It is argued that the vote-count in the 2003 Russian parliamentary election was marred by fraud. Some exit-polls and parallel recounts conducted by opposition observers showed that Yabloko crossed the 5% threshold needed for parliamentary representation, gaining 6% of the vote, which should have been translated into some 20 parliamentary seats. Vladimir Putin himself telephoned Yavlinsky on the night of the election to congratulate his party on making it back into the Duma. However, most of these polls had a high margin of error (plus or minus three percent) and only showed Yabloko obtaining seats by a tiny margin. Official results announced by the Central Election Commission gave Yabloko 4.30% of the vote and no seats on the proportional party-list system. Only four Yabloko candidates won in individual district races and were elected to the Duma.