Bacon King v. SOFE

[Bacon King]

Your honors before this trial commences I must request that Justice NCYankee recuse himself from this case. Thank you and I shall present my case whenever you're ready.

[Dereich]

Could you clarify the specific votes whose certification or lack of certification you wish to contest?

[Bacon King]

Could you clarify the specific votes whose certification or lack of certification you wish to contest?

The votes cast by Hashemite and BRTD were wrongfully declared invalid by the Secretary. They were erroneously considered "campaigning in the voting booth" even though any reasonable Atlasian would not recognize it as such.

The exclusion the two votes shift the results from a 62-62 tie, to a 62-60 victory for the good Secretary's own ticket.

[Bacon King]

Screenshots of the two votes in question:

[windjammer]

Thank you Mr BaconKing,
The court will decided whether to take the case or not, and we will contact you after decision has been made.

[Bacon King]

Collins English Dictionary defines "campaign" as follows:

a series of coordinated activities, such as public speaking and demonstrating, designed to achieve a social, political, or commercial goal: a presidential campaign, an advertising campaign

There is no "goal" they are promoting. There is nobody they're trying to convince. They're simply making commentary about the running mate choice of the ticket that they personally voted for. How could it possibly be "campaigning" if they are criticizing the ticket they're supporting? To be campaigning in the voting booth, wouldn't they have to be saying something positive about the ticket they support, or something negative about the ticket they are voting against?

There is no goal they were hoping to achieve with their ballot commentary, therefore it's not campaigning in any sense. Furthermore, one former SOFE has already gone on record as saying he would have counted both ballots. Your honors, the correct choice here is clear - these votes should be counted.

[Bacon King]

Thank you Mr BaconKing,
The court will decided whether to take the case or not, and we will contact you after decision has been made.

I just saw this - thank you kindly! The above post is not the extent of my argument and I will have more to say when I hear back from you

[Potus]

Your honors,

Should BaconKing be granted the role of defendant-intervenor in the ongoing court case Potus2036 v. SoFE, I would humbly request that you eliminate the conflict of interests inherent in BaconKing suing while also defending the Department of Federal Elections by dismissing this suit if a new attorney is now found.

Fair courts are fundamental to a healthy democracy. Conflicts of interests that are within the judiciary's power to eliminate ought to be eliminated.

[windjammer]

Writ of Certiorari

The Supreme Court of Atlasia grants certiorari to hear the question of whether rpryor's invalidation of Hashemite and BRTD’s votes infringed the electoral law or/and the constitution.

Schedule

Petitioner has 24 48 hour to file his brief (extension granted following the Petioner's request).  It is expected no later than 1:00PM EDT on  Wednesday, November 2, 2016.

Respondent has an additional  24 hours to file his brief.  It is expected no later than 1:00PM EDT on Thursday, November 3, 2016.

Amicus Briefs will be accepted until 1:00PM EDT on Friday, November 4, 2016.

Additional time may be granted to either party, and the right of either party to respond to the filed briefs may be granted upon request.

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

[Dereich]

Your honors,

Should BaconKing be granted the role of defendant-intervenor in the ongoing court case Potus2036 v. SoFE, I would humbly request that you eliminate the conflict of interests inherent in BaconKing suing while also defending the Department of Federal Elections by dismissing this suit if a new attorney is now found.

Fair courts are fundamental to a healthy democracy. Conflicts of interests that are within the judiciary's power to eliminate ought to be eliminated.

As BaconKing's motions to join dfwlibertylover v. SoFE and Potus2036 v. SoFE as defendant-intervenor have been denied, we see no conflict of interest in BaconKing's participation as a party in this case. Petition to dismiss denied.

[Bacon King]

Thank you Justices! I have a yuge test tomorrow afternoon so while I will probably end up typing my brief while I'm procrastinating tonight, at the absolute latest I might only be able to do it after my test (which I will be in the middle of exactly 24 hours from now!). At the very latest my brief will be submitted by 4:00 PM tomorrow - would that be acceptable to the court?

[windjammer]

Of course,
a 24 hour extension is granted to you

[rpryor03]

I will be representing myself in this case.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

I volunteer to testify before this trial if anyone wishes.

To preserve the integrity of the case, I ask the court to not allow anyone from the two runoff tickets who is not Rpryor to testify as they all have a extreme rooting interest in how this case turns out and thus will not argue in a factual, truthful matter, instead twisting the words, the law, and the constitution in a  disingenuous manner to fit their narrative and win the lawsuit for their ticket. Rpryor must be allowed to testify as he is the defendant in the case, but allowing Blair, Kingpoleon, or Yankee to testify is inviting a very serious conflict of interest and thus should not be allowed.

