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=98165As 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.
