Bacon King v. SOFE

[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.

[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.

[windjammer]

Of course,
a 24 hour extension is granted to you

[windjammer]

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

[windjammer]

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?

In my view it is not in this case, as Mr Kingpoleon has a fairly good interest of not having this ballot invalidated, but I just speak for myself.

[windjammer]

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?
2) One of your argument is that considering all the previous SoFe (talleyrand, King, Hatman) wouldn't have invalidated his vote, their interpretation of "campaigning" sets a precedent, correct? However, I seem to recall an election that happened more than 10 years ago where the VP nominee of a ticket, who was the SoFE as well of this election, invalidated many ballots that caused controversies. Shouldn't this election set a precedent as well that it is to the discretion of the SoFE to make ballots invalid or not?


To rpryor:
1) Let's suppose the Supreme Court sides with you on the issue that BRTD did campaign by casting his ballot. The constitution is however quite clear:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The constitution gives only 2 reasons that would invalidate a vote:
-having an account fewer than 168 hour old.
- failing to meet requirement for activity as may be established by law.
My question is simple, how could "campaigning" can be interpreted as a requirement for activity that would have established by law?

[windjammer]

Thank you for your answers, I don't have any other questions.

[windjammer]

 A majority of the court sides with BaconKing, the votes of BRTD and hashemite must be counted.

A majority opinion  and a dissenting opinion will be written later.
Regards,
The Supreme Court

[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 :

You must be logged in to read this quote.

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 :

You must be logged in to read this quote.

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:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

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.