>That only worked though because Romania is using a voting method for President that is completely terrible for countries that have several viable political parties. [...] They really need to be using something like ranked choice.

Firstly, there's many forms of elections, each with their own pros and cons, but I don't think the voting method is the core problem here.

Let's assume Norway would have the exact same system and parties like Romania. Do you think Norwegians would have been swayed by a an online ad campaign to vote a Russian puppet off tiktok to the last round?

Maybe the education level, standard of living of the population and being a high trust society, is actually what filters malicious candidates, and not some magic election method.

Secondly, what if that faulty election system, is a actually a feature and not a bug, inserted since the formation of modern Romania after the 1989 revolution, when the people from the (former) commies and securitatea(intelligence services and secret police) now still running the country but under different org names and flags, had to patch up a new constitution virtually overnight, so they made sure to create a new one where they themselves and their parties have an easier time gaming the system in their favor to always end up on top in the new democratic system, but now that backdoor is being exploited by foreign actors.