Hacking voting machines is the easiest thing in the world.
:trump-moist: :crowder-nightmare:
Sometimes, millions and millions of dollars of good ol fake news and bullshit are enough
American Prestige had an assistant professor of human development at SUNY on to talk about what went wrong - his thesis is basically that the messaging was off for the bulk of the working class where the proposed constitution's attempts at solving issues around identity and indigenous land rights/protections were amplified over basic workplace protections and rights to collective bargaining (even though the proposed constitution quietly addressed those to some degree).
Here's the interview: https://www.americanprestigepod.com/p/special-the-chilean-constitutional#details
While I think this doesn't really fully explain the outcome of the plebiscite, an analysis of the state of Chilean media and of leftist influence would probably fill in the gaps. We see similar things going on in the USA, where you either have media blackouts or 24/7 outrage-manufacturing that deflect from issues around labour and working class unity by inflaming identity issues and stoking mindless culture wars.
Under capitalism the bourgeoisie owns and controls the media and is able to astroturf organisations to speak for them.
There can be no such thing as a free democratic vote under such circumstances. All elections are rigged under capitalism.
I doubt the CIA still has the ability to pull off some big vote-rigging like that anymore, it's decaying like every other institution.
I think it's just the same thing we saw in the US with Bernie or the UK with Corbyn: most people are heavily propagandized, afraid of change and distrustful of anyone or anything who says things could be better.
Why wouldn't they have rigged the vote for Kast to win instead of Boric?
Yes, we all know that now. Hindsight is 20/20. But do you think that he represented substantially less of a threat to capital in his campaign, compared to the prospect of a new constitution that he was pushing for?
More importantly, would it make sense that they would predict Boric's weak stance, and cede momentum to the Chilean left to conserve resources for something that would have to reverse that momentum?
It's entirely reasonable to say the media environment swayed the plebiscite. I don't think any direct meddling was needed when it could all have been done indirectly.
