June, pp. 8-9. [In this paper an estimate of fraud in the 1995 State Duma election is given.]

Sobyanin, A. and V.Sukhovol'skii (1996), "Fraud in the First Round of Presidential Elections", Press Bulletin of the Center of Liberal and Conservative Politics, June 24.

Myagkov M., P. Ordeshook and A.Sobyanin (1996b), "The Russian Electorate from 1991 to 1996", California Institute of Technology, working paper, October 9. (in English).

Sobyanin, A. (1994), "Whether Fraud Took Place or Not Took Place, Can Be Settled Only by Means of Ballot Recounting", Nezavisimaya gazeta, July 19. [This is the reply to the criticism of the Central Election Commission's experts.]

Sobyanin, A. (1994), "Statistics Can Not Be Abolished by the Central Election Commission Decision", Nezavisimaya gazeta, August 2. [This is the reply to the reply of the Central Election Commission's experts.]

Sobyanin, A. (1995), "On the Strategy of Democratic Forces at the Foregoing Parliamentary and Presidential Elections", Russkaya Mysl', No. 4073, April 13-19.

Sobyanin, A. (1995), "Democrats Have Yet a Chance", Izvestiya, May 23.

Sobyanin, A. (1995), "Who Don't Want Elections To Be Honest?" , Russkaya Mysl', No. 4098, October 26-November 1.

Sobyanin, A. and V.Sukhovol'skii (1995), "A Crisis Has Bursted Out in Russia - the Election One", Nevskoe Vremya, November 29.

Sobyanin, A. (1995), "If Signatures Were Collected Honestly...", Delo, November-December.

Sobyanin, A. and V.Sukhovol'skii (1995), "Democrats Have Paid To Much for Ambitions Their Leaders, Izvestiya, December 23.

Sobyanin, A. (1996), "Smoked Elections", Russkaya Mysl', No. 4128, May 30 - June 5.

Sobyanin, A. (1996), "Accusations Are Ungrounded", Nezavisimaya Gazeta, July. [The Reply to M.Filippov's and P.Ordeshook's criticism, as exposed by N.Ryabov, D.Yuriev, K.Katanian et.al.]

Sobyanin, A. (1996), "Governor Elections in Russia: Possible Outcome", Russkaya Mysl', No. 4141, September 19-25.

Lubarskii, C. (1994), "The fraud", Novoye Vremya, February.

Vyzhutovich, Valerii (1994), "The Central Election Commission Is Transforming into a Political Ministry", Izvestiya, May 4.

Sukhomlinova, Tat'ayna (1994), "Ministry of Democracy: It Does What It Likes", Rossiya, May 4-10. [This is the small but very important interview concerning the origin of the fraud in Russia's elections.]

Goldberg, Carey (1994), "Analyst's Study Cast Doubts on Vote Results", Los Angeles Times, June 3. (in English)

Chugaev, Sergey (1995), "Electronic system "Elections" Does Not Exclude Manipulations with Elections in Russia", Izvestia, February 10.

Danilov, Mikhail (1995), "It Turns Out That We Are Not Stupefied", Delo, March 27 - April 2.

Latsis, Otto (1995), "Intrigues Around Elections", Izvestiya, April 26.

Gokhman, Mikhail (1995), "Spotted Ballots", Russkaya Mysl', No. 4088, July 27 - August 2.

Helmer, John (1996), "Former Official Predicts Massive Fraud in Elections", Moscow Tribune, May 29. (in English)