Similar in the UK - set up that way to stop money being able to buy elections.

Overall, election spending has been very strictly controlled.

One of the problems is recently people have being getting around this with hard to trace online campaigns - using "national funding" and effectively locally targeted online campaigns.

I'd like to see people being properly sanctioned for breaking the rules. In my view there are few things more serious than trying to subvert democracy. It shouldn't be normalized like it is in the US.