Moldova votes "Yes".

The amount of 50.x Vs. 49.x votes lately is too damn high.

Yeah, given what polls were saying this is shockingly close (65% yes iirc). Russian money down the toilet though so that's something.
BBC saying it'll swing further "yes" from votes yet to be counted thankfully:
Moldovan media said many of the votes yet to be counted had been cast abroad and would likely lean towards Yes, as the Moldovan diaspora is broadly in favour of closer ties with the EU.
- Interesting BBC article. At the end, it says:
  A BBC producer [at a polling station] heard a woman who had just dropped her ballot in the transparent box ask an election monitor where she would get paid.
  Outside, we asked directly whether she had been offered cash to vote and she admitted it without qualms. She was angry that a man who had sent her to the polling station was no longer answering her calls. “He tricked me!” she said.
  She would not reply when asked who she had voted for.
  Addition: BBC finds evidence of vote-buying in Moldova [video, 1 min.]
- Buying 300k votes can really swing an election. Honestly, it’s a miracle that it passed with the rampant fraud
Over issues with a broadly agreeable right answer versus the worst possible wrong answer.
Cake or death?
- It's like those tests where people get shocked badly and then grow so bored by sitting still for 15 minutes that they voluntarily shock themselves multiple times just to cure boredom.
  Except with permanent, life-altering consequences in some of these votes.
- Death by cake. Sign me up! /s
- Ehm, cake please.
- But what if the cake isnt good
  Im not sure what to choose

Just like a certain UK vote, or the US elections, or other elections around Europe: IT SHOULD NOT BE THIS CLOSE!

Massive Russian operations active in each example
And just like all of those votes, it wouldn’t be so close if it weren’t for a certain country that begins with “Russi” and ends with “a”
- While Russia certainly helped move things in one direction, both the Brits and the Americans have to take full responsibility for the messes they created, in order to get out of them. if it wasnt for Russian interference, they would still be divided, just slightly tipping the other way round.
- Disinformation sucks, but ultimately it also comes down to the individual. I get blasted by this shit on a daily basis too and I still can be reasonable where it counts.
- The Russi Brothas? They made that superhero movie right? The one with Thanus?
You could read this as a vote for alignment with Russia vs Europe, in which case I completely agree.
In another reading, it's a pretty huge decision on changeing the status quo and giving up a significant amount of sovreignity to join a powerful supranational union of states. It's not necessarily an obvious decision, and reasonable people might vote no.
I'd argue voting to enter the EU is quite different from voting to leave it, as there will usually be a chunk of relatively reasonable voters who are decently happy with the status quo and reluctant to change it.
- As I understand it, the main reasons for the EU being an issue at all in Moldova; is for more security against the Russians taking over the country, and the much needed economic help they will receive from the EU.
  Also, it might facilitate (some) future integration with Romania.
- The sovereignty thing is really overblown when you consider it in practical terms: You having the theoretical possibility to e.g. make favourable trade deals of your own is worth nothing when you don't have the trade standing to actually get those deals. And that's before you role-play as Westminster and sign anything just to be able to say that you signed something.
  For a country the size of Moldova having EU negotiators hammer out those deals is a massive win, and they understand it, because unlike the UK they don't mistake themselves for a global empire. Yes, Hungary is probably going to flood your salami market but that's a small price to pay.
  When it comes to Gaugazians OTOH I totally understand the apprehensiveness. They're already a minority within Moldova and in the EU they'd be a tiny part of a tiny part of the whole. OTOH If they think that they'd be any better off in the Russian sphere then they're delusional, the EU will actually defend their minority rights.
Shit, have you seen the western Canadian ones? Insanely close.

Great news for Moldova. Hope the Russian trolls are super pissed.

No indoor toilet 4 u Ivan!
- No worries, Putin has that covered. Thanks to a concerted effort a lot of apartments of single men should be freed up in Russia in the next months. Some of them might even have running water.

Yes for what? Ah, whether they constitutionally want to join the EU.

A BBC producer at a polling station in Transnistria relayed a first-hand account of a woman asking an election monitor where she could be paid the cash offered to her for her vote

Holy shit, Russia....

It was a referendum to make constitutional changes that would allow EU accession.
- Not allow for EU accession, the Moldovan government could’ve joined the EU without the referendum. This referendum adds a constitutional requirement for all future Moldovan governments to keep working to join the EU, to basically protect Moldova from being fucked over by a future pro Russian government
If you have a proper secret vote, then getting paid cash to vote is not a problem. The election judges just need to tell everyone that it is perfectly moral (a stronger case than just legal) to vote for something and collect the cash for voting against.
- It is a secret vote. It's up to the voter to keep it secret.
  And also, how is getting paid cash to vote not a problem? It's quite clearly voter manipulation. Are you Russian?

What's the vote about?

Making EU membership a goal in the Moldovan constitution.

50.3%, that's clooooose.

It's amazing how many big obviously consequential decisions around the world come down to a 50/50 vote lately. Have they perfected propaganda techniques that 49% of people are genetically susceptible to? Or is just that nobody knows what the hell is going on so we all decide completely at random what to believe?

There’s probably some truth in “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”
- Like when people use "average" incorrectly? (You're talking median here.)
It would be different without massive Russian interference
One of the things I read about that, is that people tend to take an "average position" between all the opinions they hear. It used to be that the opinions you'd hear would be based on serious media, and your close circles. But much of the media has gone to shit, and social media amplify crazy people because it's good for engagement. So you end up hearing about the crazy position of lore as much as about the rational one. And that does influence a lot of people.
Simulation.

Nice

That's for the presidential election. The constitutional changes vote is secure.