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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024

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only that Georgescu's campaign recieved improper (illegal?) assistance from Russian media operations.

The legal cause for the cancellation seems to be undeclared campaign funding.

At least that's what I'm getting at this point.

Is there proof that Georgescu knew that money was being spent on social media campaigns on his behalf and didn't chase down the exact amounts to report it properly? Because tbh it just kind of seems like he didn't think he was gonna win, either.

Do campaign finance statutes include provisions for cancelling elections if money is underreported? Here it's generally fines and such, not undoing the election itself.

Is there any evidence the current ruling party knew about the social media campaigning but didn't do anything about it because Georgescu is a partiless nobody and they thought he would just leech some votes off the far-right party?

Is there proof that Georgescu knew ...

If I'm reading it right, it doesn't matter if he knew or not. The law in question seems to be https://legislatie.just.ro/Public/DetaliiDocument/73672, in particular Chapter IV (Capitolul IV).

Do campaign finance statutes include provisions for cancelling elections if money is underreported?

The brief statement mentioned an article from the constitution which says basically "the elections must be held according to the law" and the law (above) says "blah blah blah prohibited". Looks like there are no specific provisions for this particular case, and it's up to the court to figure out what to do now.

My understanding is that the court decided that the election was not held according to the law, and therefore doesn't count as a valid election, and the country needs a valid election to elect a president. With no explicit shortcuts, the country now has to go through the full election procedure. Again, that's just my reading of the situation so far. The full statement from the court should, I guess, state the logic of the decision, maybe. Shrug emote.

Because tbh it just kind of seems like he didn't think he was gonna win, either.

Seems to be so, yeah.