Intent is important and clearly intended to suppress voters or describing your* actions as suppressing voters and continuing to do that is a clear intention to break the law and, IMO, a pretty repulsive thing to do. There are people out there who thing our democracy should work slightly differently (ranked choice, wealth based voting, removal of the electoral college) these approaches can be said to disenfranchise voters but if the motive for discussing/pushing for these changes is to make things more democratic their heart is at least in the right place. Having your heart in the wrong place and being open about it is a demonstration of a clear lack of scruples.
I'd also mention that I idealistically believe that negative campaigning is undemocratic - I strongly support movements to let third parties play a larger role in politics because when you change the question from "Us vs. Them" to "Which one of us" I think a lot of the partisan issues our country is suffering from are removed. I can accept that negative campaigning is an optimal strategy in our current political system but I think the fact that it is indicates that there's some really fundamental stuff wrong with our system. All that said, I think if you were, in isolation, to refer to negative campaigning as voter suppression then you'd be incorrect and the "fake news" label would be appropriate for being purposefully misleading.
[*] I tried to find more context around who "a senior official" was in this quote, it appears to suggest it's someone associated with CA and the campaign, and no matter who they are they're clearly in the wrong, but if it's someone not associated with CA then I'd agree this article is misleading by specifically calling out the CEO of CA.
Multiple opponents does not fix negative campaigning. Look at the Republican primaries that Trump one for an example of a very negative multi candidate campaign.
Multiple opponents reduces the strategic value of negative campaigning... but if a player begins in a position of strength or the rules of the game favor them or if the cost of negative campaigning is far lower than normal it is still possible they'll end up winning.
Intent is important and clearly intended to suppress voters or describing your* actions as suppressing voters and continuing to do that is a clear intention to break the law and, IMO, a pretty repulsive thing to do. There are people out there who thing our democracy should work slightly differently (ranked choice, wealth based voting, removal of the electoral college) these approaches can be said to disenfranchise voters but if the motive for discussing/pushing for these changes is to make things more democratic their heart is at least in the right place. Having your heart in the wrong place and being open about it is a demonstration of a clear lack of scruples.
I'd also mention that I idealistically believe that negative campaigning is undemocratic - I strongly support movements to let third parties play a larger role in politics because when you change the question from "Us vs. Them" to "Which one of us" I think a lot of the partisan issues our country is suffering from are removed. I can accept that negative campaigning is an optimal strategy in our current political system but I think the fact that it is indicates that there's some really fundamental stuff wrong with our system. All that said, I think if you were, in isolation, to refer to negative campaigning as voter suppression then you'd be incorrect and the "fake news" label would be appropriate for being purposefully misleading.
[*] I tried to find more context around who "a senior official" was in this quote, it appears to suggest it's someone associated with CA and the campaign, and no matter who they are they're clearly in the wrong, but if it's someone not associated with CA then I'd agree this article is misleading by specifically calling out the CEO of CA.