What factors caused the countries of eastern europe to become satellite nations to the soviet union

Many of them had long historical relations with Russia due to their geographican proximity and were established before world war the second. They were worried about agressive German expansion.

When the second war started these nations drew closer.

After the war, in the Yalta conference countries involved: the United States, England and the URRS discussed how the world will look like. Stalin insisted on having a protagonic role in the reconstruction of eastern Europe specially in Poland and he promised to honor free elections.

The Allies agreed to Stalin's plan, unaware of his true intentions. With Soviet troops still occupying these Eastern European countries, Moscow sent in agents with instructions to rig elections to ensure that pro-Soviet communist governments won. These countries would look independent, but would be totally tied to the Soviet Union.

the vast majority of ballots have been counted nearly two weeks after one of the biggest political upsets in modern u.s. history catapulted donald trump to the presidency.

estimates show more than 58 percent of eligible voters went to the polls during the 2016 election, nearly breaking even with the turnout rate set during the last presidential election in 2012, even as the final tallies in states like california continue to be calculated, according to statistics collected by the u.s. elections project.

but among those figures were stark contrasts in key states that swing the election to trump — in ohio, wisconsin, iowa, michigan and elsewhere — indicating the president-elect’s leap from long-shot candidate to the most powerful political position in the world may have happened in part because of apathy toward hillary clinton’s candidacy, especially among the democratic base, several political scientists and organizations monitoring voter turnout told the pbs newshour.

while clinton is leading the popular vote by more than 1.5 million over trump as of sunday, she trails president obama’s 2012 totals by more than 2 million ballots — a chasm that may have cost her the election, said david becker, co-founder of the center for election and innovation and research.

“several million voters didn’t come out to vote,” becker said. “which is telling me that this idea of the trump wave, a huge number of voters shifting over to trump, is certainly not the story.”