“Anyone who wanted to vote against him simply had to ask for an unmarked ballot — in front of an array of police officers and intelligence agents. ‘Not once in the whole day did I see someone vote against Assad,’ says Siraj, a 28-year-old Syrian military defector now living in Beirut who was helping his father run the local polling site that day by passing out ballot papers. ‘If you asked for an unmarked ballot, all eyes would be on you.’”

http://www.syriadeeply.org/articles/2014/03/4948/syria-executive-summary-327/

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