Those reports prove the election was massively rigged by Putin’s Russian regime, because the demographics alone make such an election result quite impossible. The Ukrainians make up something on the order of more than 25 percent of the population and the Crimean Tatars more than 12 percent of the population. The ethnic Russians are fewer than 58 percent of the population. Many ethnic Russians in the Crimea were loyal to the Ukraine and wanted to have nothing to do with Putin’s autocratic Russian government. At the very most a fair election result would have seen no more than a 45 percent vote in favor of annexing to Russia, and a far more likely result would have been around 9 to 12 percent in favor of Russian annexation.
Another way of knowing with absolute certainty the voting was rigged and fraudulent is by looking at the ballots. The ballots presented the voter with only two choices. One choice was for the Crimea to declare independence from the Ukraine. The other choice was for the Crimea to declare independence from the Ukraine and request Russian to annex the Crimea to Russia. The faked vote chose to become annexed to Russia. Nowhere on the ballot was there any option to vote in favor of remaining the territory of the Ukraine.
Ukrainians and Tatars boycotted the referendum. And even if the status quo had been offered, very few voters would have chosen to stay with Ukraine. Of those who did choose the broader autonomy option, only 7% backed it.
Basically that means 9 out 10 ethnic Russian voters chose rejoining Russia, which is pretty impressive considering that ethnic Russians make up 60% of Crimean population. Anyway, I have no doubt this is the democratic desire, freely expressed, of most Crimeans.