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Knoxville man to help monitor Russian election

"I just think it's important that people overseas know that we are watching, the world is watching, and that you want to have fair and honest elections."

On March 18, Russians will go to the polls to elect their next president.

Vladimir Putin is expected to win re-election, but Greg Mackay will be there to expose any possible fraud in the process.

"It doesn't really matter to me who wins the election. We want to see something that is fair and something that is honest," Mackay said. "I just think it's important that people overseas know that we are watching, the world is watching, and that you want to have fair and honest elections."

Mackay is the former Administrator of Elections in Knox County and now works as an election observer for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

He's been deployed as an observer to elections around the world.

"I've been to Kazakhstan, I've been to Albania, I've been to Macedonia twice, and I've been to Ukraine twice," MacKay said. "We look for campaign signs in the polling place, election workers obviously trying to help candidates, we're looking for family voting."

Once in Russia, he'll be part of a team monitoring polling stations, the voting, the counting of ballots and the tabulation of results. It is all part of an international effort to ensure a fair election.

In 2012, the OSCE also observed the Russian Presidential elections and found serious concerns. "The point of elections is that the outcome should be uncertain (before the votes are cast)," the organization wrote in a report following the election. "This was not the case in Russia."

Mackay will head out to Moscow in mid-March and will stay in Russia for about a week.

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