SENATE BILL: Vote Sanctity Act (Law'd)

[Kaine for Senate '18]

And of course we have people like Seatown who send out misinformation about the vote editing process that leads to invalidations. If we didn't have vote editing, people would know not to edit their ballots.

No, then the misinformation will just be different.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Okay,  in that case, I found it profoundingly disturbing that instead of actually campaign for his seat, Oakvale stood idly by waiting until votes had been cast and then encouraged voters to edit the ballot at the last minute. This led to the invalidation of NVGonzalez's ballot. It seems you all agree with me that vote editing is not meant to be a campaign tactic. I understand being able to fix errors though I don't necessarily think the SoFE will have trouble determining that Mix is meant to be Nix.

Oakvale was PMing Gonzalez asking why he voted against him. His response was something to the effect of "Well, I wanted LiberalJunkie out of the regional government since his inactivity has blocked the Pacific government from moving forward." Realizing how dumb of a rationale this was, Gonzalez went to edit his vote and was literally a minute too late. He didn't deliberately wait, he was exchanging PMs with him over that 20 minutes.

And yes, the Mix/Nix thing is easy to determine intent for, but in that same vote from Smid, he accidentally voted for Marokai/Napoleon for President. He then sent me a PM after he voted saying he was happy to support me, and I pointed out to him he accidentally voted for the wrong running mate, and he fixed it within time. In that case, intent would be impossible to determine, since Smid could've easily been lying after the fact, and I would've lost a vote because of an innocent mistake. That is why we have the 20 minute editing exception.

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And our statute is sufficient in suing people for doing this already. You don't need to make the laws more restrictive when current statute can already handle stuff like this. I'm baffled at why you're not suing over this, and have instead settled for just waving it around like a smoking gun you refuse to take action on.

As for your last line. This is a forum game.

[Napoleon]

I'm not suing because its considered a crime against Atlasia, not a crime against me. That's why i appointed Bacon King to be special prosecutor. He actually knows a lot more about than I do and AG Snowball will be taking office in the Northeast very soon and won't be able to finish the case.

Now I am going to propose an amendment in the spirit of compromise because even though things have went well in the Northeast with this policy, I can understand wanting voters to be able to fix honest mistakes.

Here is a new amendment:

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[Kaine for Senate '18]

That is, if possible, even worse than your original bill.

[Napoleon]

That is, if possible, even worse than your original bill.

How is that worse? With all due respect Senator, please give us something of substance.

[Marokai Backbeat]

If you accept the rationale that people should be allowed to fix their potential mistakes, then you can't possibly seriously think 5 minutes if enough time to be alerted to them and fix them. At this point, this is tinkering for the sake of tinkering.

[Napoleon]

If you accept the rationale that people should be allowed to fix their potential mistakes, then you can't possibly seriously think 5 minutes if enough time to be alerted to them and fix them. At this point, this is tinkering for the sake of tinkering.

Five minutes is plenty of time to review and edit a post.

Do you have a solution to the problem or is all your energy going to criticizng others' solutions?

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Five minutes is plenty of time to review and edit a post.

Do you have a solution to the problem or is all your energy going to criticizng others' solutions?

Five minutes isn't time to be alerted to a mistake, and then to fix it.  And we're criticizing your solutions because there is no problem to solve.  You're offering solutions to a nonexistent problem.

[Marokai Backbeat]

If you accept the rationale that people should be allowed to fix their potential mistakes, then you can't possibly seriously think 5 minutes if enough time to be alerted to them and fix them. At this point, this is tinkering for the sake of tinkering.

Five minutes is plenty of time to review and edit a post.

Mistakes from the average voter are usually not caught by themselves, because after posting, you're then automatically directed to the board, and not your post. While we're discussing Smid, here, as our go-to example of an innocent mistake fixed by a good and studious voter, it took him 17 minutes to edit his vote, because he voted (like many people do) on a phone or tablet device, and saw his mistake only after being PMed about it.

Five minutes is not enough time to be alerted to a mistake, and fix it, unless you're on a computer, immediately check the voting booth, and fix something within seconds. Most of the time, people don't actually know they're making a mistake themselves.

[Napoleon]

Like Ben, I'm honestly not sure that there is a problem with the status quo.

And Section 2 is extremely problematic, for reasons that I mentioned in my last post:

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Why would that be considered campaigning?

