Truth in Politics

[Moronist Decisions]

What's your nation's take on fact-checking and on candidates stating lies and other non-truths in campaigning? Is it legal or illegal, and if illegal, what are the consequences?

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In Moronist Decisions, all persons who make statements pertaining to governance that are by commission or omission, and through either deliberate action or negligence, make a statement that is not truthful shall have committed a crime.

Typical penalties for a first offense depends on the scale, but typically includes a combination of:

• A fine
• A note on the incident to be placed on every marking rubric and/or mandatory penalty points on the marking rubric*
• Ban on participation in governance.
• Re-education through completing 18 credit hours of continuing education in areas specified by the Faculty of the University of Moronist Decisions.

*Moronist Decisions does not have a traditional electoral process; instead, after several rounds of oral and written examinations as well as a full background check, each member of the community is invited to vote. Legally, a member of the community shall vote according to their rubric assessment unless a documented exception is made by the evaluator, with justifiable reasons. All votes not in accordance with rubric assessments, or where rubrics are applied improperly, are thrown out.

For second offenses, there is a mandatory year-long ban on participation in governance with heavier penalties. Legally, the maximum penalty is the death penalty.

[Chinese Peoples]

It is up to the people to know about the candidates and check their statements against facts and figures. They are the sovereign, after all; they are only responsible to themselves for the choices they make.

[Pompii]

In The Peoples Republic of Pompii, politicians have some restrictions on speeches. Of course, freedom of speech is still upheld, but hate speech, threats, and gossip-spreading are NOT tolerated and result in hefty fines.

[Carena]

To a certain extent. Lies demonizing China and communism are extremely common and encouraged.

[Rustanasia]

Our politics are always true. We never have liars and if we do, we kill them and burn them because they will be disgraces.

[Zehr-Brunswick]

Stretching the truth is not considered a criminal offense in Zehr-Brunswick. However, In accordance with the Royal Decree on the Integrity of Politicians, put into effect by King Heinrich I and ratified by the Koenigstag in 1949, Politicians convicted of slandering personally an opponent can be punished by a fine and subsequent disqualification from office, depending on the situation, to "Enforce the key focus of the government: to solve the ills of society and for elections to focus on the issues at hand, not the personal life of a politician" as said by His Royal Majesty at the time.

For Example, say in the past Legislative Elections of 2016, Former Chancellor Hans Reiter claimed Unemployment went down when it actually skyrocketed. This is not something the Crown or the Government would involve itself in. However, if Mr. Reiter had said something to the degree of, perhaps, Chancellor Perinot being a womanizer (which, he adamantly declares he is definitively NOT), than the fine would be settled and the disqualification made.

And by the way, of course no such situation occured this past election

[Ru-]

while outright lies from candidates are perfectly legal, we do have several independant fact checking organizations that dedicate themselves to pointing out instances where it happens for the public to consider. Ruvian voters in general really do not appreciate a candidate who makes a habit of freely and knowingly lieing to them, and Ruvian voters who are not already dedicated partisans for one of the parties would have a very hard time looking past such a habit. Often in Ruvian politics, outright lies can do more harm then good.

[Merriwhether]

Candidates caught lying- and they will be caught in the act, because all representatives' congressional voting records are publicly accessible- dig their own careers' graves. Merriwhethrans do not appreciate lies, and this is most apparent when it concerns the nation's leadership. People are forgiving about their genuine errors, but not if refusing to change their dialogue accordingly. If you breech the unwritten law against lying as a political figure you will not find yourself in a government office again except as a paper-pusher.

[Gandoor]

Lying during political campaigns is officially illegal here, although leniency is granted towards statements that are more true than false or if a candidate misspeaks and corrects themselves within an appropriate time-frame, which is currently defined as within twenty-four hours of making the original statement. (whether they do so personally or via someone involved in their campaign doesn't matter)

In a case where a candidate knowingly and deliberately states falsehoods, however, the punishment is the candidate must make a public statement where they detail what they had originally said, how this was false, and must apologize for misleading the public. The statement must be made by the candidate themselves and has to be a video broadcast that is aired on all major news stations in Gandoor. In addition, during the broadcasting of the statements, it must be made known during the entire broadcast that the candidate is apologizing for lying during the campaign.

Because of the fact that Gandoorese citizens, obviously, prefer their politicians to tell the truth and not lie to them, we feel that this punishment for lying during campaigns works better than other punishments, since if a candidate keeps lying, then they will have to keep making public statements about what they lied about, which will, hopefully, make it known to the voting public that a certain candidate may not be entirely trustworthy.

[The Intergalactic Universe Corporation]

Lying during a campaign is legal.