Inks.LWC v. Registrar General homelycooking

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

May it please the Court,

I wish to file a suit against homelycooking in his official capacity as Registrar General.  Last week homelycooking announced that 25 citizens had been deregistered as a result of missing three consecutive federal elections.  I seek to challenge this on the grounds that Art. V, §2, cl. 5 states that someone must both fail to vote in an election for 6 months and miss 3 federal elections.

If the Court will hear this case, I will file a full brief.

I thank the Court for its time.

--Inks.LWC

[Oakvale]

Seen, I'll bring this up with the other Justices and we'll get back to you shortly hopefully.

[homelycooking]

I will, of course, file a brief regardless of whether the AG does or does not.

[bgwah]

Official Atlasia Supreme Court Release
Nyman, DC

Writ of Certiorari
The Atlasian Supreme Court grants certiorari to hear this case.

Schedule
Petitioner has seventy-two hours to file his brief.  It is expected no later than 5:00PM EDT on Friday, November 1, 2013.

Respondent has an additional forty-eight hours to file his brief.  It is expected no later than 5:00PM EDT on Sunday, November 3, 2013.

Amicus Briefs will be accepted until 5:00PM EDT on Friday, November 1, 2013, unless the filing party can show sufficient need.

Additional time may be granted to either party upon a showing of sufficient need.

A possible period of argument (Q&A) may be scheduled after presentation of the briefs in case any member of the Court has any questions for the parties.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Brief for the Petitioner, Inks.LWC

Facts

On October 21, 2013, Respondent Registrar General (RG) homelycooking deregistered 25 Atlasian citizens, stating, “These 25 Atlasians have missed their third consecutive federal election and are thereby deregistered”.[1] It is not disputed that the 25 citizens had missed three consecutive federal elections.

Art. V, §2, cl. 5 of the Third Constitution reads as follows:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Issues Presented

In order to be deregistered by the RG, is it necessary for a citizen to both fail to vote in elections for six months for which he was qualified to vote and miss three federal elections, not including runoffs and special elections, or can a citizen be deregistered for simply missing three consecutive federal elections?

Arguments

The respondent has claimed that because the Constitutional provision at issue here is ambiguous, he has the freedom to interpret the clause to mean that he can deregister citizens after they have missed three consecutive elections.  Quite frankly this argument is completely without logic or merit.  The respondent has argued that this clause is ambiguous, but that is not true.  It is sometimes redundant, but redundancy and ambiguity are not interchangeable.

In order to be deregistered, a voter must both miss 6 months’ worth of elections AND miss three federal elections (not including runoffs and special elections).  Someone who misses 6 months of elections will usually miss at least three federal elections, but someone who misses three federal elections will not necessarily miss 6 months of elections.  Before the Sixteenth Amendment to the Third Constitution, federal elections for initiatives (held every other month) were much less infrequent.  Now that initiative elections occur more frequently, it is often possible for someone to miss three federal elections without having missed 6 months’ worth of elections.

It is clear that the respondent’s interpretation of the Constitution is incorrect.  To deregister someone for “hav[ing] missed [his] third consecutive federal election” is clearly contrary to Art. V, §2, cl. 5.  In fact, under this clause, there is no requirement for the missed elections to be consecutive.  The sentence pertaining to three federal elections merely says, “missing three federal elections”.  The word “consecutive” is nowhere to be found.  If the respondent believes that he can ignore the first sentence of clause 5 and opt to only adhere to the second, he needs to deregister all voters who have ever missed three federal elections.  The respondent’s actions are contrary to his own argument for why he can choose which sentence to adhere to.

The respondent is also incorrect that the two sentences are contradictory or ambiguous.  Sentence two clearly only applies to “[t]he said voter”, which is referencing the voter in the first sentence—a voter who has missed six months’ worth of elections.  There is no ambiguity—merely there is sometimes redundancy.  There are occasions where there is no redundancy, and missing six months of voting will not always mean having missed three elections.