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I think its fairly clear, do you see anything that could be tightened up?

I don't necessarily accept that we need time to fix mistakes, I'm simply compromising here.

[Franzl]

I don't like the 5 minute idea, seems to be compromise for the sake of compromise.

Not entirely sure whether not allowing any edits is preferable to the status quo.

[Napoleon]

Consider the following situation: Voter X just voted against Candidate Y. Candidate Y sends him a message asking "What's up?" Voter X edits his ballot within the 20-minute editing period to vote for Candidate Y.

Was Candidate Y "campaigning"? Did Candidate Y intimidate Voter X? Did Candidate Y intend to campaign or intimidate, and does intent even matter when that's what he or she was, in effect, achieving?

I don't see how that could be interpreted as campaigning.
 "Hey why didn't you vote for me, blah blah? You can sitll change your ballot!" would be campaigning.

[Napoleon]

I don't like the 5 minute idea, seems to be compromise for the sake of compromise.

Not entirely sure whether not allowing any edits is preferable to the status quo.

It probably is, but that's what was offered last time.

I'd support not allowing voter's to edit their ballot after 5 minutes, though even from there I'd be willing to come down a couple minutes.

[Marokai Backbeat]

If anything, a 5 minute time period would increase the amount of accidental invalidations because people would alert someone to a mistake, and there's a dramatically higher chance of the person not getting it in time, and editing it anyway.

[tmthforu94]

How would the Senate feel about just allowing a smaller window, perhaps 5 minutes or so?

Sometimes the server can be running slow on the forum - there have been times that I edit a post right after making it, but because the forum is slow, it may take a minute or two to process, and as a result, is shows my post as being edited.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

If anything, a 5 minute time period would increase the amount of accidental invalidations because people would alert someone to a mistake, and there's a dramatically higher chance of the person not getting it in time, and editing it anyway.

I definitely agree that a five minute time period would cause even more invalidations; a smaller window has the potential to be even worse than no window (which is still worse than the status quo).  I also think that Senator Napoleon has raised a legitimate issue concerning Atlasian elections and want to remind everyone that this is not the first time this has been an issue (Invaligate, for instance).  That said, while I am happy to discuss possible solutions to this problem, I would argue that prohibiting Atlasians from editing their votes is truly a cure worse than the disease.  Thus, I am sorry to say that I cannot vote for this bill, although I hope that it will provide us with an opportunity to have a constructive debate on how to address this issue (assuming it can be fixed without creating even worse problems, something that I am undecided about).

[Napoleon]

Contrary to the beliefs of some, I am not in the business of micromanaging the judicial branch. No reasonable judge would determine that What's Up is considered campaigning. That's an extremely unrealistic scenario Senator. I don't want this debate to get bogged down in a discussion of what is campaigning and what isn't. Campaigning here would mean the same thing it does every other time it appears in our electoral statute.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

I just don't see why this type of action is necessary. Invaligate was a problem, but that's not tied to the 20-minute window for edits. With no window for edits whatsoever, I'd argue that it actually becomes easier to perpetrate scandals like Invaligate. Once you've been an Atlasian citizen for a while, reading the pre-ballot blurb in the voting booth just doesn't really happen. We can make this change, but how many people will just assume the 20-minute window is still in effect? Also, how easy will it now be to campaign for the invalidation of votes? "Hey there, zombie voter x. You made a mistake on your ballot, but that's okay—you can edit it! "

I know that's not the best argument, but I honestly think this change will create more problems than it will solve. And to be blunt, I'm not even sure I see the problems that it's solving.

[Napoleon]

I just don't see why this type of action is necessary. Invaligate was a problem, but that's not tied to the 20-minute window for edits. With no window for edits whatsoever, I'd argue that it actually becomes easier to perpetrate scandals like Invaligate. Once you've been an Atlasian citizen for a while, reading the pre-ballot blurb in the voting booth just doesn't really happen. We can make this change, but how many people will just assume the 20-minute window is still in effect? Also, how easy will it now be to campaign for the invalidation of votes? "Hey there, zombie voter x. You made a mistake on your ballot, but that's okay—you can edit it! "

I know that's not the best argument, but I honestly think this change will create more problems than it will solve. And to be blunt, I'm not even sure I see the problems that it's solving.

