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Comment by tlamponi | Hacker News Reader

Well, if that pro-NATO, pro-EU guy declared having spent no money on their campaign while their Face being plastered all over the place and other proof that someone spent money on a campaign for that person, and there's a law that spending and sources of money for elections must be made transparent then the election should be 100% nullified, just like here.

Feelings are one thing, but breaking laws like here cannot just be brushed of as some people having hurt their feelings.

What I do not really understand is why this hasn't been handled before the election, i.e., why was the candidate with seemingly zero monetary transparency even allowed to be on a ballot?

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There is a lot of middle ground between "brushing it off" and cancelling a whole election and throwing the choice of millions of voters to the trash.

In Spain there are violations of campaign laws all the time (and I'm talking by major traditional parties) and they are investigated, but typically the outcome is a fine, or maybe some jail time in severe cases, not invalidating a whole nation-wide election. And I suppose it's the same elsewhere because otherwise we would see news of invalidating elections left and right. Shady campaign financing is not exactly uncommon across the world.

> There is a lot of middle ground between "brushing it off" and cancelling a whole election and throwing the choice of millions of voters to the trash.

If elections are rigged, the results cannot be accepted under any circumstances. Using shady, undeclared capital in elections amounts to cheating and invites outside influence. This is a serious issue because we entrust the governance of nations to those elected by the people.

Democracy only functions if the outcomes cannot be bought. While no system is ever 100% immune to corruption, blatant disregard for election laws cannot be taken lightly.

If irregularities occur, people can vote again. Yes, redoing elections costs time and money, but if voters still choose the same leaders after understanding how they gained power, then that's democracy in action.

For me, the line is very clear because I've seen it blurred so many times in Turkey, where I come from, and I’ve witnessed the devastating consequences.

>Democracy only functions if the outcomes cannot be bought.

Then by definition absolutely every democratic country/society does not function, because guess what: It takes truly stupid amounts of money to win an election. Ergo, you need to buy the election.

Every single candidate and party and reform movement who have argued for removing money from democratic politics have all lost/failed without a single exception. You absolutely cannot win an election without money, without buying it.

The only saving grace is that the guy who spends the most money doesn't always win.

We can go on for years about how it's stupid you need money to win an election, how the amount of money is despicable, how the world is unfair. Whatever: We aren't living in ideal dreams, we're living in the brutally unfair and practical reality.

Yes, you need stupid amounts of money to win, and I see that as normal in capitalist countries given how significant winning is. However, there's also an obligation to disclose the funding sources so people can decide whether they agree with them.

Some may downplay the importance of this, but I see it as absolutely crucial.

It poisonous to say elections are “rigged” unless you can prove votes were manipulated. Otherwise you’re opening the door to wide ranging grievances to second guess election results. By your logic, the U.S. should have redone the 2020 election because U.S. intelligence agencies pressured Facebook and Twitter to suppress information that could have hurt Biden. Do you really want to open the door to claims like that?

There are a few seemingly minor details missing from the conversation above: - his support seems to have come exclusively from externally coordinated online campaigns - his support increased dramatically within the last 2 weeks before the election

Supporting point 1, remember that he declared zero campaign expenses and never explained how he ran his campaign

Regarding the second point, the urgency under which his campaign took off and the proximity to the elections allowed him to elude mass-media scrutiny. A lot of shady details were unveiled since he became popular, which arguably would've made him unpalatable for a lot of his voters

ISW has a fairly good synopsis of the findings from the Romanian secret services here: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/likely-kremlin...

If you want a comparison to the US political situation, this is not your "Twitter did something shady which bumped Trump's result by 2 percentage points"

A better translation is: Chase Oliver wins the White House! (If you wonder who that guy is, Google him - that's what Romanians had to do with CG after the election night; he was on the ballot and you didn't even know it). All while declaring zero expenses. NSA and CIA suspect foreign interference. His only campaign was on TikTok. Looked eerily similar to Ukraine, Georgia (the country) and Moldova's Russian influence campaigns. He eluded TikTok's swarming detection algorithms. He was unknown until late October - the campaign started in earnest 2 weeks before Halloween. Oh, and he actually looks like RFK jr., talks like RFK jr., just didn't have the same notoriety going into the election

> It poisonous to say elections are “rigged” unless you can prove votes were manipulated

The votes were grossly manipulated through undisclosed funding. This would cancel the results in any democratic country.

> Democracy only functions if the outcomes cannot be bought

but if a South African gave away $1M a day to support his candidate in the US, would that be foreign interference?

Is this South African also a US citizen? I think that matters.

he was an illegal immigrant, but he bought his way to citizenship. would that make a difference?

The above posts presented no evidence that the candidate or his campaign spent any money on the election. Obviously someone spent money, but why should that disqualify the candidate.

Should news media companies that report positively about one candidate or negatively about another be required to file in-kind donation reports? Can we disqualify their favored candidate if they don’t?

If we statistically see that there are a lot of social media posts for or against a candidate, should we require all social media posters to file in-kind donation reports?

If poor university students with nothing more than time and access to a photocopier be required to report in-kind donations for posting flyers?

I’m sure in any election we could and would find plenty of “unreported” donations, and if the penalty was removing the offending candidate, it would be weaponized to remove candidates from competition.

There is no “fair” distribution of information. Allowing courts to interfere in elections with the assumptions that they can remedy that fairness is a recipe for tyranny and manipulation.

The only reason courts should step in is when legally established processes related to registration and casting of ballots (objective, observable processes) are not followed correctly.

I think the problem is, you man’s it black and white.

Because 100% fair and transparent is not possible, anything should be allowed.

Democracy is not just the fact that people can vote. While manipulation always happens at some level, even between 2 human beings, I believe there should be a limit for an election to be democratic.

I also believe, based on the facts being reported here, that this candidate was far ahead in terms of manipulation.

Although, in his favour, I’d say I haven’t seen a list of facts on all the manipulation the other candidates have done so far, as I’m sure it’s not nothing.

And the theory that TikTok was in on it seems unlikely, they basically burned themselves with a lot of governments with this. I mean, every single established politician in the whole world will take note that TikTok is a threat to him or her and will throw its weight behind banning TikTok.

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