To make this clearer, I will propose the following hypothetical:
December 13-16, 2012 – Federal election in which Voter A votes.
February 14-17, 2013 – Federal election in which Voter A fails to vote.
April 19-22, 2013 – Federal election in which Voter A fails to vote.
May 24-27, 2013 – Federal election in which Voter A fails to vote.
June 20-23, 2013 – Federal election in which Voter A fails to vote.

Now, let us look at the election schedule before the Sixteenth Amendment, when it was less likely to have frequent referendum elections:
December 13-16, 2012 – Federal election in which Voter A votes.
February 14-17, 2013 – Federal election in which Voter A fails to vote.
April 19-22, 2013 – Federal election in which Voter A fails to vote.
June 20-23, 2013 – Federal election in which Voter A fails to vote.

If you interpret the sentence to mean that the period begins to run on December 16, 2012, this would mean that the six months would expire on June 16, 2013, which is a few days before the June election.  It would not be until after Voter A had failed to vote in this election (June 23, 2013), that the RG could deregister him.  When looked at from this historical perspective, it seems clear that the drafters of the Constitution intended that someone must both miss 6 months’ worth of elections AND miss three elections.  What complicates this is that the Constitution does not say that the missed elections in the second sentence must be consecutive, so if Voter A had failed to vote in the October 2012 election, he could be deregistered on June 16, 2013.

I would guess that this was an oversight by the drafters of the Constitution; however, such an oversight is not at issue here.

Conclusion

What is clear is the intention for the two sentences to be read together.  They are not contradictory, and the only ambiguity is whether the missed elections must be consecutive—ambiguity which has no bearing on this case.

I respectfully ask that this Court declare the respondent’s interpretation of the Constitution unconstitutional and hold that a voter must miss both three elections and 6 months’ worth of elections before he can be deregistered.  I further ask that all who have been deregistered have their registration reinstated.  This being said, it should be left up to the legislature to correct the problem of missing the word “consecutive”.

[sentinel]

*clap clap clap*

I'll be clapping for Homely too.

[DemPGH]

Amicus Brief of Atty. DemPGH

V.2.5 of the federal Constitution is of concern here. It spells out the registrar’s duties with regard to maintenance of the voter rolls. The question at hand is whether or not Registrar General Homelycooking had the authority to remove from the rolls those voters who missed three federal elections, and ask them to re-register. The R.G. in fact has this authority, and has performed his duties according to the letter of the law.

We need to examine two sentences in order to arrive at the conclusion that the R.G. acted properly. The first sentence says:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

If the registrar is inactive, absent, or if he or she simply chooses to do nothing about inactive voters, a voter’s registration simply becomes invalid after six months of not voting. The ramifications of that are not explained, but I assume that this is because there is no automatic process for removing people from the rolls. It’s simply, as I read it, comparable to the registration having expired as a result of inactivity, so we must presume, although the Constitution does not say so, that after six months of inactivity a voter’s “citizenship” and vote would be invalid, or so I would deduce. 

A minor issue with six months as a hard and fast rule is, what happens if that time expires between elections or right before an election? The point is, a set number of elections missed is a much better and more consistent limitation, and that is what sentence two provides.

Sentence two is less problematic. It says:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

“Said voter” is merely our hypothetical voter in question. This sentence means that the registrar does not have to wait six months to remove someone from the rolls; rather, the registrar may remove the inactive voter after three federal elections have been missed - the exceptions being noted of course. While the R.G. is not required to do this, he is authorized to do so; this, I believe, is the plaintiffs' chief misunderstanding. Some registars may enforce it, some may not, but it is the registrar's prerogative. Obviously, that the Constitution grants the registrar the authority to de-register inactive voters is to prevent the rolls from being clogged with inactive voters.

It is possible that these sentences could be transitioned between more smoothly, or more detail given with regard to the first sentence, but the law is the law, and at three missed federal elections, voters can be de-registered and asked to re-register should they wish to vote or be active citizens.

It is my belief that Homelycooking adhered to the law and it is my hope that this will be the Court’s determination.

