I feel this is kind of stretching the phrase "free and fair". The election e.g. in Venezuela earlier this year was not "free and fair" because the votes simply weren't counted and made-up tallies were published. This is not what's happening here. Here, there is no doubt that people wanted to vote a certain way and the votes were accurately counted to reflect that.

Just like the umpire at the tennis match can grant victory to player X, and then take their title away when the doping tests come back.

You don't get to use your own definition of the phrase "free and fair" here. Romanian law prescribes that political campaigns need to be transparent in source and funding. They weren't, as per the Romanian court. End of discussion.

Yes, I do.

By your argument if a country (e.g. China?) outlaws competing political parties then the rubber-stamp single-party elections are “free and fair” because they are in accordance with law. In general the whole point of a “free and fair” election is that the government can’t just change the law and rules to get the result it wants. There is an independent notion of “free and fair” election that is rightly independent of country specific law.

No. There is not. Canada also has campaign spending rules because most civilized nations recognize that equal speaking time is required for a fair election. Otherwise you can’t consider the people to be well informed.

There is no “independent notion of a free and fair election”. Personally I think your idea of a fair election is highly unfair and unethical.

All right so we just get the Russians to spend some money funding the conservative party of Canada via tiktok and then when they win the election we can say ha ha that’s illegal!

Nobody ever expects the triple reverse wag-the-dog!

The conservatives claimed precisely this about the last election, but investigators deemed the interference was not significant enough for a redo.

Foreign interference is one of the biggest threats to democracy today. I’d absolutely support a redo of an election, even if my party one, if it was found to be significant enough.

More broadly I think all democracies need to thinking about ways to handle this problem as it’s only getting worse.

IMHO, you are trying to say «if a foreign hostile nation will unlawfully influence election process in Canada, then election will be unfair, ha ha!»

.. probably yes, it would become illegal. I don't think that this is the absurdity you believe it is. It can even be the solution. If

* we want candidates to spend ~the same amount of money on campaign and

* Russia interferes

then the state, Canada or Romania, should block TikTok propaganda. What else?

Also I think that if the "same amount of campaign money" rule is proven to be wrong, and they want to go in an "anything goes" way instead, then they should redo the election, and they shouldn't accept the results with unfair conditions.

> so we just get the Russians to spend some money funding

Ya, that's illegal. If any political party conspired with a foreign state actor to get secret funding and targeted propaganda campaigns on Canadian citizens? You're ok with that?

I think you meant to say, if the foreign state actor independently without the local party conspiring with them, chose to back them up by targeting Canadians with messaging against the other parties and in support of the one they want to win, and you say that's illegal, that would seem wrong.

That I agree. But it still leaves a problem that Canadian have all been manipulated and deceived. At least if it is found out, people should know just to what extent the information they were fed was curated to them by foreign actors to influence you in aligning with their interests. And after that information comes out, if it was that a majority amount of it was, I think it would be fair to have a redo election. Now people could vote conservative again, if they assume that even with that knowledge, they still feel strongly about it.

I'd also add, for future elections, it really shouldn't be possible for foreign actors to target and curate information like that to local citizens, there needs to be safeguards of some sort.

It is absurd that you are equating Chinese one-party rule with spending transparency laws and asset documentation.

Not any more absurd than claiming that nobody has the right to challenge the definition of what "free and fair" according the laws of a specific state (regardless if one agrees with that definition or not).

The fair bit requires everyone following fair election laws.

Think of it like a game, it’s only fair if the rules are unbiased and everyone to follow them. There’s a wide range of possible rules for a fair game, but allowing one player to cheat is equivalent to unfair rules.

So sure, you can have fair elections where no candidate needs to disclose their net worth, or fair elections where everyone is registered to share their net worth, but you can’t have a fair election where some people are registered to share their net worth.

> you can’t have a fair election where some people are registered to share their net worth.

Didn't he do that? As for the election spending even if he's lying about the spending they can't prosecute and convict him without delaying the elections for many months if not more.

At this point any outcome seems like a huge failure of the Romanian electoral/political/legal systems.

I don’t actually know the specifics. I brought it up as a possible silly election law that could still be considered “fair”.

I was arguing against the specific claim that a "free and fair" election is one that is consistent with the laws of the country the election is being run in.

In fact, I think your response proves my point. What you're saying is that the specifics of the laws matter - i.e, whether or not a election is "free or fair" depend on _what_ the rules of the game are, not only on the fact that they are the rules.

His electoral campaign posts weren’t marked as electoral material. As a voter I thought they are not paid but true opinions of journalists/ influencers that I respect. It turns out that they were actually paid and not marked properly. So he broke the rules. Now I am going to change my vote.

So, you agree with the opinion stated in electoral material if it is marked as official campaign material but disagree with the same opinion if it is marked as paid marketing material?

I would like to quote Spock here: "Fascinating..."

More likely he wants paid advertising to be marked as such. For whose benefit do advertising regulations exist ?

Different person: I might give weight to the word of someone I respect, then change my mind when I find out that person wasn't saying it due to conviction but only for a payout, yes.

I completely understand and fully agree with this idea even if I still have to see one political with a strong conviction that are not paid out in a way or another.

Anyway, if the ideas illegally disseminated through this campaign material convinced the voter to choose this candidate over another, what other choice does he have ? Vote for someone that he wouldn't vote in the first place because of his opinion ?

May be I'm wrong assuming people vote for ideas and opinion...

That’s not what was said

People will vote for Hitler if you dress him nicely and make him seem to care for your personal problems (Trump die that really well).

The thing is - in a fair election media scrutiny applies to all candidates. This guy flew under the radar, so media couldn't expose him. Therefore it wasn't a fair choice people were given because the mainstream candidates all received significant more scrutiny.

I don't even think you need to dress that person nicely. The film "Look who's back" had an actor in the role of Adolf Hitler talk to random people in the street in unscripted sequences. He readily pulled them over to his side by relating to their everyday problems.

As crazy as the premise is of Hitler getting inexplicable transplanted into the 21st century, the film manages to demonstrate the appeal of these dangerous populists.