Navalny's supporters accuse Ksenia Sobchak's campaign of inflating its support online, but her team says it has network TV to thank

Activists from the movement “Protest Moscow” have accused Ksenia Sobchak’s presidential campaign of registering fake supporters on its website to exaggerate the candidate’s following.

Activists tracking the number of supporters’ signatures displayed on Sobchak’s website say they've observed irregularities suggesting that the campaign is cheating. On November 24, between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. in Moscow, the number of signatures jumped by more than 10,000, says “Protest Moscow.” According to data published by the movement, there’s only one other occasion on which Sobchak’s website has attracted more than a thousand new supporters in a single hour.

Representatives from the Sobchak campaign attribute the anomaly on November 24 to an episode of Vladimir Solovyov’s television show, which aired the night before, where Sobchak made her second appearance on network TV since announcing her plans to run for president.

“Our candidate specifically wore a t-shirt with the Web address [for the campaign] and called on citizens to register on the website, and we’re pleased to see that so many people responded,” said Vitaly Shklyarov, one of Sobchak’s advisors, calling the activists at Protest Moscow “a bunch of anonymous idiots.”

Ksenia Chudinova, Sobchak’s press secretary, told Meduza that the surge in registrations online demonstrates the power of television.

On October 18, television celebrity and socialite Ksenia Sobchak announced her presidential campaign. The newspaper Vedomosti first wrote about her likely candidacy in September, saying that the Kremlin facilitated Sobchak’s presidential run in order to create a “sparring partner” for Vladimir Putin, who still hasn’t formally announced that he will seek another term in office.

The “Protest Moscow” movement first made headlines in March 2017, as supporters of Alexey Navalny prepared for nationwide anti-corruption rallies on March 26. The movement openly endorses Navalny’s presidential candidacy, though Russian election officials say they will not register him due to a felony conviction and probation sentence.