I also support this action for the lawsuits of dfwlibertylover and potus2036.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

As one of the affected parties, I wholeheartedly endorse this suit.

Hash and I were accused of campaigning, but who were we campaigning for? In what way were we attempting to affect others' votes?

I feel disenfranchised and throw my backing behind this suit to hopefully restore democracy to Atlasia and right this wrong against me.

[Dereich]

As one of the affected parties, I wholeheartedly endorse this suit.

Hash and I were accused of campaigning, but who were we campaigning for? In what way were we attempting to affect others' votes?

I feel disenfranchised and throw my backing behind this suit to hopefully restore democracy to Atlasia and right this wrong against me.

I am the person particularly involved in the votes themselves.

To summarize: I was criticized in both cases, for which rpryor discounted both. However, both votes had the full name of the ticket, myself and Blair. I intend to ask the Court to please allow me to testify.

I volunteer to testify before this trial if anyone wishes.

To preserve the integrity of the case, I ask the court to not allow anyone from the two runoff tickets who is not Rpryor to testify as they all have a extreme rooting interest in how this case turns out and thus will not argue in a factual, truthful matter, instead twisting the words, the law, and the constitution in a  disingenuous manner to fit their narrative and win the lawsuit for their ticket. Rpryor must be allowed to testify as he is the defendant in the case, but allowing Blair, Kingpoleon, or Yankee to testify is inviting a very serious conflict of interest and thus should not be allowed.

I also support this action for the lawsuits of dfwlibertylover and potus2036.

Please take your discussions here: https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=104788.0
That's what that thread was made for. As of now, none of you are parties to this case. If the Court or the parties need your testimony, we'll let you know.

[Bacon King]

Your Honors, the disqualification of the votes of BRTD and Hashemite is incorrect, nonsensical, and blatantly unconstitutional. Their votes should be counted and the certified election totals should be adjusted accordingly.



I. Relevant Constitutional Provisions in the Current and Previous Constitutions

It has long been considered illegal to campaign within an Atlasian voting booth. In the previous Constitution, the ban was even placed within the Constitution itself:

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This establishes a clear and explicit constitutional ban on voting booth campaign activities. Even when this was the law, however, elections administrators consistently interpreted it far more leniently than SOFE Rpryor has suddenly decided to do. In fact, Rpryor's unannounced decision to unilaterally alter longstanding election administration precedents is entirely unprecidented – but that will be addressed in a later section.

Currently, Atlasia does not have a constitutional ban on vote booth campaigning. Instead, the ban can be found within the Federal Elections Act and reads as follows:

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While the language is superficially different, the two voting booth campaign bans are functionally identical. In a later section I will return to this observation. At the moment, however, note the distinction between the two clauses: what was formely enforced by the authority of the constitution is now a merely a statute, its enforcement subordinate to any and every part of the current Fourth Constitution.



II. Violation of constitutionally guaranteed free speech


In fact, the ban within the Federal Elections Act does contradict the Fourth Constitution! Our Constitution considers freedom of speech to be an absolute.

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As a text-based medium, all speech in Atlasia is written in posts. Ballots are posts just like any other, where individuals have a right to say/type whatever they want with no fear of punishment – because our constitution explicitly declares, Congress shall make no law that abridges our freedom to type any sort of content in any sort of post. Section 1 Clause 3 of the Federal Elections Act is therefore an unconstitutional limitation on our constitutionally guaranteed rights and therefore must be removed.




III. Violation of constitutionally guaranteed right to vote

However, that's not the only portion of the Fourth Constitution violated by the Federal Elections Act. Note the following:

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Please observe that this constitutionally-guaranteed right is explicit, direct, absolute, and precise. Every citizen has an inalienable right to vote that shall not be denied, except for the special cases of very new and very inactive citizens. There are no other exceptions – it does not read, "except in regards to persons who campaign in the voting booth." However, the SOFE followed only the Federal Elections Act without heeding the Federal Constitution and thus unconstitutionally denied BRTD and Hashemite their inalienable rights to vote. He invalidated their votes alongside one voter who failed to meet the minimum post threshold and two voters who failed to meet the minimum election activity threshold. It is blatantly unconstitutional for the Federal Elections Act to prescribe a denial of voting rights to Hashemite and BRTD as if they were too new or too inactive, even though those are the only two situations wherein the Constitution allows votes to be invalidated.




