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The main issue is he declared his election campaign cost 0. Literally, that is what he declared he spent on his election campaign. The million euros for the T

The main issue is he declared his election campaign cost 0. Literally, that is what he declared he spent on his election campaign. The million euros for the TikTok & social media storm that got him elected has to have been paid by someone though, and according to law this money has to be clean and have clear sources. He does not have clear sources. Probably also does not have clean money. The source of this dirty money is what is suspected to be Russian-adjacent actors that wanted him to win.

jdasdf 2y ago
>Literally, that is what he declared he spent on his election campaign. >The million euros for the TikTok & social media storm that got him elected has to have been paid by someone though, and according to law this money has to be clean and have clear sources. What if he did indeed spend 0€ ? If i pay some money to google to run some ads for the 2 main parties, and don't report it, do they also get disqualified?
- sebastianz 2y ago
  > If i pay some money to google to run some ads for the 2 main parties, and don't report it, do they also get disqualified? If you pay money to run electoral ads, for someone's campaign, this money has to be declared, and the ads should be marked as such. In this case, neither has happened. TikTok also did not ban these bot networks as they should have according to the electoral laws, so there will be a separate investigation that I think the EU commission has started to find out why they are not complying with electoral laws in the countries they operate in.
  - jdasdf 2y ago
    I see you didn't answer the question i asked (probably because it would make it obvious how untenable your argument is), so I will ask again. If i pay some money to google to run some ads for the 2 main parties, and don't report it, do they also get disqualified?
    - sebastianz 2y ago
      I have no idea, but if you illegally want to get someone elected as president in a foreign country, I suggest talking to a very smart lawyer, not to a rando on hacker news :)
      - theultdev 2y ago
        He's not talking about getting someone elected, the inverse actually. An analogy would be buying github stars or reddit upvotes for an adversary to get them banned.
        xuhu 2y ago
        It all depends on whether the candidate asked for the help.
        theultdev 2y ago
        Okay, so where is the proof he asked for the help?
        xuhu 2y ago
        https://snoop.ro/cazul-bunelu-firma-sustinatorilor-lui-georgescu-si-legaturile-rusesti-cum-se-fac-300-de-milioane-de-euro-pe-hartie/ https://snoop.ro/cazul-bunelu-firma-sustinatorilor-lui-georg... Explains the money trail, and there's even a nice picture with one of the sovereign candidates and the Tracia Unita group who paid for the campaign.
        theultdev 2y ago
        That's not proof, it's the ramblings of a conspiracy theorist trying to put loose connections together. They even threw in a tirade about Trump to top it off. But yeah, let's throw away an entire country's election because of the ramblings of Victor Ilie. Thank God he put it all together and saved Romania. No investigation needed, he figured it out.
  - wyager 2y ago
    > If you pay money to run electoral ads, for someone's campaign, this money has to be declared, and the ads should be marked as such. Do you really think this makes sense as a justification for a court to depose a candidate, or are you just being disingenuous for rhetorical purposes? If we actually apply your logic as stated, then anyone could unilaterally "disqualify" any candidate by buying political ads on their behalf and not reporting the ads.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- TheRoque 2y ago
  How can you advertise yourself if you spent 0€ ? What genius trick is at play ? Come on, it's much more plausible there's something fishy.
  - theultdev 2y ago
    Elon companies spend $0 on traditional advertisements and only advertise through word of mouth, viral/social campaigns, etc. Many celebrities do the same as well via their social media presence.
- jltsiren 2y ago
  I don't think anyone is getting disqualified. The elections will be rerun with the same candidates, because the authorities were unable to do it properly the first time. If you pay a small amount of money for some political ads, nobody is going to care, because it obviously didn't affect the results substantially. If the amount is large enough, the situation may be different. And then both you and Google may face consequences for illegal election interference.
  - theultdev 2y ago
    So next time Russia should buy ads for the candidate they want to lose. 1. Buy ads for opposition. 2. Opposition reports invalid figures not accounting for russian ads 3. People accuse opposition of being helped by russia and misreporting funds. 4. Opposition wins, recount stays the same, courts annul it because russia. Am I missing something here?
    - jltsiren 2y ago
      You are missing two things. First, the elections will be rerun. If people think the annulment was unfair, the opposition candidate may get even more votes due to organic publicity. Second, you can't just buy ads. You must also find someone with wide enough circulation willing to show the ads. And that someone may be liable for the consequences.
      - theultdev 2y ago
