Comment by jruohonen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jruohonen | Hacker News Reader

"Poland has a law called “election silence”. It makes it illegal for anyone currently residing within Poland to do any kind of political campaigning on Election Day or the day before. This includes making speeches, putting up posters, airing political commercials, even public posts on social media, though not private conversations or messages in non-public groups. If there's also a referendum that is only valid when a big enough quorum of voters is present, you're not even allowed to encourage people to vote, as that can impact the referendum results. This law supposedly exists to give voters a chance to make their decisions in peace, without constantly being bombarded with propaganda from all sides. Many people (often from opposing political factions) claim that the law is outdated and should be repealed, but it doesn't seem to favor one particular side over any other, so nothing has been done about it so far."

Many countries (such as, say, France) have similar laws. Sounds okay to me. So what's the issue here?

FWIW, as a Briton-turned-American, it’s always struck me as very bizarre how they start announcing results on the east coast here, while people on the west coast (not to mention Hawaii and Alaska!) are still voting. Surely it affects results?

The practice of the media predicting results based on exit polls and then everyone just treating them as if they're authoritative is equally bizarre.

The argument I've heard from some US-Americans supporting the practice is that it's not the same election - i.e. you aren't electing Joe Biden, you are electing members of the electoral college for state XXX.

That’s a really flimsy defence.

You’re not electing members of the electoral college though right? You’re electing who you want the electoral college members to vote for.

Most media waits to make calls until polls close on the west coast.

But the incremental results: we have distributed elections. For the people reporting results the election is over.

That’s just a variation of the effects of mass market elections.

If you only vote for president? There’s no reason to go to the polls in the majority of states.

The problems even worse in Australia where voting is mandatory with a fine but if you’re in Western Australia you could be “forced” to vote in an already concluded election.

That's a pretty big oversimplification.

Western Australians are voting for completely different MPs and Senators to people in other states/electorates, and even if they weren't it's a small price to pay compared to having half the country not turn up on voting day.

Agreed - what would be the harm in holding counting, or at least publishing/communicating counts, until all votes have been cast?

IMHO there's a lot of little and big things that feel quite bizarre about US democracy when compared to most others. A consequence of being both the first-ish and never having a government change.

I think it's mostly "Look at this weird Polish thing". It's funny, it's local and it pops out during last few election, so probably someone decided to share this cultural phenomena, because of the timing.

I wouldn't call it an "issue," but I haven't heard of this sort of creative skirting of the laws in other countries. Maybe it exists?

Bosnia and Herzegovina has it as well. It is called "election silence" and functions in the same way parent comment describes.

I think the question was "do you have similar ways of circumventing 'election silence'" :) ?

In Spain it's called "jornada de reflexión" (deliberation day), and there also are Twitter accounts sneakily announcing surveys and provisional results.

It seems an inevitable collision of the election silence laws which were intended for broadcast media and party campaigns being applied to Internet social media.

I think the post does not have any issue with the law itself but with the law enforcement of it in Poland.

Did you read to the end of the post?

> Many countries (such as, say, France) have similar laws.

The Indian version is called the Model Code of Conduct and it is enforced by the Election Commission of India.[1] The ECI even takes control of the bureaucratic and law and order machinery in the period leading up to the elections.

> So what's the issue here?

Typical left wing complaints about anything and everything in countries where they don't see a chance of returning to power by electoral means. If the people are not voting for them, it is obviously because the ruling party and their supporters are fascists. There can be no other reason.

These narratives are built and spread using their control of media. Their friends in the Global Left help amplify the message.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_Code_of_Conduct

Saying that media outlets are in the hands of "the global Left" borders on the delirious.

Especially when one of the chief complaints about the democratic backsliding in Poland and Hungary is precisely the encroachment on freedom of press (together with the erosion of the separation of powers).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com