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Comment by nomoreplease | Hacker News Reader

In the Florida case it was/is a common surname, not a full name. In this Russian case, two humans changed their full name to match. Presumably paid to do so. Very different situations

Edit: in the Russian case, they also changed their appearance to match

According to a sibling comment, this strategy goes back to JohnF Kennedy at least. Except that the Russians take it to the next level

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In Florida a sham candidate with the same surname as the real candidate paid to run to siphon off votes from the real candidate. Completely different. Not at all similar. Nothing in common. Nothing to see in Florida, move along please.

OP said it happened In Florida but no name changes happened in Florida. My comment was meant to clarify, not argue in bad faith. I said “very” different not “completely different”. Nor did I argue that either should be ignored.

Whether there is a name change involved, the result is the same, to siphon off votes. That's the main thrust of the story in Russia and FL. I'd say very similar not very different.

Can we agree that OP didn't read the article and so didn't really contrast the differences and move on?

Don’t be daft. The intent and result are identical. It’s not “very” different at all. It’s nominally different at best, but almost equivalent in practice. It’s intellectual dishonesty to suggest otherwise.

Just like an App Store.

In the Russian case they also created fake parties for these fake candidates with very similar sounding names.

In the Russia case, not their full name -- notice that the patronymic is different for each of the real candidate and the two fake candidates.

It's actually good for them by the way. Since in case of the complete full match they would have needed to specify their original names before the change.

I didn't know this. It's absolutely bizarre. I wonder why Russia even bothers with elections -- it's clearly not on the bandwagon for western liberalism, which seems fair enough to me, but then why go through the motions?

> I didn't know this. It's absolutely bizarre. I wonder why Russia even bothers with elections -- it's clearly not on the bandwagon for western liberalism, which seems fair enough to me, but then why go through the motions?

Why did Stalinist Russia bother with show trials? The appearance of legitimacy is enough to give cover to people who approve of the government without wanting to own up to its dirty tricks, and to mute the voices of those who disapprove.

spectacle is important here. it’s important for Putin to claim that people chose him, he is a leader of population by choice, not force.

look at Belarus, when stuff became too obvious, people started to display dissatisfaction. That is Putin’s fear IMO.

plausible deniability? no matter how weak.

A majority of people there still support Putin.

And he knows that, but if he won the election with 60% of votes, it would show that there are other candidates or political parties with tremendous support. Yeah, they can exist and even win in different states across the country for different political roles.

Still, the idea that he wants to show to people is that he is supported by the majority and supported with overwhelming superiority in votes. He doesn't need fraud votes to win. He needs to fraud voting to show the dramatic differences in support.

It's all about image in people's heads.

> A majority of people there still support Putin.

Majority of people are afraid to say otherwise. I've watched some deadpan comedian from Lithuania do some interviews in Moscow. People face change and they immediately walk away after mentioning Putin. Of course the best question was:

"What do you think Russia would look like if Putin was homosexual?"

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