> or whatever else was 1 inch inside the boundary and could fairly clearly be linked to the preferred candidate without "counting"
That is generally how laws work, yes. You explicitly define the exact boundaries within which people/organizations/smaller governments may operate. And they operate exactly within those boundaries.
This is why law is complicated and good lawyers make good money. Not because the system is corrupt (it might be) but because you need to draw these explicit boundaries, and then you will have people/organizations/smaller governments try to get around the spirit but follow the letter.
Boundary pushing is also risky business. There are two kinds of murky areas that exist - ones that are specifically carved out due to the letter of the law and ones that lie between the restricted and the allowed. The former case is where lawyers make really good money - the latter case is where judges reign and precedents are set... If there were a 1964 law that read something like "Sale of consulting services on the topic of banking via remote communication methods (radio, phone, television, or vision-phone) is prohibited when such communication would necessitate crossing a state boundary" then it's extremely likely that a judge would uphold the law as preventing such communication via VOIP if a tech company tried to offer such a service.
That is generally how laws work, yes. You explicitly define the exact boundaries within which people/organizations/smaller governments may operate. And they operate exactly within those boundaries.
This is why law is complicated and good lawyers make good money. Not because the system is corrupt (it might be) but because you need to draw these explicit boundaries, and then you will have people/organizations/smaller governments try to get around the spirit but follow the letter.