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.

[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:

[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

[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?

[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) ***

[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!

[Bacon King]

With all due respect I have to Mr BaconKing and Mr Kingpoleon, I fail to understand how having Kingpoleon as a witness is necessary.

The defendant claims that the votes of BRTD and Hashemite are invalid for campaigning against Kingpoleon - is it not relevant that Kingpoleon himself, as the alleged victim, doesn't even consider their personal ballot statements to have been an attempt to campaign against him?

[Bacon King]

Your honors: I wish to submit the following links/quotes/images as evidence. The posts are in a locked voting booth so I can not quote them directly, but here are links:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=243833.msg5227712#msg5227712
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=243833.msg5227744#msg5227744

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These ballots are full of what is certainly "campaigning" under the SOFE's definition, right?

But look at his official certification of the vote count: Al and Hashemite are included normally like every other valid voter!

(Here is the link to the first 6 rounds of the August voter certification) http://imgur.com/mlozGqi

You can see Sibboleth (Al's account name) on the top section in the list of voters for 1184AZ, and similarly Hashemite's name is in the list of Talleyrand voters!

Both votes "could reasonably be construed as a direct attempt to influence how future voters cast their ballot," in the secretary's own words. In my opinion these two quotes demonstrate the exact behavior he considers "campaigning in the voting booth", but he still counts them.

The votes of BRTD and Hashemite in the most recent runoff election are, if anything, considerably further from the Secretary's definition. The fact that he counted the August ballots while invalidated the recent runoff records indicate the Secretary's enforcement of the rules varies greatly, violating the equal protection that BRTD and Hashemite are supposed to have under the law. Furthermore it displays that in other circumstances when the election outcome was less contentious, these two votes would be counted as the two examples from August were counted.

[Bacon King]

"Who the f**k are these people" is written with the intent to disparage those candidates as "nobodies", not proper members of Atlasia specifically or the Atlas Forum in general.

"lol this is still going on" is overtly a campaign against the act of voting entirely, directed at forum users in their "generation" (which is mine as well). They're saying  "atlasia is not cool and you're not cool if you're still here playing it" - effectively a form of peer pressure against voting. This is definitely campaigning - the people who may be swayed by it are inclined to support a specific set of candidates, and future would-be voters could have potentially seen their posts and been dissuaded.

Admittedly I don't understand the reference in "some nasty person wrote some horrid stuff into your criminal code as a joke, you might wanna get that checked out". It could very well be targeted against someone in the election, and if it's not, it's also still entirely possible for voters to parse it as directed against someone on the ballot.

Yankee was not a candidate but he has been a very active "chessmaster" in Atlasian politics, usually leading a party (and I believe he was then, and still is now?) and is always one of the heaviest lifters for the Atlasian right's GOTV campaigns. He is such an institution that any active participant would immediately associate NCYankee's username in the voting booth with the candidate(s) Yankee and his party are supporting in the election (whether he was personally leading it or not).

[Bacon King]

If the standard is "will it influence people" I assert that it is highly unlikely anyone was influenced by BRTD and Hashemite's insult of Kingpoleon, because they were simultaneously voting for him at the same time.

if anything, it's more likely that a viewer will think "wow, the blair/kingpoleon ticket is such a good choice that they're even getting the votes of people who hate them!" No one will decide against voting for a candidate based on hesitant ballot commentary from someone who still voted for the candidate in question anyway.

[Bacon King]

Furthermore I note that the defense has yet to respond to sections I through III of my initial brief. This entire discussion about the specific definition of "campaigning" is moot because the law in question is blatantly unconstitutional.

Again, straight from our Bill of Rights:

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It is unconstitutional to disenfranchise a voter for literally any reason except "the account is too new" or "they are too inactive". Therefore the law in question is invalid and the votes of BRTD and Hashemite are perfectly legal and therefore should be counted.

[Bacon King]

You make reasonable arguments about why prohibitions on campaigning in voting booths are usually good ideas - which is why the Third Constitution had a specific constitutional provision limiting the right to vote of anyone who was found to be doing so! The most recent Constitution pointedly lacks any such provision - the right to vote in our Constitution is explicitly stated to be absolute (except in cases of new/inactive accounts):

"The right of citizens of the Republic of Atlasia to vote shall not be denied, except in regards to persons whose account is fewer than 168 hours old, or in consequence of failing to meet such requirements for activity as may be established by law."

Furthermore the "right to vote in an area that has no campaigning or other things that will work to bias other voters" is a very different thing than "the right to vote". The latter is actually an enumerated constitutional right! Even if the voting booth became a hellscape of campaign ads like you suggest it would, that still wouldn't prevent anybody from actually casting a vote and having it be counted!

I agree that prohibiting explicit campaign advertisements in voting booths is a reasonable and good idea - which is why the Constitution should be amended to include it! The defense's suggestion to blatantly distort the clear wording of the Constitution so it can be reinterpreted into what we wishes it to be is nothing more than judicial activism and contrary to the democratic ideas of Atlasia.

[Bacon King]

Alright, I have some questions

To BaconKing:
1) In order to understand better your opinion of free speech, I would like to know according to you: if the atlasian constitution were the US one, wouldn't the current ban on "hateful, homophobic, racist views" made by this forum infringe the right of free speech?

I do not believe that I understand the relevance of this question, your honor. Section 2 of the Atlasian Bill of Rights is identical to the 1st Amendment of the United States Bill of Rights, except for the part about religion.

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As a private entity, the forum (and its owner) is entirely allowed to restrict the speech of forum members (and can likewise restrict forum membership). Dave Leip is an agent of neither the US or Atlasian governments so neither's Bill of Rights apply to him. He can limit speech however he wants on his forum.

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I was actually unable to find anything about that incident in my research for this trial - when I posted about it in the fantasy elections board I may have been mis-remembering, or the relevant thread(s) may have been deleted long ago. I certainly don't believe that an isolated and heavily criticized incident from over a decade ago (and three constitutions ago!) - and where no direct record can be found - should in any way be regarded as precedent over the decade of election administrators that have come since.

Furthermore if the court were to grant the authority of "discretion" to the SOFE it would be very reckless as it would risk the due process (equal protection?) all Atlasian citizens share under the law (I know Justice Dereich is a 3L - for the life of me I can never remember which one is due process and which one is equal protection!). If a SOFE enforces the law unevenly due to their "personal discretion" what recourse does the wronged group have if the court has already granted the Secretary that breadth of authority?

I believe the contradiction I exhibited earlier, that Al and Hashemite's ballots were approved in the last House election, but neither BRTD nor Hashemite's ballots were allowed this time - demonstrates the confusion, uncertainty, and inherent in equality in a system that allows the SOFE to trust their own best judgement with no oversight.

I believe even if the Court were to rule that the absolute right to vote within the Constitution did not prevent the SOFE from restricting the right to vote, that BRTD and Hashemite's votes should still be counted on due process grounds. There absolutely must be guidelines - expressed as a decree by the SOFE prior to an election, if nothing is to be found in statute - that clarifies at least to some degree what is and is not considered to be "campaigning" in the voting booth.

The SOFE's act of invalidating BRTD's and Hashemite's votes without having previously expressed how the rule should be enforced is illegal -- he defined the crime after he had already decided BRTD and Hashemite were guilty, thereby making it an unconstitutional ex post facto offense.