No One Is Certain Social Media Can Swing Voting Results
Romania’s decision to rerun an election because of trolls and fake accounts assumes a cause and effect that researchers say is hard to prove.
Illustration: Petra Péterffy for Bloomberg
When Romanians vote in the final round of a presidential election rerun this week, it will be just over five months since a court there annulled a previous ballot, in part over allegations of online interference. Elections have been canceled in Europe before, but Romania is the first to cancel a vote citing TikTok.
The right-wing candidate, Calin Georgescu, who secured almost a quarter of the vote in December after polling at 1% two weeks earlier, has described having his win invalidated by the constitutional court as a “coup.” Elon Musk called the situation crazy. US Vice President JD Vance said the election do-over was based on “the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency.”