I am available for questions, of course.

X DemPGH, Atty. At Law

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Motion to file a brief response to the amicus curiae brief.

[homelycooking]

Brief for the Respondent: Homelycooking, Registrar General of the Census Bureau of Atlasia

In fulfilling the duties of my office as Registrar General (RG) of the Census Bureau, I removed 25 Atlasian citizens from the voter rolls on October 21, 2013 in a similar manner to prior deregistrations conducted by my department. Though the Constitution does not specify the date, time or circumstances of the deregistration process, and moreover does not specify any explicit duties for the RG, and is indeed unclear in its stipulation of deregistration procedure, I claim that my action adheres to the only sensible, feasible interpretation of Atlasian law and fortifies the democratic process in Atlasia against stasis and inactivity.

The Forum Affairs Reform Act, FL 36-9, § 3, cl. 1-2 emphasizes that my two most important duties are to update the voter roll with new registrations and to remove them when required to do so by law. I follow the example of my predecessor, Hans-im-Glück, in including a column in my voter rolls indicating the number of “elections missed”, in conducting deregistrations immediately after the conclusion of a voter’s third missed election, and by employing the rationale for deregistration consistent with those actions. In doing so, I strive to make my proceedings as understandable to a newly-registered Atlasian as they are familiar to an Atlasian whose involvement in the game predates mine.

The relevant Constitutional provision to the complaint brought against me by the petitioner, Art. V, §2, cl. 5 of the Third Constitution, is intended to serve as a rule for removal of inactive Atlasian voters. It presents two different, but overlapping standards by which an individual’s inactivity is deemed worthy of removal from the voter rolls; that which I will hereafter refer to as the six months standard, contained herein: “Any registered voter who fails to vote in elections for six months for which he is qualified to vote shall have his registration no longer considered valid”, and that which I will hereafter refer to as the three elections standard, contained herein: “The said voter may only be deregistered after missing three federal elections, not including runoffs and special elections”. The intention of this constitutional provision, regardless of whether one standard or the other is intended to serve as the dependent condition for deregistration, is to cause the RG or similar officer to evaluate whether an individual has met either, both or none of these standards.

I cannot, as Registrar General, reasonably or effectively evaluate whether an individual has met the “six months” standard because its vagueness would quickly render any such attempt futile. I offer the court three reasons for why I do not consider the “six months” standard in my work.

1.   A “month” is a temporally ambiguous amount of time. The Constitution does not specify whether the phrase “for six months” refers to a period of lunar months, calendar months, some other period of time divisible into six smaller and equal – or unequal – periods of approximately 30 days, 720 hours, etc., or whether any of those six months should be considered consecutively. 

2.   The “six months” standard requires that I consider an individual’s participation or lack of participation in an undefined quantity of “elections”. Presumably, anyone who participates in a regular regional election, special regional election, Constitutional amendment referendum, regional constitutional amendment referendum, an election for an officer of a regional legislature, an election within a political party, or some other contest, official or unofficial, wherein individuals select persons or render judgment on propositions within some period of six months, would be exempt from deregistration.

3.   The “six months” standard requires that I deem any citizen’s registration to be “no longer considered valid” should the standard be met, but does not indicate whether I should remove that citizen’s registration from the voter rolls. There is an apparent difference implied, perhaps unwittingly, between possessing an invalid registration and not possessing one at all. Furthermore, Art. V, §2, cl. 3 states that “in order to vote or be a candidate in an election, a person must have been a registered voter seven days before the earliest possible commencement of the election”, but does not exclude those registered voters whose registration is not considered valid.  I do not know of any legal implications of possessing an invalid registration. Moreover, the relevant operative verb of the “six months” standard is “considered” – as in “shall have his registration no longer considered valid”. This does not require or imply action on the considerer’s part, but rather some form of mental classification.

By contrast, the “three elections” standard is noticeably clearer on all three points of ambiguity detailed above.

1.   The “three elections” standard mentions no time interval for consideration, instead requiring that an individual fail to vote in specified, countable elections for that individual to be deregistered.

