District 4- questionable result

[Nym90]

Ok, first off, a quote is no evidence if Fritz didn't see it. So the examples of quotes of votes for King and John are irrelevant, unless Fritz is going to testify that those votes were there.

Fritz saw Democratic Hawk's vote when the polls closed.

I did nothing illegal by reminding BRTD that there was an election. Are GOTV efforts illegal?

He did vote in the Presidential Election. His vote was the same as this, in fact, the post was edited, but not the vote, and it was allowed to stand, with people of all political persuasions agreeing that it should count. No one can give me a straight answer as to how this is different, and as to why people of ALL parties supported counting the votes then.

The post was edited, but not the vote. The vote was not edited. I hate sounding like a broken record, but....

These vile attempts to disenfranchise voters sicken me to no end. If you really want Harry to lose that badly, fine. Even if he loses, I'll know in my heart what the true result was. My conscience matters more to me than the actual result of this election.

How was Harry's previous victory invalid? Supersoulty, you of all people, who argue that Bulldog didn't deserve to win because he had much less experience than you and was much less active. M beat Harry as a write-in, when he didn't even intend to run, and never even showed up to be inaugarated!! And yet you cry foul that we didn't allow M to become a Senator when he was, at the time, not at all an active member of the Forum, and had gone weeks without posting. Are you honestly telling me that was ok? Even in this race, Harry had much more experience and has been far more active in Fantasy politics than WMS. If M had shown up to take the seat, I wouldn't have cared, but what else were we to do? Yeah, Harry lost, but the seat fell vacant because the guy who beat him, who wasn't even running, didn't show up to be inaugurated.

Now, personally, I don't care about any of that, but you were the one who brought it up as an issue in the D1 race. If M had shown up, I would have fully supported him taking the seat. Likewise, I am sure WMS will be an excellent Senator, and will quickly become very active in Fantasy politics.

Sorry, I just had to let off a little steam. It gets frustrating when people are throwing around accusations and ignoring my points completely. I apologize if my rants offend anyone, but I am very passionate about this. I apologize if I am offensive, but I don't apologize for standing up for my dearest principles.

The AFDNC is taking no official position on this manner, and Harry is not personally challenging the vote. If the voter in question wants to challenge it, he may. If not, that's fine too. It's his choice.

[Nym90]

I fully agree with what Lewis Trondheim has said, with the exception of Defarge being allowed to change his vote. I don't mind if he wants to change it, though it is perhaps a tad hypocritcal that some are applauding his decision to invalidate his vote, while saying that Democratic Hawk's vote is fraudulent when he didn't change his ballot. I realize no one is saying that Defarge's vote should actually count for Supersoulty, but at the same time, as you point out, Defarge changed his vote after it had already entered the ballot box, and everyone seems to support the vote no longer counting for Bulldog, even though the spirit of this law is to prevent voters from altering their vote after their vote has entered the figurative ballot box (since in the real world, you can't change a vote after you've cast it...something like what Defarge did would not be possible in a real world election).

As for the Senator Technicality stuff, I would fully argue that the will of the people was for Harry, though WMS may be the one who ends up winning on a technicality. It's not the end of the world, and I'm not going to stoop to the lows of mocking my fellow Senators as some other Atlasians appear fully prepared to do, but if they feel that making fun of their colleagues is good for Atlasia and advances the quality of the political discourse in our nation, that's their perogative.

Since the word technicality means
1. The quality or condition of being technical.
2. Something meaningful or relevant only to a specialist

Basically winning on a technicality means winning by the letter of the law, though not by the spirit. I feel that is what is likely to happen in the D4 race with WMS. I fully respect him and feel that he did absolutely nothing wrong, however, and even if he had, I wouldn't stoop to the lows of some of my soon to be colleagues and of certain party chairmen. I would likewise encourage all Atlasians of all parties to also avoid these insults as well, especially those of my own party.

So the debate we need to have in the Senate is this; should a voter be allowed to change (nullifying a previously valid ballot is changing your vote), his/her vote after it has already been cast? (ala Defarge) Should a voter be allowed to edit his/her post, but not change his/her vote, after it has already been cast? (ala Democratic Hawk)

Those are the questions we must debate and clear up, with regards to the law.

At this point, I personally favor getting rid of the rule altogether and allowing changing of ballots; one of the advantages of the Atlasian voting system is that, unlike in the United States, it is very easy for ballots to be changed. In the US, you can't change a ballot after it's been cast because it would be extremely difficult to do so, as the ballot box would have to be opened back up again, and besides you can't find which ballot is yours, anyway. It's just not practically possible. But in Atlasia, it's very easy, and as long as the edit time is before the time that the polls closed, it should be ok, in my opinion.

If this rule had been in effect in this election, Defarge's vote would have counted for Supersoulty, and Democratic Hawk's for Harry. As I am certain that everyone in Atlasia would agree that this was clearly the intention of these two voters as to who should receive their vote, I feel this makes sense.

[Nym90]

It would make the task of the SOFA pretty difficult, though. (Although I guess the thread might be locked at poll closing time, preventing later edits, to give the SOFA the time to count the ballots.)

Yes. As long as the moderator agrees to be online at the exact time that the polls closed, to lock the thread, it would work.

Not to mention that if a ballot was edited after poll closing, we would know it anyway. If a ballot was deleted altogether, however, we wouldn't have legal proof that it was ever there, but we would have clear eyewitness accounts. Also, we would perhaps have, in the case of Demo Hawk's vote, posts from others who quoted his post.

[Nym90]

I would support the SOFA being added as a moderator, at least over the course of an election.

As I think about it, I'm undecided on this issue. I can see your point, allowing changing of votes opens up some bad possibilities. However, I feel that something needs to be done on this, still.

My main priorities for fixing this are to ensure that newbies and non-Americans have equal access to the right to vote (let's face it, the requirement to have your state of registration in your signature makes it disproportionately more likely that non-American ballots will be tossed out, as they are almost exclusively the only people who are affected by this requirement).

[Nym90]

Well, if Fritz was willing to testify that the vote was there at the time the polls closed, I don't see why that wouldn't be enough evidence. Not to mention that many other witnesses can back him up, as well.

This is pretty much the definition of being legalistic and overly technical. You are admitting that the vote actually was there, but saying that we can't prove it. We all know it was there, and we have witnesses. In real world court cases, witnesses are plenty sufficient proof.

If someone sees a murder, but fails to catch it on video tape, is their testimony not accepted in court as valid?

I agree that the quotes are of flimsy legality, especially since they themselves could have been altered, but I highly doubt that anyone will question the eyewitness accounts of Fritz and many others.

[Nym90]

Ha, true enough.

Certainly it would be nearly impossible to not get caught, however, as the voter in question as well as others would call attention to such actions. But's it's crucial to have an unbiased moderator and you fit that description.

[Nym90]

I voted for Harry in District 4 (among with all others, being not too clear about the rules)

However, my vote was not counted because I edited it. Can I challenge this in the Supreme Court?

Dave

That's from the official voting booth, page 10.