Hacker News with Generative AI: Elections

Susan Crawford Wins Wisconsin Supreme Court Race, Defying Elon Musk (nbcnews.com)
Susan Crawford has won a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, NBC News projects, allowing liberals to maintain their narrow majority on the battleground state’s highest court — and defying Elon Musk after he spent millions of dollars to oppose her.
The Democrats Are in Denial About 2024 (nytimes.com)
Last year’s election was close, despite President Trump’s hyperbolic claims about his margin of victory. Still, the Democratic Party clearly lost — and not only the presidential race. It also lost control of the Senate and failed to recapture the House of Representatives. Of the 11 governor’s races held last year, Democrats won three. In state legislature races, they won fewer than 45 percent of the seats.
France's Le Pen sentenced to jail, banned from public office (nbcnews.com)
Far-right French leader Marine Le Pen was handed a four-year prison sentence and banned from holding public office for five years by a French court Monday, in what could be the biggest setback for her political cause in a generation.
Marine Le Pen banned from running in 2027 and given four-year sentence (theguardian.com)
French far right leader barred from running for public office for five years with immediate effect after guilty verdict in trial
Marine Le Pen Barred from 2027 French Presidency Run (bloomberg.com)
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s presidential ambitions were dealt a potential death blow after she was convicted of embezzlement by a French court and barred from running in the next election in 2027.
French Court bans far-right leader Marine Le Pen from running for office (france24.com)
A French court handed far-right leader Marine Le Pen a five-year ban on running for office on embezzlement charges Monday, dashing her ambitions of standing in the 2027 presidential race unless she successfully appeals. She also received a four-year prison sentence.
Trump says 'there are methods' for seeking third term in White House (theguardian.com)
Donald Trump has said there are “methods” – if not “plans” – to circumvent the constitutional limit preventing US presidents from serving three terms.
Musk gives away $1M cheques ahead of Wisconsin's Supreme Court election (bbc.com)
Billionaire Elon Musk has given away $1m (£770,000) cheques to voters in Wisconsin after the state supreme court refused to intervene.
Turkey orders detention of Istanbul's mayor, a key rival of President Erdogan (cnn.com)
Oklahoma Proposes Teaching 2020 Election 'Discrepancies' in U.S. History (nytimes.com)
High school students in Oklahoma would be asked to identify “discrepancies” in the 2020 election as part of U.S. history classes, according to new social studies standards recently approved by the Oklahoma Board of Education.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg Pac (wikipedia.org)
RBG PAC is an American political action committee (PAC), generally regarded as a Super PAC.[1][2] It was formed on October 16, 2024, the day after it would be legally required to disclose its donors before the election. Later, it was revealed to be funded solely by the wealthiest individual in the world, Elon Musk.[3]
A top Romanian court upholds the ban on far-right Georgescu's presidential bid (apnews.com)
A top Romanian court on Tuesday rejected an appeal by far-right politician Calin Georgescu to lift a ban on his candidacy for the rerun in May of Romania’s presidential election, after the same court annulled last year’s election in which Georgescu won the first round.
Musk Seeks to Put $100M Directly into Trump Political Operation (nytimes.com)
Elon Musk has signaled to President Trump’s advisers in recent days that he wants to put $100 million into groups controlled by the Trump political operation, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.
In news deserts, Trump won in a landslide (localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu)
Donald Trump won the 2024 election with one of the smallest popular-vote margins in U.S. history, but in news deserts – counties lacking a professional source of local news – it was an avalanche.
Political Bias on X before the 2025 German Federal Election (ucd.ie)
In advance of the elections on on 23 February 2025, a team1 led by Assistant Professor Przemyslaw Grabowicz in the UCD School of Computer Science examined whether German X users would see politically balanced news feeds if they followed comparable leading politicians from each federal parliamentary party of Germany.
A 'joyful' Japan? Ishiba's slogan sparks the opposite feelings (japantimes.co.jp)
When Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba addressed parliament on Jan. 24, he sought to lay out a vision for a new Japan.
The Death of Competition in American Elections (nytimes.com)
A vast majority of 2024 races for Congress and state legislatures were decided by low-turnout or meaningless primaries. The trend is making politics more polarized and eroding public trust.
The Rise and Fall of America's Response to Foreign Election Meddling (lawfaremedia.org)
The administration is dismantling U.S. capacity against foreign interference despite the urgency of the work being done.
OpSec: Trump Dismantles Government Fight Against Foreign Influence Operations (nytimes.com)
The Trump administration is targeting government officials who had been flagging foreign interference in U.S. elections, despite continuing concerns that adversaries are stoking political and social divisions by spreading propaganda and disinformation online, current and former government officials said.
Germany: Far-right political bias ahead of federal elections in X and TikTok (techcrunch.com)
Recommendation algorithms operated by social media giants TikTok and X have shown evidence of substantial far-right political bias in Germany ahead of a federal election that takes place Sunday, according to new research carried out by Global Witness.
3.5M Voters Were Purged During 2024 Presidential Election [video] (youtube.com)
Trump and Musk can't seem to locate much evidence of fraud (msn.com)
Russia employing sophisticated DeepFakes to influence German Elections (nytimes.com)
In the first major European vote since President Trump’s re-election, influence campaigns are targeting Germany from two sides.
CISA puts election security staffers who worked with the states on leave (apnews.com)
ATLANTA (AP) — Staffers at the nation’s cybersecurity agency whose job is to ensure the security of U.S. elections have been placed on administrative leave, jeopardizing critical support provided to state and local election offices across the country.
Update on the 2024/2025 End of Term Web Archive (archive.org)
Every four years, before and after the U.S. presidential election, a team of libraries and research organizations, including the Internet Archive, work together to preserve material from U.S. government websites during the transition of administrations.
Clark County Election Analysis (electiontruthalliance.org)
German court orders X to hand over election data in legal blow to Musk's platfrm (politico.eu)
A German court handed Elon Musk’s X a legal defeat, ruling that the platform must immediately provide researchers with access to data on politically related content ahead of the country’s Feb. 23 election.
German court orders X to give data access to researchers ahead of elections (techcrunch.com)
Under European Union law, X is one of a handful of major social media platforms that has a duty to facilitate public interest researchers’ access to support the study of systemic risks — such as to elections and other democratic processes. But the Elon Musk-owned company formerly known as Twitter has been blocking civil society access to platform data, according to two civil society organizations, which on Friday secured a summary judgement against X in a Berlin regional court.
TikTok's algorithm exhibited pro-Republican bias during 2024 presidential race (psypost.org)
TikTok, a widely used social media platform with over a billion active users worldwide, has become a key source of news, particularly for younger audiences. This growing influence has raised concerns about potential political biases in its recommendation algorithm, especially during election cycles. A recent preprint study examined this issue by analyzing how TikTok’s algorithm recommends political content ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
I used Google Gemini Pro to compare party manifestos for an Indian election (github.com/shijithpk)
Collecting code and docs here related to some work on party manifestos for Delhi assembly elections in 2025.