        No those two things are clear to me. First, yes they will be re-ran, and it's doubtful the winning candidate will even get to run. Also, where does it end, do we keep re-running it until we get the right candidate? What if it was the candidate you voted for, how would you feel? Second, yes apparently you can, it happened. If the whole country was able to be swayed by TikTok ads but apparently no politicians noticed then they aren't very good at politicking or governing. If they noticed an issue they should have dealt with TikTok earlier. So far TikTok hasn't been held liable, only the voters who choose to vote for this candidate.
newspaper1 2y ago
Annulling the results of an election on an accounting issue is not democracy. They could prosecute him for fraud if he committed it, that's not the same as revoking the vote of the population.
- sebastianz 2y ago
  If a foreign state actor gets someone illegally elected in a separate country with dirty money, this is not an "accounting issue".
  - empiricus 2y ago
    So the next step for russia is to invest some tiktok money for the the person that would be elected anyways but they hate the most, and this way discredit that person?
    - sebastianz 2y ago
      Well hopefully they cannot do that in the future, since TikTok is also being investigated in the scandal. They are the ones who pocketed the money for the ads after all, and are required to comply with the electoral laws of the country, which they did not. (later edit: Actually probably they did not pocket the ad money, since I think the accusation is most of it was not legitimate ads, but puppet-account posts from some service. Of course, TikTok could still be be held responsible to better police these, but perhaps is not the direct destination of the money.)
  - Wytwwww 2y ago
    He only got 23% of the votes and wasn't elected yet, though. Also what can they do besides disqualifying him or delaying the elections for months(years?) until he's convicted of fraud (hopefully by that point all of his voters would have forgotten all those ads)?
- xuhu 2y ago
  If my university proves I cheated on my entry exams, I fully expect them to throw me out, before or after the first day of school.
fp64 2y ago
> The million euros for the TikTok & social media storm that got him elected I just read that it was approximately 360000 Euros paid to TikTok influencers, not millions. Doesn’t change the fact that somebody paid them, yes, but apparently not Millions. Or my source was wrong, am I missing something? EDIT Thanks for downvoting - I did not want to defend anything, I just read in an article about the court ruling that it was this number that appeared quite low to me, that’s all, I was wondering.
- miohtama 2y ago
  If you can buy presidency with 360k euros or even 1M euros on TinTok likes it reflects how bad the other candidates must be.
  - adriancr 2y ago
    or perhaps that sum is incorrect, or perhaps it was state actors with power to force algorithm changes on TikTok or to tiktok via other means without payment. external state actors interfering with elections is a perfect reason to invalidate.
    - fp64 2y ago
      That’s why I was asking. I’ve got this number from a German article on the court ruling. I do not know if this is in fact the number specified in the ruling, or whether this was a “leak”, or “misinformation”. So I was hoping somebody could elaborate a bit more as I don’t speak Romanian and haven’t really followed the whole thing, and the OP I replied to mentioned “millions” Edit: https://archive.fo/tAcG1 https://archive.fo/tAcG1 (nzz.ch paywalled) is the original source, I would argue NZZ is very trustworthy. They quote the intelligence report. You would need to translate to English. Maybe you have a different source that puts this all in question, which I would appreciate Edit2: Here’s ABC as I just ran across it, mentioning the same number https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/romanias-top-court-annuls-round-presidential-vote-won-116520580 https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/romanias-top-...
randunel 2y ago
People gathered and did all the leaflets themselves, read the private chat for Arad here: https://the5star.github.io/cgarad/messages.html https://the5star.github.io/cgarad/messages.html
- ossobuco 2y ago
  So he won with a campaign run at zero cost by volunteers? Now I understand why they won't allow him to win. It would set a dangerous precedent that you can run and win a campaign without multi-millionaire sponsorships from lobbies.
  - randunel 2y ago
    So far, I couldn't find any evidence that he received donations directly. All the bank statements and transactions that have been made public show that other people grouped together and did those things to his benefit. Old people in positions of power, the so called "Supreme Defence Council of Romania", don't really understand how web platforms work. They released an opinion, which weighs a lot tbh, as did others. But I could find actual proof that the candidate spent any money, neither did the authorities, so far. If there's anyone guilty of breaking RO electoral law, it's the volunteers in the link I posted.
  - poincaredisk 2y ago
    >It would set a dangerous precedent that you can run and win a campaign without multi-millionaire sponsorships from lobbies This is (in most cases) not a thing in Europe, generally political parties finance themselves and lobbying is illegal.

