[dak89]

This is exactly right.

While I think it would be suboptimal you could imagine "rerun the elections if the winner breaks campaign finance law or gets support from abroad" as an established norm in western democracies, but that's not the world we live in and the EU would not accept these shenanigans from a populist right wing government.

[rayiner]

Developed countries never rerun elections because of stuff like that.

[throw_pm23]

You are wrong, the same thing happened in Austria in 2016.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Austrian_presidential_ele...

[dak89]

That’s different, the austrian example was about actual mistakes in the way votes were counted, cast, who were allowed to vote etc. Not the same as «we blame foreign bots» and someone may have broken campaign finance laws.

[throw_pm23]

No two cases are exactly the same. But annulling an election due to irregularities or campaign law violations is a possibility in any democracy.

[briandear]

Maybe they should. You can cheat all you want but as long as you win, you win. What’s the point of campaign finance laws if they can be broken with no meaningful consequence? The candidate’s campaign gets a “fine” that they pay out of campaign money anyway. But they still can win.

[araes]

This from a personal view is one of the main current issues with America.

The rules often appear to exist to punish the just and law abiding, while the unscrupulous simply ignore the laws, win their current sportball match, and then rewrite the laws afterward to legitimize whatever the results were. Really common theme with corporate America.

A lot of campaign finance laws are almost flagrantly ignored, or superficially followed, with a light slap and a candy treat afterward. Corporate laws are almost amazing when there's a fine that "actually" matters, and not just a round-off error "cost-of-doing-business." Company makes $10^11 - $10^9 revenue per year, gets a $10^7 - $10^6 fine a decade later? Right, that was like 100th to a 1000th of a single year revenue fine.

[rayiner]

Look, that’s a fine point for corporate laws. They should be rigorously enforced.

But election laws are completely different. Enforcement of election laws inherently allows unelected lawyers and judges to second guess voters. It puts the justice system above the electoral system, which is corrosive to democracy. What are the checks and balances on the people enforcing those elections laws?

[Tainnor]

It happens all the time. The US supreme court stopped a recount of the elections in Florida in 2000. In Berlin, the 2021 state elections went so wrong that they had to be repeated two years later. And so on.

[dctoedt]

> Enforcement of election laws inherently allows unelected lawyers and judges to second guess voters.

Um, legal enforcement of almost any standard allows unelected lawyers and judges to second-guess "the popular will" — for example, in buying goods and services, many people vote with their dollars for the cheapest option as opposed to quality (as airlines have learned). Without enforcement, this "revealed preference" can drive a cost-cutting race to the bottom on the part of producers — adverse impacts on society be damned (e.g., pollution and other negative externalities).

And voters, in particular, can be subject to buyer's remorse: see, e.g., the recent polling about the increase in the number of Brits who voted for Brexit and now regret it. [0]

[0] E.g., https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/politics/brexit-poll...

[rayiner]

No, they shouldn’t. Holding people liable for finance law violations can still provide signals to the public, which may affect their voting. But you can’t allow unelected criminal justice officials to override elections. That’s a path straight to hell, as has been proven time and again in Asian countries that do that.

[ImPostingOnHN]

How would you suggest they be held to account here?

Keep in mind that their ill-gotten gains include votes, and that a criminal's ill-gotten gains of a crime must be disgorged to hold the criminal to account.

[rayiner]

Voters can take it into account. But you can’t elevate legal technicalities above democracy. People will not trust the people administering the election laws over the people they voted for.

It’s a “who watches the watchers” problem. Many countries have tried to impose the legal system on elections and it invariably results in destruction of trust in both elections and the justice system.

[ImPostingOnHN]

Your suggestion that voters can take information into account is precisely what is happening here:

Prior to the election, the information was illegally kept secret, so voters couldn't take it into account.

Now, in a new election, if this candidate stops illegally hiding the information, voters will be able to take the information into account.

[soco]

Developed countries have laws which oftentimes are even applied, like exactly in this case. Some HN audience has obviously a very naive understanding of what a "law" is and that "disrespecting the law" can have consequences.

[dak89]

Yes, I think we agree!