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Comment by nraynaud | Hacker News Reader

I'm wondering what his take on the French system is. Basically, there is a limit on how much candidates can spend, and the State refunds the candidate (on certified expense report) if a certain score is reached during the vote. Getting money from a corporation is an offense, spending too much is an offense, cooking the books is an offense, getting undeclared money is an offense.

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I don't think anyone struggles to imagine how a better system would work. The issue is that the current Supreme Court has set strict limits on the legal regulation of campaign finance, so there are few straightforward paths to reform.

> Getting money from a corporation is an offense, spending too much is an offense, cooking the books is an offense, getting undeclared money is an offense.

FYI, the only one of those that is not a federal offense in the U.S. is spending too much.

Money is normally, needed by challengers - incumbents have a lot of advantageous including notoriety. If anything the US should make laws to enhance the challengers, not solidify incumbents.

just by the way, you get your funding refunded at about 5% of the vote, so it's not like the challengers have little access to the funding.

In Australia the Party doesn't have a limit on funding. But all funding must be declared. The government will cover the campaign funding for their portion of the primary vote. So even if you live in a safe Liberal seat. Voting for the Greens will still get the Greens some campaign money for next election.

I talked with him a couple days ago and while I didn't ask about France specifically, he basically said that "corruption" can take different forms overseas, depending on the system in place there are always indirect ways for money to exert influence. (and ways to fight it!)

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