jdasdf 2y ago

>Literally, that is what he declared he spent on his election campaign. >The million euros for the TikTok & social media storm that got him elected has to have been paid by someone though, and according to law this money has to be clean and have clear sources. What if he did indeed spend 0€ ? If i pay some money to google to run some ads for the 2 main parties, and don't report it, do they also get disqualified?

sebastianz 2y ago
> If i pay some money to google to run some ads for the 2 main parties, and don't report it, do they also get disqualified? If you pay money to run electoral ads, for someone's campaign, this money has to be declared, and the ads should be marked as such. In this case, neither has happened. TikTok also did not ban these bot networks as they should have according to the electoral laws, so there will be a separate investigation that I think the EU commission has started to find out why they are not complying with electoral laws in the countries they operate in.
- jdasdf 2y ago
  I see you didn't answer the question i asked (probably because it would make it obvious how untenable your argument is), so I will ask again. If i pay some money to google to run some ads for the 2 main parties, and don't report it, do they also get disqualified?
  - sebastianz 2y ago
    I have no idea, but if you illegally want to get someone elected as president in a foreign country, I suggest talking to a very smart lawyer, not to a rando on hacker news :)
    - theultdev 2y ago
      He's not talking about getting someone elected, the inverse actually. An analogy would be buying github stars or reddit upvotes for an adversary to get them banned.
      - xuhu 2y ago
        It all depends on whether the candidate asked for the help.
        theultdev 2y ago
        Okay, so where is the proof he asked for the help?
        xuhu 2y ago
        https://snoop.ro/cazul-bunelu-firma-sustinatorilor-lui-georgescu-si-legaturile-rusesti-cum-se-fac-300-de-milioane-de-euro-pe-hartie/ https://snoop.ro/cazul-bunelu-firma-sustinatorilor-lui-georg... Explains the money trail, and there's even a nice picture with one of the sovereign candidates and the Tracia Unita group who paid for the campaign.
        theultdev 2y ago
        That's not proof, it's the ramblings of a conspiracy theorist trying to put loose connections together. They even threw in a tirade about Trump to top it off. But yeah, let's throw away an entire country's election because of the ramblings of Victor Ilie. Thank God he put it all together and saved Romania. No investigation needed, he figured it out.
- wyager 2y ago
  > If you pay money to run electoral ads, for someone's campaign, this money has to be declared, and the ads should be marked as such. Do you really think this makes sense as a justification for a court to depose a candidate, or are you just being disingenuous for rhetorical purposes? If we actually apply your logic as stated, then anyone could unilaterally "disqualify" any candidate by buying political ads on their behalf and not reporting the ads.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
TheRoque 2y ago
How can you advertise yourself if you spent 0€ ? What genius trick is at play ? Come on, it's much more plausible there's something fishy.
- theultdev 2y ago
  Elon companies spend $0 on traditional advertisements and only advertise through word of mouth, viral/social campaigns, etc. Many celebrities do the same as well via their social media presence.
jltsiren 2y ago
I don't think anyone is getting disqualified. The elections will be rerun with the same candidates, because the authorities were unable to do it properly the first time. If you pay a small amount of money for some political ads, nobody is going to care, because it obviously didn't affect the results substantially. If the amount is large enough, the situation may be different. And then both you and Google may face consequences for illegal election interference.
- theultdev 2y ago
  So next time Russia should buy ads for the candidate they want to lose. 1. Buy ads for opposition. 2. Opposition reports invalid figures not accounting for russian ads 3. People accuse opposition of being helped by russia and misreporting funds. 4. Opposition wins, recount stays the same, courts annul it because russia. Am I missing something here?
  - jltsiren 2y ago
    You are missing two things. First, the elections will be rerun. If people think the annulment was unfair, the opposition candidate may get even more votes due to organic publicity. Second, you can't just buy ads. You must also find someone with wide enough circulation willing to show the ads. And that someone may be liable for the consequences.
    - theultdev 2y ago
      No those two things are clear to me. First, yes they will be re-ran, and it's doubtful the winning candidate will even get to run. Also, where does it end, do we keep re-running it until we get the right candidate? What if it was the candidate you voted for, how would you feel? Second, yes apparently you can, it happened. If the whole country was able to be swayed by TikTok ads but apparently no politicians noticed then they aren't very good at politicking or governing. If they noticed an issue they should have dealt with TikTok earlier. So far TikTok hasn't been held liable, only the voters who choose to vote for this candidate.

