SB 2017-056 - Amendment to Article 1, Section 4 of the Constitution (Failed)

[Leinad]

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to

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Sponsor: then-Representative Clyde1998 (Lab-MA) and then-Representative Siren (Ind-NV)

[Leinad]

If there are no objections to this I'll call a vote later today, so Yankee can sign it in time for the election.

[LLR]

I have serious issues with this...

[Leinad]

I have serious issues with this...

The floor is yours.

[Clyde1998]

For what I remember, this was introduced to make the changes to the voting requirements line up with the Constitution. I'm willing to hear any amendments that people wish to make to this.

[LLR]

Eh, I guess it's mostly fine. I just don't like the "other languages" clause

[Poirot]

(language other than English is difficult to enforce, what if someone has a username in Spanish or German with specific characters)

[Clyde1998]

I propose this amendment. I note that the ballot which brought about the language issues wasn't clearly indentifiable to anyone without the use of translators.

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[Associate Justice PiT]

(language other than English is difficult to enforce, what if someone has a username in Spanish or German with specific characters)

     That is an excellent point. Someone could have a username such that casting a vote in another language is inevitable. I think Clyde's amendment should cover this, since a candidate's username will be clearly recognizable without the use of a translator.

[Anna Komnene]

I'm not sure.  It would put a lot on the linguistic ability of the SoFE.  If they know a lot of languages, they'll be able to interpret lots of ballots.  If they don't know much, they might even miss things that could appear obvious to other people.  Voters don't know that beforehand (though they do have the choice of making their ballot easily understood).

I don't really think usernames are an issue because pretty much all languages use the same name for translations.  Like if a French news station is talking about Angela Merkel, they aren't going to refer to her as Angeline or Angélique.  They'll just say Angela Merkel.  And also, if someone writes a name that's already on the ballot, they're just copying the ballot and putting their vote, not adding anything new.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

A few thoughts regarding the proposed amendment:

First, I do not agree with the interpretation of the English Only clause as barring citizens with supposedly foreign names from being voted for. It is a dubious assertion indeed that claims certain names to be the exclusive progeny of a particular language, because spelling and naming conventions vary widely even within cultures. If an English-speaking couple christens their son "Mohamed," are they speaking a foreign language whenever they address him directly? What about names like "Clara" and "George," which originated in Germany but are now common in the English speaking world? Simply put, there is no such thing as a foreign name, and it's close to impossible to make a strong legal argument defining which names are English and which aren't. Speaking as the author of this bill and the attorney general for the incumbent administration, I have complete confidence that any case seeking the invalidation of certain ballots on the grounds hypothesized by the Senator from the North would be thrown out of court.

What this bill would do is prevent a ballot naming "Caroline du Nord Yankee" from being counted as a vote for "North Carolina Yankee." Far from being a defect, such is in fact the express intention of this bill; for whatever we might assume about the intention of this particular voter after their ballot is translated from French to English, there is in fact no citizen registered with the Census Bureau under the name "Caroline du Nord Yankee," and assuming that someone intended to vote for a candidate they did not identify is a big leap to make.

Second, if the opinion of the Congress is that the proposal ought be amended, I recommend the phrase "language other than English" be replaced with "script other than the Latin Alphabet." That said:

Third, and most important, the Senate no longer has power to make amendments to this bill. According to the Constitution:

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The Senate already passed an earlier version of this bill; it was subsequently adopted with amendments by the House of Representatives, and the amended version has now returned to this, the original house, for an up-or-down vote. If the Senate feels strongly that the aforementioned change ought to be made, the best strategy is to pass the bill as it stands now and introduce and quickly pass an amended version before it is brought up for ratification (doing so would require swift action on the part of the Congressional leadership, but it is technically possible).

Whew, that was long. I ought to be named "Wall of Text Truman."

[Anna Komnene]

Third, and most important, the Senate no longer has power to make amendments to this bill. According to the Constitution:

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The Senate already passed an earlier version of this bill; it was subsequently adopted with amendments by the House of Representatives, and the amended version has now returned to this, the original house, for an up-or-down vote. If the Senate feels strongly that the aforementioned change ought to be made, the best strategy is to pass the bill as it stands now and introduce and quickly pass an amended version before it is brought up for ratification (doing so would require swift action on the part of the Congressional leadership, but it is technically possible).

Whew, that was long. I ought to be named "Wall of Text Truman."

Wow, we should really amend the Senate rules to be consistent with that then.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

If we're all on board with the general principle of the amendment (as I am) but want to pass a fix-it amendment, we'd better move to a vote ASAP.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Third, and most important, the Senate no longer has power to make amendments to this bill. According to the Constitution:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The Senate already passed an earlier version of this bill; it was subsequently adopted with amendments by the House of Representatives, and the amended version has now returned to this, the original house, for an up-or-down vote. If the Senate feels strongly that the aforementioned change ought to be made, the best strategy is to pass the bill as it stands now and introduce and quickly pass an amended version before it is brought up for ratification (doing so would require swift action on the part of the Congressional leadership, but it is technically possible).

Whew, that was long. I ought to be named "Wall of Text Truman."

Wow, we should really amend the Senate rules to be consistent with that then.

Been saying that for months. But like Truman often finds, its like talking to a wall.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

If there are no objections to this I'll call a vote later today, so Yankee can sign it in time for the election.

I do plan to sign it as a resolution yes (but that is merely ceremonial*), but it won't take effect until ratified by the regions.


* Something I picked up from the Lincoln movie was that he "signed" the thirteenth amendment after it passed the House. I am not sure if that happens always in RL and it is not something that can be vetoed obviously.

Edit:

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[Enduro]

Y'all gonna vote on Clyde's amendment?

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Y'all gonna vote on Clyde's amendment?

The bill can't be amended further at this point.

[Enduro]

Y'all gonna vote on Clyde's amendment?

The bill can't be amended further at this point.

Nay that sucker.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Truman, if we're going to pass an amended version of this anyway, why should we vote for passage?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Truman, if we're going to pass an amended version of this anyway, why should we vote for passage?

Because then we have to start completely over for one.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I call for a final vote.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I second the call.

[cinyc]

Before you do so, there's a hole in the proposal - or, at least, an ambiguity.  "Except in regards to persons whose account is fewer than 168 hours old" seems to only apply to ACCOUNTS who are less than 168 hours old, not people who registered  less than 168 hours before the election.  So, in theory, under the proposal as drafted, someone can create multiple socks - or invite regular forum members to register and vote in Atlasian elections - more than 7 days out and register just before, or even after the election starts to throw an election into chaos.  Didn't we always mean for the exclusion to also apply to persons who have registered less than 168 hours before the election, not just those whose account is 168 hours old?

This plays into my upcoming lawsuit to enjoin the North//Lincoln's Voter Integrity Amendment.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Interesting point. So could we just fix this by changing "account" to "registration" in the section that cinyc quoted?

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I always considered the minimum residency rule to be a "requirement for activity" (i.e. the poster must be an active citizen for a set period of time to be eligible to vote).