Sounds like a fair clean election
By any standards... in any world, 1st, 2nd or 3rd.
Costa Rica is to investigate whether hackers interfered with its 2014 elections. The investigation comes days after jailed hacker Andres Sepulveda claimed he had used black propaganda and other tactics in order to influence many electoral contests across Latin America over a run of eight years for 2005 until 2013. Sepulveda …
...Then Sepúlveda sure is an interesting guy! But what an insane planet we live on.... Colombian politics is even more insane! Uribe (an ex-prez) supposedly started the paramilitaries because his father was killed by the Farc. But it turns out that his father was a drug baron crook anyway... All of this set against the rigging of multiple elections over several years with ties back to a US based shady PR character...
http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-how-to-hack-an-election/
In Costa Rica elections are not digital, we use good 'ol paper and ink, vote counts are made by hand by a group of delegates, you can't hack paper and ink, that's just a wannabe "hacker" looking for attention, and leftists found a good opportunity to show how butthurt they are because they got their asses kicked on the elections results.
"and launched spam and robo-calling campaigns designed to annoy potential supporters of his political clients."
Surely to annoy supporters of the opponents?
IE: piss someone off and they may not vote for you.
I wonder if USAian politicians have worked that one out when it comes to their robocall campaigns.
-- I wonder if USAian politicians have worked that one out when it comes to their robocall campaigns. --
The short answer is "Yes". Another trick favored in the U.S., at least during the last election, was to robocall voters in neighborhoods likely to vote for the "wrong" party, claiming to be the local electoral commission, and informing them that their polling place had moved.
Plus the time-honored "boots on the ground" approach used recently in San Francisco, where helpful folks went around to retirement homes to assist in voting. "Here, let me fill tout hat mail-in ballot for you. I can drop it off, too, so you don't have to go out..."
"Another trick favored in the U.S., at least during the last election, was to robocall voters in neighborhoods likely to vote for the "wrong" party, claiming to be the local electoral commission, and informing them that their polling place had moved."
_THAT_ (actively interfering with the electoral process) should be treated the same way as terrorism and punished at least as severely, along with the culprit's political party (if traced and proven) being barred from the next few elections in the affected areas.
Karl Rove is supposed to have done these sorts of things. There was one account about how in a race (may have been a primary) involving 3 candidates, robocalls purportedly sponsored by Candidate A and attacking Candidate B were made at the same time a major sports event was being broadcast on television. Rove, of course, was working for Candidate C. Similar robocalls may have also been made late at night.
There are basically endless possibilities for undermining political opponents if you aren't worried about legal niceties.
Here in the US, a large number of the young hipster types get all their political news from the late night TV comedians. So there is a lot of Hollywood influence on our elections. Hence a few catchy sound bites substitutes for critical thinking. There are a lot of people who vote for a gender or race because critical thinking isn't as hip as following the crowds.
Ah yes, damn these young people for voting for who they like rather than making an in depth examination of the policies of all candidates. That would never have happened in the good old days.
And worst of all, they keep voting for the wrong candidate!