newspaper1 2y ago

Annulling the results of an election on an accounting issue is not democracy. They could prosecute him for fraud if he committed it, that's not the same as revoking the vote of the population.

sebastianz 2y ago
If a foreign state actor gets someone illegally elected in a separate country with dirty money, this is not an "accounting issue".
- empiricus 2y ago
  So the next step for russia is to invest some tiktok money for the the person that would be elected anyways but they hate the most, and this way discredit that person?
  - sebastianz 2y ago
    Well hopefully they cannot do that in the future, since TikTok is also being investigated in the scandal. They are the ones who pocketed the money for the ads after all, and are required to comply with the electoral laws of the country, which they did not. (later edit: Actually probably they did not pocket the ad money, since I think the accusation is most of it was not legitimate ads, but puppet-account posts from some service. Of course, TikTok could still be be held responsible to better police these, but perhaps is not the direct destination of the money.)
- Wytwwww 2y ago
  He only got 23% of the votes and wasn't elected yet, though. Also what can they do besides disqualifying him or delaying the elections for months(years?) until he's convicted of fraud (hopefully by that point all of his voters would have forgotten all those ads)?
xuhu 2y ago
If my university proves I cheated on my entry exams, I fully expect them to throw me out, before or after the first day of school.

fp64 2y ago

> The million euros for the TikTok & social media storm that got him elected I just read that it was approximately 360000 Euros paid to TikTok influencers, not millions. Doesn’t change the fact that somebody paid them, yes, but apparently not Millions. Or my source was wrong, am I missing something? EDIT Thanks for downvoting - I did not want to defend anything, I just read in an article about the court ruling that it was this number that appeared quite low to me, that’s all, I was wondering.

miohtama 2y ago
If you can buy presidency with 360k euros or even 1M euros on TinTok likes it reflects how bad the other candidates must be.
- adriancr 2y ago
  or perhaps that sum is incorrect, or perhaps it was state actors with power to force algorithm changes on TikTok or to tiktok via other means without payment. external state actors interfering with elections is a perfect reason to invalidate.
  - fp64 2y ago
    That’s why I was asking. I’ve got this number from a German article on the court ruling. I do not know if this is in fact the number specified in the ruling, or whether this was a “leak”, or “misinformation”. So I was hoping somebody could elaborate a bit more as I don’t speak Romanian and haven’t really followed the whole thing, and the OP I replied to mentioned “millions” Edit: https://archive.fo/tAcG1 https://archive.fo/tAcG1 (nzz.ch paywalled) is the original source, I would argue NZZ is very trustworthy. They quote the intelligence report. You would need to translate to English. Maybe you have a different source that puts this all in question, which I would appreciate Edit2: Here’s ABC as I just ran across it, mentioning the same number https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/romanias-top-court-annuls-round-presidential-vote-won-116520580 https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/romanias-top-...

randunel 2y ago

People gathered and did all the leaflets themselves, read the private chat for Arad here: https://the5star.github.io/cgarad/messages.html https://the5star.github.io/cgarad/messages.html

ossobuco 2y ago
So he won with a campaign run at zero cost by volunteers? Now I understand why they won't allow him to win. It would set a dangerous precedent that you can run and win a campaign without multi-millionaire sponsorships from lobbies.
- randunel 2y ago
  So far, I couldn't find any evidence that he received donations directly. All the bank statements and transactions that have been made public show that other people grouped together and did those things to his benefit. Old people in positions of power, the so called "Supreme Defence Council of Romania", don't really understand how web platforms work. They released an opinion, which weighs a lot tbh, as did others. But I could find actual proof that the candidate spent any money, neither did the authorities, so far. If there's anyone guilty of breaking RO electoral law, it's the volunteers in the link I posted.
- poincaredisk 2y ago
  >It would set a dangerous precedent that you can run and win a campaign without multi-millionaire sponsorships from lobbies This is (in most cases) not a thing in Europe, generally political parties finance themselves and lobbying is illegal.