Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable

experts and genuinely engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC

makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.

Welcome to more or less, the show that takes a closer look at the numbers in the news and in the world around us.

I'm Kate Lamble. Sunday the 18th of March

was election day in Russia, where Vladimir Putin was running for his fourth term as

president. With a limited field opposing him it seemed almost impossible

that Putin would be beaten. The real question was how many people would turn up to

cast their vote. As the day went on across the huge country in 11 different time zones,

millions of citizens headed to the polls. And so did the journalists, people like

Maria Zvette Kova, who works for Reuters.

I was a part of the team of 17 Reuters reporters who went to five Russian regions, well four Russian regions and Crimea, the next peninsula.

From 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Maria and her colleagues watched 12 different polling stations recording everyone who voted.

We were counting voters at the moment when they cast their ballots.

We had mechanical... when they

had mechanical hand counters.

Sometimes crews use it in planes to count passengers.

And then they compared their numbers to the official election turnout.

...