4 ms·

> This left the People's Party with no seats in parliament. Note that even if the Rhinoceros votes went for the peoples party the same thing would have happene

• throwdecro 5y ago
  > Note that even if the Rhinoceros votes went for the peoples party the same thing would have happened... Which is probably for the best. If this type of trickery had made a meaningful difference, the people fooled by the trick would have had some legitimate complaints. Moreover it would have really undermined the credibility of the winner, even if it wasn't their doing.
  • wussboy 5y ago
    Maybe it's a shame that nothing of consequence hinged on it. If someone was aggrieved, we're more likely to get a court case out of it and the law changed.
• a-priori 5y ago
  True, this probably didn't actually change the results, but it likely narrowed the margin in an already narrow vote.
  • gpm 5y ago
    You and I have very different understandings of the word narrow. That's 58% vs 42% just counting the votes that went to the PPC/Conservatives. 39% vs 28% looking at all the votes in the riding. The rhino candidate got less than 2% of the votes in the riding. It definitely didn't actually change the results.
    • patentatt 5y ago
      Is it possible that such a move may dissuade voters from even showing up to the polls to participate in an election that they view as a sham, or as being made a circus? It certainly doesn’t build trust in democracy.
      • gpm 5y ago
        In general I'm sure that's a possibility, and it probably occurs in the Russian case. In Canada we are quite confident in our electoral system, and this sort of shenanigans doesn't change that (or result in substantial confusion, since we clearly spell out candidates political parties - indeed I suspect most people vote based on party more than based on candidate name). I don't believe for an instant that this had a substantial effect on the PPCs voter turnout.