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

[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.

[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.

[Anna Komnene]

Aye