Obviously the fact that votes could not be edited will have to be heavily publicized within the Voting Booth perhaps even in the thread title otherwise we would run such risks but I don't think voters are blind.

[Napoleon]

Consider the following situation: Voter X just voted against Candidate Y. Candidate Y sends him a message asking "What's up?" Voter X edits his ballot within the 20-minute editing period to vote for Candidate Y.

Was Candidate Y "campaigning"? Did Candidate Y intimidate Voter X? Did Candidate Y intend to campaign or intimidate, and does intent even matter when that's what he or she was, in effect, achieving?

I don't see how that could be interpreted as campaigning.
 "Hey why didn't you vote for me, blah blah? You can still change your ballot!" would be campaigning.

Part of my point is that in the case that I describe, Candidate Y could be campaigning. You don't need to request directly that a voter to change his or her vote to achieve that end; sometimes a delicate prod is all that is necessary.

Sure, someone could theoretically do that but it wouldn't be campaigning unless they actually, well, campaigned. Let's have a real discussion about the issue at hand, because this is just a distraction. 

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When it says "No campaigning in the voting booth" we tend to have a general consensus as to what is or is not campaigning. We have a Supreme Court with three smart individuals there that can look at the evidence of a case and determine what is or is not campaigning on their own. They don't need the Senate to serve as their legal dictionary.

With "edit", clarification is actually necessary because someone technically could edit their ballot without many noticing. For example, in the recent election Mechaman originally gave me his second preference and when I looked at the thread again Griffin was his second preference, but there was no edit tag (at that point. he went psycho later on). I didn't know if I was tripping out so I asked him if he had edited his ballot or if I was crazy (both statements could very well be true). And no, I did not campaign for him to change his candidate preference during that conversation.

If the only way to get your support for the bill is to write up a pedantic definition of what campaign is, I suppose I could but I really don't see the need for it and when you narrow something down you risk overlooking something critical.

[Oakvale]

Okay,  in that case, I found it profoundingly disturbing that instead of actually campaign for his seat, Oakvale stood idly by waiting until votes had been cast and then encouraged voters to edit the ballot at the last minute. This led to the invalidation of NVGonzalez's ballot.

Utter nonsense. Marokai explained this fairly well - I wondered why someone would have not voted for Sbane, a respected and accomplished Senator, but would vote for LiberalJunkie, whose resume was, er, less impressive, and PM'd Gonzalez to ask him about. He told me his reasons - he wanted LiberalJunkie out of the Council because he was holding up legislative progress, but then admitted it was not a good reason for voting for someone and changed his vote. The fact that it was literally a minute late was an oversight that could happen to anyone.

I also resent the accusation that I "stood idly by" "instead of campaign". I, and my informal campaign team, worked very hard in the last election - that's the only way I could overcome the sizable Liberal registration advantage. I think I quite literally PMd every voter in the Pacific other than LiberalJunkie and the handful I knew would vote against me regardless. Multiple times. I'm sure I got on some peoples' nerves for it and they'd be able to confirm.

As for the bill, I'm not convinced. I understand the rationale but I think expecting voters - most of whom in Atlasian elections are "zombies", let's be honest- to know that it'd be illegal to edit their ballot assumes more knowledge on the part of the average, disconnected voter than is realistic.

Instead, why don't we increase the sentence for campaigning for the invalidation of votes to make it much more of a deterrent? I think that'd be far more likely to get widespread support than banning the editing of votes outright. I could draw up an amendment...

All that said, I do applaud the appointment of Bacon Kingman as special prosecutor to look into the latest travesty.

[Napoleon]

You don't see anything unethical about doing your campaigning after someone has voted?

[Kaine for Senate '18]

You don't see anything unethical about doing your campaigning after someone has voted?

Nope.  You may have assumed that voter was in the bag, and now you need to reach out to them.

[Napoleon]

You don't see anything unethical about doing your campaigning after someone has voted?

Nope.  You may have assumed that voter was in the bag, and now you need to reach out to them.

So this fame is about who can be online the most on a weekend every few months to try to convince people to change their votes? Come on. I am not accusing Oakvale of anything illegal or suggesting he is a bad person for doing what he did knowing it was within our legal framework but at this point we ought to start making changes for the future. The specific example I cited is irrelevant, which is why I did not want to provide any. Its future actions I am concerned about.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

I'm not accusing you of anything.  I'm justifying campaigning after the vote is cast.