Bacon King v. SOFE

[TJ in Oregon]

I side with the SOFE and against this court ruling. If someone was campaigning in a voting booth the vote must be invalidated.

Given the nature of this case the people have a right to know how each member of the court voted.

They will in time. Opinions about these cases will be written in the next few days; the Court simply decided to release its verdict because of the urgency of clearing up the consequences of them, ie. filling the vacant office of president.

[windjammer]

Supreme Court of Atlasia

Nyman, DC

Bacon King vs Sofe

Majority Opinion of the Court.

(Chief Justice Windjammer delivered the  Majority opinion of the Court, supported by Fremont Justice bgwah. Northern Justice TJ will write the minority opinion of the court)

After consideration of the submitted briefs and the facts of the case, the Court has come to a divided but clear decision.

First of all, the Supreme Court would like to point out that its members unanimously agreed on sections of this ruling as noted below.

Citizen Bacon King argued in his brief that invalidating BRTD and Hashemite’s voted violated their right of free speech. Bacon King argued the constitutional right to free speech allows them to write anything they want on their ballot. The Supreme Court unanimously disagrees with Bacon King, and instead finds that the right of free speech is not so absolute as to allow literally any comment to be written in any circumstance without consequence. For instance, it doesn't give them the right to write obscenity on their ballot.

Then, Citizen Bacon King argued in his brief that the anti-campaigning clause in the election laws couldn’t be used to invalidate Hashemite and BRTD’s votes. According to him and many former RGs like Talleyrand and King, the fact they used negative terms about the VP candidate Kingpoleon cannot be considered as an act of campaigning as they didn’t ask explicitly encourage other voters to vote against him. Rpryor strongly disagreed with him as he believes that saying negative comments implicitly encourages other voters not to vote for this candidate, and thus such comments ought to be considered as an act of campaigning against him.

The Supreme Court believes the « act of campaigning » is vague enough to allow these 2 interpretations to be consistent with the literal text of the law. It is primarily the duty of the SoFE  to interpret the rules. Considering Rpryor’s interpretation of this clause isn’t invalid consistent with the literal text of the law and all relevant sections of the constitution pertaining to the implementation of the law, the Supreme Court cannot overturn his ruling based on the interpretation of the act of campaigning.

Finally, Citizen Bacon King argues in his brief that BRTD and Hashemite’s votes should be valid because according to  Article 1, Section 4 of the Fourth Constitution :

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According to Bacon King, their votes should have been counted as their account was older than 168 hours old and that the anti-campaigning provision cannot be considered a requirement for activity.

This is only on this argument containing in this ruling that the Supreme Court has been divided.  Bgwah and myself agreed with Bacon King on this while TJ disagreed with him and thus dissents from the ruling of the Court.

The majority of the Supreme Court upholds the ruling of evergreen v. rpryor :

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The anti campaigning provision cannot be considered as a requirement of activity and  is unconstitutional. As rpryor invalidated these 2 ballot based on an unconstitutional provision of the Federal Elections Law, The majority of the Supreme Court sides with Baconking,  both Hashemite and BRTD’s votes must be counted.

The Supreme Court would like to thank Bacon King and rpryor for their full cooperation and their rapidity of posting their brief.

[windjammer]

Supreme Court of Atlasia

Nyman, DC

Bacon King vs Sofe

Dissenting Opinion of Justice TJ

(Northern Justice TJ joins, in part, the majority opinion in this case written by Chief Justice Windjammer)

In the majority opinion of the Court, Justice Windjammer argues that the straightforward application of the Federal Elections Act would allow for the SoFE to invalidate the two ballots in question for campaigning in the voting booth. In this matter, the Court is in unanimous agreement.

However, in the majority opinion of the Court, Chief Justice Windjammer continues to argue that, while the Federal Elections Act itself was followed appropriately, the provision of the law granting the SoFE is itself unconstitutional. It is in this matter where the Court has erred in its majority opinion. The Court believes that the Article 1, Section 4 of the Fourth Constitution:

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disallows the invalidation of votes for reasons not specifically listed. However, this interpretation is mistaken because it fails to take into account the difference between denying the right to vote and allowing the right to vote but determining the ballot was not cast validly. The Federal Elections Act's provision concerning campaigning in the voting booth does not deny anyone the right or possibility of voting in an election, it merely says that if campaigning is done on a ballot that is cast, that ballot is invalidated. It is the difference between refusing to allow a person to cast a ballot or accepting but not counting a ballot that was invalidly marked.

If the Court were to adopt consistently the standard given in the majority opinion in this case, it would mean that no ballot can ever be counted as void for any reason other than those listed in the constitution as situations where someone can be denied the right to vote. For example, votes for fictional persons, inanimate objects, abstract ideas such as 'truth', 'justice', 'freedom', or 'love' would have to counted as valid. What would the Court rule in such a scenario if one of these votes were to win?

For these reasons, I must reject the interpretation given by the majority of the Court and ask the Senate to begin remedying the provisions here to prevent future issues from arising due to this well-intended but misguided ruling.

I therefore dissent from the majority opinion of the Court.