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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” bec

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.

tensor 2y ago
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.
- idunnoman1222 2y ago
  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!
  - tensor 2y ago
    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.
  - shermantanktop 2y ago
    Nobody ever expects the triple reverse wag-the-dog!
  - oneshtein 2y ago
    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!»
  - bmacho 2y ago
    .. 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.
  - didibus 2y ago
    > 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.
unethical_ban 2y ago
It is absurd that you are equating Chinese one-party rule with spending transparency laws and asset documentation.
- Wytwwww 2y ago
  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).
  - Retric 2y ago
    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.
    - Wytwwww 2y ago
      > 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.
      - Retric 2y ago
        I don’t actually know the specifics. I brought it up as a possible silly election law that could still be considered “fair”.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]

tensor 2y ago

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.

idunnoman1222 2y ago
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!
- tensor 2y ago
  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.
- shermantanktop 2y ago
  Nobody ever expects the triple reverse wag-the-dog!
- oneshtein 2y ago
  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!»
- bmacho 2y ago
  .. 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.
- didibus 2y ago
  > 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.

unethical_ban 2y ago

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

Wytwwww 2y ago
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).
- Retric 2y ago
  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.
  - Wytwwww 2y ago
    > 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.
    - Retric 2y ago
      I don’t actually know the specifics. I brought it up as a possible silly election law that could still be considered “fair”.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]