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Comment by mrshadowgoose | Hacker News Reader

> There's a lot of people summarizing this whole situation as "the candidate who should have won didn't so they cancelled the election".

For the record, I'm personally not thrilled by the idea that people have voted for an extremist. However, the situation you're disclaiming certainly seems to be the actual case.

The rest of your comment essentially boils down to "I think that the people who voted for him, should not have voted for him for reasons X,Y,Z"...which doesn't change the fact that people did in fact vote for him.

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You're reducing elections to voting, while it is only the final stage of a proper democratic process.

First comes the preparation of the public opinion — it is campaigning, political advertisement, debates, etc. This shapes the voting outcome.

At this stage it can be heavily influenced by foreign actors (adversaries), this is why in most countries there are laws regarding the transparency of political campaigns (funding, ads, and so on). You can't let China elect presidents in your country...

> doesn't change the fact that people did in fact vote for him

It also doesn't change the fact that if Russia didn't pour a lot of money into his campaign, he wouldn't have gotten any votes.

As far as I can tell, there is no actual evidence of foreign interference, unless you count "using a foreign app" as foreign interference. The tik-tok accounts that they speak of could have been created by anyone.

Actual evidence points to people mobilising themselves, including printing propaganda and putting it up on walls, see Arad county as an example https://the5star.github.io/cgarad/messages.html

Voting is the only thing in the democratic process. If the people are easily convinced by tictok, that's on the voters.

> Voting is the only thing in the democratic process

Voting is not the only thing. If it was, Russia or Belarus could have been considered democracies — people get to vote there (in case you didn't know). You can research why those countries are commonly considered autocracies / dictatorships, despite holding elections.

> If the people are easily convinced by tictok, that's on the voters

If people are easily addicted to heroin, is that on them by that logic? Ok maybe. Now imagine if China were smuggling heroin into the U.S. specifically to destabilize American society — would you still blame the people? Or might you consider it reasonable to fight against that?

>Russia or Belarus could have been considered democracies

People voting a way you don't like is different from fraudulent votes. Comparing the two is disingenuous.

>is that on them by that logic?

Yes.

> different from fraudulent votes

No, Putin would have won in elections even if you removed fraudulent votes (there is a fraction, but it is not at all decisive). He wins not because of it.

In those kind of countries elections are won way before the voting takes place. So the voting is just an act of the regime's legitimation and is irrelevant regarding the outcome.

No, the rest of the comment is mainly a list of crimes that are alleged to have been committed in financing the political campaign, which is the grounds for the anullment

The question remains: why did they vote for him? What was the motivation?

The ads, or matching of the fundamental values represented by him. Protest? Or something else?

Of course this is futile play with thoughs while democracy is in danger from the benefitiaries themselves (demos), apparently not knowing what and how to do with it, paid influencers and social platforms shepherding them to wherever those want. It happened before.

> The question remains: why did they vote for him? What was the motivation?

Is it typical in most democratic systems that one has to justify their vote for it to be counted? Or does that only happen when the incumbent is unhappy with the outcome?

It is good to know because of understanding. To know if there is undue influence or the problems depicted are only illusions and no reason to intervene.

A state of confusion in the victim is one of the main symptoms of information warfare, and what makes it so effective. The source and extent of the attack can never be clearly determined, and it's easy to dismiss it altogether with allegations of fear mongering, xenophobia, sore loser syndrome, etc.

We've seen this in many countries over the past several decades. The Cambridge Analytica leaks should've been enough for lawmakers around the world to realize that there's an entire industry behind these operations and to take action in the interest of national security. Yet major regulations haven't been passed, and even the proposal of a TikTok ban is highly controversial.

We're living in strange times, and I fear it's going to get much worse before it can get better.

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