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Comment by jdasdf | Hacker News Reader

If i spend money on all the other candidates and don't declare it, will they get disqualified? Or is this a rule that only gets applied when the wrong person wins=?

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You would be in legal trouble for breaking electoral law. Based on what happened today, if there is proof that the electoral process was tainted, the elections can be annulled by the constitutional court.

>You would be in legal trouble for breaking electoral law. Based on what happened today, if there is proof that the electoral process was tainted, the elections can be annulled by the constitutional court.

So, your stance is that any foreign nation can disqualify any candidate they like by running a few ads for them?

Think seriously about what you're saying.

This is not a "stance", I'm mostly talking about the law, and that's something that judges decide on, not myself.

Foreign nations are not allowed to be involved in the electoral process in Romania by law and could lead to the annulment of the electoral process, which is what happened. The process will start again from scratch, nobody was disqualified.

Yes. That’s how it is in North America too. “A few ads” probably no, but if it’s enough to be significant then yes.

Since political advertising is and needs to be regulated, it needs to be regulated. What platform allowed the unauthorized ads to be run and who are we putting in jail? Local TV, radio and print gets held accountable, but a stick needs to be taken to foreign owned social media companies to make them acknowledge their social responsibilities.

But why would the result of the new elections be different unless they disqualify that guy? It's not like there is a way to somehow force his voters to forget the illegal ads etc.

look, the law requires this declaration of funding. There is a constitional article in which the elections must be correct. By doing this, there is an unfair situation and the corectness of the elections is no longer guaranteed. Also, there is no natural growth of a candidate from 5% to 22% in two weeks. It was a massive attack on the people minds with very well crafted messages, practically saying what the people want to hear. This is no work of a person, it points out to a state actor with such vast resources.

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