2.   The “three elections” standard requires that I only consider federal elections (excepting, as the Constitution continues on to note, “special elections” and “runoffs”).

3.   The “three elections” standard mentions “deregistration”, or the act of removal or revocation of one’s registration, rather than the act of classifying an individual’s registration’s validity. 

Since the terminology and enforcement implications of these two standards are so radically different, it cannot be the case that deregistration is dependent upon a voter’s registration’s lapse into invalidity, as the petitioner claims, or vice versa. The two must be considered separately. If “the said voter” is assumed to mean “any registered voter who fails to vote in elections for six months for which he is qualified to vote” and whose registration is considered invalid, or “any registered voter who fails to vote in elections for six months for which he is qualified to vote”, or “any registered voter who fails to vote in elections for six months”, etc., then the “three elections” standard is burdened with all the vagueness and ambiguity of the “six months” standard. I therefore interpret the phrase “the said voter” to indicate any registered voter under the purview of the Census Bureau’s duties: i.e., a hypothetical voter.

I have attempted to make clear to such Atlasian voters as may be implicated by the Constitution’s syntax in the course of the prosecution of my duties that even if one discovers himself or herself to have missed three federal elections and to have been deregistered, he or she may re-register at any time, without delay or penalty, through the simple process of posting a new registration (name, state and political party affiliation, if any) in the New Register Thread. Any Atlasian interested enough to vote and participate in the game will maintain his registration – the requirements for citizenship could hardly be lower.  There is almost no harm caused by deregistration: inactive Atlasians will not notice their name being removed from the voter rolls, or will not care that it is being removed, while active Atlasians who happen to miss three federal elections will soon notice their oversight and re-register as soon as they do so.

There is, on the other hand, substantial harm caused by reinstating the registrations of those inactive Atlasians removed from the voter rolls as the petitioner requests. Doing so would cause the number of signatures needed for a citizen initiative to qualify for a federal referendum to rise above the number attained by two current initiatives and disqualify them from being placed on the ballot in the upcoming November referendum election, thus depriving Atlasia of meaningful and enriching debate on important issues as well as a chance to have one’s say in the matter as a part of a Constitutionally enshrined voting process. It is in the interest of Atlasia’s democracy that as few inactive voters remain on the rolls as necessary, for the experience of those active in Atlasian politics is enriched by bestowing a comparatively greater value upon their participation.

In conclusion, as a federal officer who interfaces with the Atlasian public regularly and serves as the de facto enforcer and implementer of laws related to voter registration, it is incumbent upon my office to present a clear, consistent and sensible standard to voters with regard to how they may be affected by the work of the Census Bureau. If I have erred in my interpretation of the Constitution in this instance – though I assert that I have not - I have not erred, as the petitioner claims, out of a malicious intent to deregister as many voters as possible. My actions and arguments demonstrate that, to the contrary, my intent is to provide clear, consistent and sensible service to the citizens and voters of Atlasia.

[Oakvale]

I have a couple of quick questions for the respondent as regards the six months standard- while you're correct that a "month' is an inherently irregular unit of time, the Constitution uses "months" without further specification or elaboration several times in defining term length and the frequency of elections. Would your contention be that those clauses are similarly unworkable?

Second, Art. 5 §2 uses the "shall no longer be considered valid" construction on two other occasions, specifically in C.2 and C.4 - are we to assume that, for example, if a user deletes their account as mentioned in C.4 that you'd argue that they're not deregistered per se, merely "no longer considered valid" as open to interpretation by the Registrar General? Is it not the case that banned users are currently removed from the voter rolls?

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Motion to file a brief response to the amicus curiae brief.

As respondent has also mentioned this, I'd again like to state that I would like to file a brief reply to respondent's and amicus curiae's briefs regarding the "the said voter" clause.

[Oakvale]

We'll allow a response, Inks. Go ahead.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Reply from the Petitioner, Inks.LWC

In both the briefs for respondent and amicus, the argument has been made that "the said voter" means "any registered voter" or a hypothetical voter.