IV. Alleged offense is undefined and unknown

There is not, nor has there ever been a single example of "campaigning in the voting booth" being defined in any way anywhere in Atlasian legal history. Clarification as to what it means can't be found in any constitution, any statute, or in a statement from any election official or any other member of the executive branch. An election administrator has absolutely nothing to look at as a guide when they believe someone might be campaigning in the voting booth – nothing except for the historical precedent of enforcement.

As mentioned in the previous section, the current law prohibiting vote booth campaigning is functionally identical to the previous ban found in the Third Constitution. However, rpryor's strict enforcement is unprecedented in the history of Atlasian elections. I will put forward several former election administrators as witnesses to clarify that the current SOFE's excessively strict enforcement of this law is entirely unprecedented.




V. SOFE failed to place legally required warning on ballot

The Federal Election Act states the following

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The Federal Election Act says that links to all relevant statutes must be included on the ballot, so that a voter can be properly informed of any and all election guidelines. The SOFE failed to observe this legal requirement, so there was no way for any potential voter to know that campaigning in the voting booth was even a punishable offense according to the law. This is particularly relevant because previous election administrators have always included explicit and clearly visible language in the OP of the voting booth that it is unlawful to campaign in the voting booth.

While neither BRTD's nor Hashemite's votes can be reasonably construed as "campaigning" (and removing their vote for it is entirely unconstitutional anyway), perhaps if the voting booth included either the traditional warnings or the legally required link to the Federal Elections Act, they would have been informed enough to err on the safe side and post ballots without any language that literally anyone could possibly construe as "campaigning". However, specifically because of the SOFE's omissions, the two voters unknowingly put themselves in a situation to fall victim to an unprecedented and unconstitutional reinterpretation of Atlasian law in a way that had never before been observed.




VI. A confluence of circumstances and the appearance of possible wrongdoing

The SOFE reinterpreted the definition of "campaigning in the voting booth" unexpectedly and without warning, and decided to suddenly enforce the relevent section of the Federal Election Act with excessive strictness in a heretofore unseen breach in precedent.

He could have placed a warning in the voting booth like so many election administrators have done, but he did not.

He could have included the legally required link to the law saying it was illegal, but he did not.

He could have enforced the provision like his predecessors have done for many years, but he did not.

He could have posted a public notice ahead of time, informing the public of his intention to break from years of precedent, but he did not.

He could have started enforcing this sudden strict reinterpretation at any prior juncture, but he did not.

He could have done many things, your honors – but he did not.

Instead: he reinterpreted a voting regulation in a way that had never been done before. He made it far stricter than anyone had ever previously interpreted the regulation. He mentioned this new outlook to no one. He declines to include traditional language about the warning on the ballot. He breaks the law by failing to put a link to the rules on the ballot. At the end of a bitterly contested election, however, the SOFE unveils this new policy to the community... by using it to singlehandedly give himself and his running-mate a victory in a very close election.

I am not implying that the SOFE is being anything less than professional in the exercise of his duties. However I believe even the appearance of the possibility of wrongdoing requires him, as a responsible public official, to exercise caution when rolling out a new practice that could potentially stand to benefit himself personally. Anyone in his position could be subconsciously affected by their desire for victory. While the SOFE is a good man with no intention of being anything but fair, I believe the appearance of the possibility of wrongdoing on its own requires a very critical perspective to be taken towards his actions.

[Bacon King]

VII. "Campaigning" label nonsensical, disputed by everyone involved

Both BRTD and Hashemite spoke critically of the Vice Presidential candidate on the ticket they voted for. There is absolutely no way a reasonable person could conclude the two voters were campaigning against someone they were simultaneously voting for. The only way this conclusion could possibly be reached by anyone of sound mind is if someone is transparently seeking an excuse to disqualify ballots with the intention of delivering a victory to a specific candidate.

There is no logical reason an observer to believe a voter would be campaigning against the candidate they're voting for.

Even if for a moment you accept this bizarre premise where BRTD and Hashemite would be campaigning against Kingpoleon while voting for him – wouldn't that just be rewarding them? Enforcing the law would mean taking votes away from the candidate they were campaigning against – which is exactly the opposite of what is supposed to happen!

