Hello, I've been called as a witness, due to my experience as Atlasia's longest serving Secretary of Forum Affairs (July 2008 - December 2009). As SoFA I presided over a similarly contentious election between Lief and PiT, held in June 2009. The result was a tie, and the rule back then was that whoever had the most first preferences won the election, so since one of PiT's voters preferenced the great Ataslian gporter first, he did not win. Anyway, the result was contentions because as SoFA I was responsible for invalidating several votes, which did admittedly advantage Lief. Of course, unlike the defendant I wasn't on the ballot. What followed was a lengthy court challenge which you can read about here: https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=98165
As you can see from the case, I took great lengths to ensure the law was upheld and to receive input from other citizens to make my decision, because I wanted to do what was fair and what was best for Atlasia.
I cannot recollect a time while I was SoFA where I disallowed a vote for campaigning, though I believe it was a law at the time. Something like that would have to be fairly egregious and well, obvious for me to believe that a ballot should be disallowed over. "Campaigning" in the true spirit of the law means something much more than what either Hashemite or BRTD have done. At the very least, let's look at the intent here. How can one campaign against the very ticket you voted for? That doesn't make any sense. The law was put in there to prevent people from unduly influencing other voters, and I do not believe that could possibly have been the intent or the result of the actions of either Hashemite or BRTD.
So to conclude, if I were the SoFA or the SoFE or whatever you guys are calling it these days, I would not have disallowed these votes. Of course, had I been running in the the election in the first place, I would have either resigned my post or had my deputy run the show and recused myself from managing election.
Thank you for time.
I have also been called as a witness, and wholeheartedly echo Earl's sentiments in his testimony. I am a former three-time Deputy Secretary of Federal Elections and Secretary of Federal Elections to boot. I have administered multiple federal elections, and worked closely with my immediate predecessor, the longest serving Secretary of Federal Elections, Homelycooking.
Campaigning is defined as "work in an organized and active way toward a particular goal, typically a political or social one". No goal, let alone "organized and active" manner was expressed in the votes cast by BRTD or Hashemite, which expressed a negative opinion of vice presidential candidate, Kingpoleon. They did not make any attempt to influence the outcome of the election, and their respective statements simply amount to harmless commentary. The idea that they were "campaigning" is further undermined by the fact that they ended up voting for the ticket of Blair/Kingpoleon.
During my tenure as SoFE or Homelycooking's before me, and as far as I am aware, those of Teddy and Earl before either of us, no votes were invalidated for "campaigning". That was a period amounting around seven years. During this time, votes with comments such as "all of these candidates are great" or "anyone but [candidate xxx]" were readily accepted, as they were not campaigning. Unless a vote quite explicitly attempts to influence the ballots of a another candidate by encouraging them to vote for or against a candidate (pursuant to the definition provided in an earlier paragraph), the vote in question should be valid.
I am afraid that allowing the (what I believe illegal) invalidation of the 2 votes in question would set quite a dangerous precedent, widely expanding the definition of what is considered "campaigning" and set quite an ambiguous standard leaving opening for abuse by future SoFEs while also straying from the provided definition of "campaigning".
In addition, I strongly believe Rpryor should have recused himself from counting the votes in an election in which he took part, or at the very least, allowed an independent party or parties to provide a recommendation on whether the votes in question should have been counted, so as to avoid any personal judgment clouding his decision.
For all these reasons, I strongly encourage the court to reinstate the validity of both the votes of BRTD and Hashemite.
Thank you.
