I've been trying to come up with a term to describe this phenomenon for a while now. Privatewashing, maybe?

Westerners are programmed to not accept certain things if done by the government directly. Publishing propaganda? Bad. Laundering government propaganda through private media outlets? Not a problem. Interfering with a foreign election? Bad. Sponsoring a "Private NGO" to do it? Totally fine. Foreign government influencing domestic policy? Bad. Multinational companies paying lobby groups to do the same? Democracy.

In this case, the government telling people that their votes don't count and that rules don't have to be followed would be flagrantly undemocratic. A private organization doing that though? Well we can't do anything about it even if it's directly relevant to the outcome of elections and national policy.