That irrelevant aside is moot, however, because no individual involved construed the votes of BRTD and Hashemite to be attempts at campaigning. Neither voter was intending to campaign, neither Blair nor Kingpoleon believes they were campaigning against him, and no Blair/Kingpoleon voter who saw BRTD and/or Hashemite's posts construed it as a campaign attempt and it did not dissuade them from voting for their ticket of choice in any way.




VIII. Conclusion

The current ban on vote booth campaigning is blatantly unconstitutional for violating Atlasians' rights to vote and to free speech. There is no legal definition of "vote booth campaigning" meaning its entirely up to precedent and interpretation anyway. The SOFE blatantly ignored precedent to enforce the law more harshly than it had ever been before. The SOFE's sudden reinterpretation of the law was done with absolutely no warning and in a voting booth where he didn't mention the law he was enforcing even where it was legally required for him to do so – and his new interpretation just happened to be exactly the thing his ticket needed to win. Nobody involves actually thinks it was a campaign attempt. The removal of BRTD and Hashemite's votes was both blatantly unconstitutional, incredibly irresponsible, and highly unethical.




If it pleases the court, the plaintiff will now call the following witnesses:
(voters marked with *** have not yet responded to my requests that they serve as witnesses)

BRTD: cast ballot in question
Hashemite: cast ballot in question

Blair: alleged target of campaign
Kingpoleon: alleged target of campaign

Talleyrand: former election official
Earl: former election official
King: former election official

xahar: former election official (regional level)

Flo: former election official (regional level); voted after disqualified ballot(s) ***
SWE: voted after disqualified ballot(s)
New Canadaland: voted after disqualified ballot(s) ***
Fuzzybigfoot: voted after disqualified ballot(s) ***

[rpryor03]

Your Honors, I would like to note for the court that Mr. King/intermoderate and Mr. Lebronfitzgerald are not citizens of Atlasia.

[Bacon King]

Your Honors, I would like to note for the court that Mr. King/intermoderate and Mr. Lebronfitzgerald are not citizens of Atlasia.

LeBron just decided against serving as a witness - I believe King's participation is akin to a foreign subject matter expert serving as a witness in a trial - after all, he once held your job!

[Hash]

As a direct witness in this case, I wish to testify before this honourable court that it is my contention that my constitutional rights, as laid out in thorough detail by attorney at law Bacon King J.D., have been unacceptably violated by the SOFE's decision to invalidate my ballot of what I believe are extremely tenuous and spurious grounds.

It was not my intention to "campaign in the voting booth". I cast my ballot for Blair/Kingpoleon, but I wished to make clear my personal displeasure with Blair's choice of running mate, despite ultimately casting my ballot for him. I am quite unsure as to how that may be construed as 'campaigning in the voting booth', since nowhere did I explicitly urge any voters to vote for or against a candidate. Furthermore, I contend that it is ridiculous to assume that I was somehow campaigning against someone while simultaneously voting for him.

[rpryor03]

I would like to ask that the prosecution reduce the number of witnesses, as I believe, as I hope he does, that this process be quick and speedy.

WITHDRAWN

[Hatman 🍁]

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.

[King]

A rules thread by King sits permanently stickied at the top of the Voting Booth subforum. The board's establishment is the lasting achievement of my term as Secretary of Forum Affairs from February 2005 to April 2005.

Unfortunately, alongside this successful contribution to a historic game, exists a failure which, until today, was the most testing failure and constitutional crisis created by an Atlasian election official. During the weekend of a hotly contested Presidential election, in which I was a candidate for Senate, my account deleted the voting booth thread and forced an embarrassing revote that affected turnout, outcomes, and the future of the game.

For this transgression, I tendered my resignation and apologized profusely. To my surprise, in the revote, I would still be elected Senator in re-vote, later serve as my party's Presidential nominee, and be appointed to the role of Attorney General in a later administration.  My point being, if you acknowledge your error as election official and accept responsibility for your actions, you can still have an enjoyable career in Atlasia.

In my opinion, an esteemed former Secretary, I would have counted these votes just like Bacon King says they should be.

[Kingpoleon]

Greetings, honorable Justices. I have decided to testify because I am the person commented about in two votes declared invalid. I am not insulted. I am not maligned. I merely have been commented about. If commenting is campaigning, I haven't gone a day of my life without campaigning. If commenting is campaigning, anyone and everyone campaigns.

However, if this definition seems as deceptive and purposely misguided to you as it does to me, then there is but one result. Campaigning is working in an organized, structured, and active way with a particular goal in mind. What organization and structure is there in these comments? What particular goal do they have in mind? In what way is it more active than normally voting?