Dead Russian Deputy Votes for Anti-Magnitsky Law

Vyacheslav K. Osipov, a governing party lawmaker, was absent on Wednesday but still cast 31 votes in the lower house of Parliament, all of them ayes. You might say he was in an agreeable mood, except that he was dead. While it was not known exactly when Mr. Osipov died, his colleagues in the Russian Parliament held a moment of silence in his memory at 5:39 p.m., a little more than an hour after he was recorded as voting in favor of banning American adoptions of Russian children (the law is intended to be one of counter-measures against the US Magnitsky Act). When Mr. Osipov’s ability to legislate from the beyond caught public attention, his allies explained that he had designated colleagues to vote on his behalf. “The Duma’s regulations allow it,” said Vyacheslav S. Timchenko, another lawmaker from United Russia.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/20/world/europe/russian-lawmaker-casts-31-aye-votes-despite-being-dead.html
http://www.echo.msk.ru/blog/barabanch/972500-echo/
http://www.lenta.ru/news/2012/12/19/osipov1/