To interpret that language as such ignores the plain language of that clause.

Black's Law Dictionary defines "said" as an adjective meaning, "Aforesaid; above-mentioned."  It also directs one to see the word "aforesaid", which it defines as "Mentioned above; referred to previously."

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines the word "the" as "used as a function word to indicate that a following noun or noun equivalent is definite or has been previously specified by context or by circumstance" in its first definition for the word.

To interpret "the said voter" to mean "any registered voter" or simply a hypothetical voter would be to ignore the definitions of both "the" and "said".  To hold that the Registrar General can apply sentence two of the clause in question without first ensuring that the requirements of clause one have been met would be an entirely illogical interpretation that butchers English language.  Under such an interpretation, a plethora of provisions of the Constitution would become completely unclear.

[homelycooking]

I have a couple of quick questions for the respondent as regards the six months standard- while you're correct that a "month' is an inherently irregular unit of time, the Constitution uses "months" without further specification or elaboration several times in defining term length and the frequency of elections. Would your contention be that those clauses are similarly unworkable?

Art. 1 §4 cl. 2 refers to calendar months (e.g. "Class A [elections] shall be held in the months of  February, June and October"), as does Art. 2 §2 cl. 1. Art. 2 §1 cl. 1 sets the Presidential/Vice Presidential term at "approximately four months", and while Art. 1 §1 cl. 1 sets the term for Senators at "four months", Art. 1 §4 cl. 7 specifies the swearing-in date for senators, thus setting the start- and end-times for Senatorial terms. None of these is as vague as the reference to "six months" in Art. 5 §2 cl. 5, since neither a start time, end time or definition of the interval is provided therein.

Second, Art. 5 §2 uses the "shall no longer be considered valid" construction on two other occasions, specifically in C.2 and C.4 - are we to assume that, for example, if a user deletes their account as mentioned in C.4 that you'd argue that they're not deregistered per se, merely "no longer considered valid" as open to interpretation by the Registrar General? Is it not the case that banned users are currently removed from the voter rolls?

I understand the Art. 5 §2 cl. 2 reference to refer to the "lapse" in one's registration caused by its no longer being valid. The Senate, in this clause, is invited to establish the parameters of invalid registration and develop it into an actionable and meaningful classification, but it has not yet done so.

Banned users are currently removed from the voter rolls per F.L. 36-14: "Any citizen who is banned from the U.S. Election Atlas forums shall immediately be de-registered and removed from the voter rolls in Atlasia". Neither Art. 5 §2 cl. 2 nor Art. 5 §2 cl. 4 applies to these people, since their deregistration is not a question of "active membership" nor of a member deleting his or her own account.

In fact, I have not knowingly encountered a case of an Atlasian citizen deleting his own account according to Art. 5 §2 cl. 4 in the two years in which I have served in RG. If I encountered one, though, I would not de-register the Atlasian in question because I believe I would have no legal grounds to do so - unless that Atlasian had also previously been banned or had also missed three elections.

[Oakvale]

Okay Homely, thanks for the timely response. No further questions from me.

[Fritz]

If I may beg the court's indulgence, please permit me to say a few words.  I speak as a former Registrar General, who lobbied the Constitutional Convention to adopt the language in the Constitution that is currently under dispute.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Let me first address the question of the second sentence.  "Three federal elections, not including runoffs and special elections" is intended to apply ONLY to those regularly scheduled elections which occur in February, April, June, August, October, and December.  No other elections are to be considered when determining if a voter should be de-registered, except that a vote cast in one of those other elections counts in the voter's favor.  By including referendum elections in the three federal elections missed, RG Homelycooking is including "special elections" which were specifically excluded.

When the second sentence is properly interpreted, there is no conflict between the first and second sentence.  A voter will have to have missed 6 months worth of elections (give or take a few days) in order to have missed three regular elections, and vice versa, given that the elections are 2 months apart.  If Voter X votes in the February election, then fails to vote in April, June, and August, as well as any intervening special elections, Voter X will have both missed 6 months worth of elections (we start counting the 6 months when the last vote is cast), as well as having missed three federal elections not counting runoffs or special elections.  There is no conflict or disagreement here, this all seems pretty clear to me.

