Ethics and truth in election advertising - 2019-08-22

Ethics and truth in election advertising August 22, 2019, Penney Kome, rabble.ca

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"Ironically, truth in advertising applies to chewing gum and beer, but not to the fundamental policy matters that affect our lives," begins Fair Vote Canada's 2019 "Backgrounder: A mechanism to address lies in political advertising."

If Fair Vote seems to be blaming deceptive ads for their 60-40 loss in the 2018 B.C. referendum on whether to switch to a proportional representation voting system, they present good evidence -- "No" side referendum ads that do seem to be misleading at best.

The ads are even worse in "No" ads from the 2011 U.K. Alternative Vote (AV) referendum. There, the "No" side launched its campaign by claiming that converting to AV would cost 250 million pounds. After the vote, they admitted they'd made up the figure. Yes, from the folks who brought us Brexit.

Wikipedia cite:

{{cite news | first = Penney | last = Kome | title = Ethics and truth in election advertising | url = http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/other-hand/2019/08/ethics-and-truth-election-advertising | work = rabble.ca | date = August 22, 2019 | accessdate = August 23, 2019 }}