Thank you for your time. 

[homelycooking]

I object to the consideration of Fritz's brief.

Amicus Briefs will be accepted until 5:00PM EDT on Friday, November 1, 2013, unless the filing party can show sufficient need.

[Fritz]

I will certainly understand if the court chooses to disconsider my statement, based on Homely's objection.  But I will point out that I have had extenuating circumstances preventing me from posting, which I have just discussed in a thread I call "Do NOT download Windows 8.1":

I did, and I had to do a complete system reset to my computer.  The guy at the service center I went to said they are seeing an average of one system crash a day because of Windows 8.1.  And that's just one store!  Stay away from 8.1, it doesn't work.

[homelycooking]

Doesn't the "show sufficient need" clause typically entail that the court can extend the deadline for submission if a party demonstrates that extenuating circumstances are interfering, or will interfere, with their intent to file a brief and requests an extension before the deadline passes?

With all due respect to the would-be amicus, Fritz neither submitted a brief nor requested an extension of the deadline during the period of time (7:50 PM, October 28, 2013 to 5:00 PM, November 1, 2013) in which his input would have been accepted by the Court.

[Oakvale]

While we thank Fritz for his clear enthusiasm we're afraid we can't accept briefs at this point.

The Court has reached a decision on this case and the verdict will be released shortly.

[Oakvale]

Supreme Court of Atlasia
Nyman, DC

Inks.LWC v. Registrar General homelycooking

Opinion of the Court.

(Associate Justice Oakvale delivered the unanimous opinion of the Court.)

After careful consideration of the submitted briefs and the facts of the case, the Court has come to a unanimous decision in favor of the plaintiff, Inks.LWC. The voters deregistered under the Registrar General's interpretation of Art. V, §2, cl. 5 must be immediately returned to the voter rolls.

While we have no doubt that the Registrar General acted in good faith and without malice in his actions, we do not find Constitutional grounds for discretion in applying what will hereafter be referred to as the 'six month standard' and thus find that the deregistration of voters in question was contrary to the Constitution of Atlasia.

At issue in this case is the ambiguity of a poorly-written amendment. Both Mr. DemPGH's amicus and the Registrar General's brief are quite right in criticising the vagueness of the use of "months" in the sentence outlining the standard this does not in our view mean that the standard can be ignored or applied irregularly. The confusion caused by imprecise language does not constitute an excuse to arbitrarily deregister voters.

The briefs for the respondent ask us to effectively consider the two sentences of Art. V §2, cl.5 in isolation, as totally distinct from one another. The second sentence of cl.5 reads "[t]he said voter may only be deregistered after missing three federal elections...". To interpret this as anything but a clear reference to the voter mentioned in the preceding sentence would represent an egregious display of judicial activism on our part, and the arguments to that end from the respondent are unconvincing.

Additionally unpersuasive is the attempt to draw a distinction between deregistration proper and a voter "[having] his registration no longer considered valid". Again, such an interpretation would require jettisoning context entirely. In the context of the amendment in question, it is our considered opinion that the "no longer considered valid" phrasing is little more than a failed attempt at crafting legalese rather than a significant constitutional distinction.

Art. V §2 Clause 5 of the Constitution suffers from ambiguous language and hamfisted writing, but we believe the implications are fundamentally clear. There is no reasonable case for separating the six month standard from the "three federal elections" standard, and accordingly the Registrar General erred in his purge of the voter rolls. The Court passes no judgement on the wisdom of such standards, merely recognises that they are binding.

The Court orders the immediate reinstatement of the deregistered voters.

[opebo]

I concur.

[bgwah]

I concur as well.

I tried really hard to find a reason to side with Homely, but I could not. Unfortunately we will have to face the consequences of one of Marokai Blue's "reforms" once again.