Voting System Reform Commission

[Colin]

Excuse me but I believe that I was put on that commission after MHS gave his position to me. If this was not legal or could not happen then please say so but otherwise I believe he gave up his spot so that I could be on the commission.

[Colin]

Excuse me but I believe that I was put on that commission after MHS gave his position to me. If this was not legal or could not happen then please say so but otherwise I believe he gave up his spot so that I could be on the commission.

Sorry; that was just an error on my part.

I nominate Peter Bell to be Chairman.

I second that nomination. Peter Bell showed his amazing legal acumen during the Constitutional Convention as Secretary and his vast knowledge of the current Atlasian electoral system would make him the best man for this position.

[Colin]

It would appear that a majority of the Commission has supported Peter Bell. If there is no objection, let us consider him elected Chairman.

Does any commissioner wish that there be any other position? I think that we ought to have a Vice Chairman or Secretary to preside in the Chairman's absence.

I believe their should be a Vice Chairman and a Secretary in order for the commission to work to the fullest of potential.

[Colin]

This is why i tried to get things changed in the bill.
Nothing good will come of this because everyone on the commission with the exception of KEmperor potentially has something to lose.

I have nothing to lose. Seriously I'm on the fence about running in October and I'm not going to pander to people just to get re-elected I will state my opinions and my ideas on voting reform. If they want a politician who will pander to them and can't take a crap without asking his constituents whether he may go to the bathroom then they can kick me out if they want. I got nothin' to lose.

[Colin]

This is why i tried to get things changed in the bill.
Nothing good will come of this because everyone on the commission with the exception of KEmperor potentially has something to lose.

I have nothing to lose. Seriously I'm on the fence about running in October and I'm not going to pander to people just to get re-elected I will state my opinions and my ideas on voting reform. If they want a politician who will pander to them and can't take a crap without asking his constituents whether he may go to the bathroom then they can kick me out if they want. I got nothin' to lose.

Completely objectively speaking, I don't exactly see any way we could twist and distort our voting system to make it so that I could lose re-election, so I don't really have anything to lose.

Well your baby eating past could come out and the FEC could put you on its hit list. Oh I've said too much.

[Colin]

I agree with Vice President Emsworth's arguement. This was one of my main reasons that I believed that the Secret Ballot Act should not be passed. Mr. Republic's argument that it is constitutional on the grounds of the loopholes in the two said clauses above is a mere fallacy and, I am almost sure of it, would have ensured that the act would be challenged and struck down by the Supreme Court.

I believe those two clauses came from the original Dan constitution, although that may not be the case, and were thusly rolled-over into the new Constitution by the Second Constitutional Convention.

To answer the three questions brought forward by the chair I would have to say that those two clauses mean that a person must post their vote in the voting booth, or other approved voting area, for it to be legal. Thus any proposed secret ballot initiative would have to be an amendment. The amendment would have to strike those two clauses and replace them with something like, "All elections to the Presidency shall be by either public post or secret ballot." It would probably have to be much more specific than that to ensure that their is no misunderstandings.

If this amendment is passed you would then need to define the secret ballot using a piece of legislation comparable to the Secret Ballot Act. That is the only way I can see it being Constitutional.   

[Colin]

1. The requirement that elections to the Senate and the Presidency be by public post is repealed.
2. Under no circumstances shall a polling method which allows a person to anonymously vote be used in any election or vote mandated under this Constitution. This clause shall not be construed to require that a person's vote is publicly disclosed to all citizens.
3. This Amendment shall only become operative if ratified within one calendar year from the date of its submission to the Regions by the Senate.

The Amendment's language seems acceptable to me. I see no problem with the wording, which is quite clear.

Agreed.

Looks ok to me too.

The wording seems acceptable although I am still not in favour of the idea of a secret ballot.

[Colin]

I wonder if anybody on this Commission is actually in favor of a secret ballot.

Only two commission members have come out against it to my knowledge.

[Colin]

bipartisan

Theirs that word again.

[Colin]

The Committee that will receive and verify votes

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Nobody has yet addressed this point. I will attempt to do so: If there are enough persons added to the end of the list of qualified Committee members, then I believe that the likelihood of a committee not being formed is somewhat low. Really we have no idea how many people would or would not volunteer: I would like one of the pollsters (Colin perhaps?) to liase with me so that we can perhaps poll the general population to see how many would be willing to serve in this capacity. Only then can we have a realistic possibility of knowing the likelihood of non-formation.

If it turns out that non-formation is a reasonable possibility, where should we go from here?

I would be happy to do a poll on that. While many people may be willing to be a part of an Federal Election Committee and ahving non-governmental officials on the list of possible committee members will lead to less of a likelyhood that a committee would not be able to form it still leaves the possibility of such a problem occuring. I believe the only way we can do this is a committee must be formed before the election and if a committee cannot form because of conflicts or absences then secret voting cannot occur during that election. A citizen can only use secret voting if an official committee is able to oversee the secret ballots and if their is no said committee than we must inform all voters that secret ballots cannot be used in those elections.

[Colin]

So where are we going with this?  It appears that the majority of the nation does not want a secret ballot, and I don't even know if a majority of the commission does.

Well according to preliminary poll results. With 45 people being polled only 15 would say that they would use the Secret Ballot compared with 28 who said they wouldn't.

[Colin]

bump.

I know that Colin has a big enough sample on the results of that survey, so if he could just publish them here, that will be fine.

I thought I sent the information to all people via PM. If you did not recieve it just tell me and I will send it to you.

[Colin]

bump.

I know that Colin has a big enough sample on the results of that survey, so if he could just publish them here, that will be fine.

I thought I sent the information to all people via PM. If you did not recieve it just tell me and I will send it to you.

This isn't  a secret society. The results will form part of our official report. I had wondered whether those results were final, assuming they are, here they are:

These are the results after 50 people have been polled:

1) Are you currently an Atlasian officeholder?

Yes, I am a federal officeholder 30.0% 15
Yes, I am a regional officeholder 14.0% 7
No, I do not hold office in Atlasia 57.1% 28

2) Do you intend to run for federal office in the near future?

Yes 50.0% 25
No 50.0% 25

3) Would you be willing to serve on an election committee if secret balloting is implemented?

Yes 52.0% 26
No 48.0% 24

4) If secret balloting is implemented on an optional basis would you use it in Atlasian federal elections?

Yes 40.0% 20
No 60.0% 30

That is the data. The margin of error is +or- 11% or +or- 5.5 votes.

If you have the original data still, could you please extrapolate how many non-federal office holders, who will not run for federal office in the near future would be willing to serve on the committee?

Yes those are final and yes we are a secret society.

[Colin]

Given a pretty high degree of non-participation to this point, I will summarise where we are at now, bolding points which I feel are still in need of being addressed.

The Committee that will receive and verify votes

The Commission seems to have consensus that the Committee will have three members, though there is some dispute over who these members should be. Sam Spade has suggested using the GM, the SoFA and an ordinary citizen, and obviously we have the original proposal put forward of the VP, PPT and SoFA, followed by a list of office holders. True Indep. suggests the use of party nominated persons to be on the committee.

All seem to agree that the use of ordinary citizens is acceptable, though whether they should be confirmed in some way by the Senate has received little discussion. There is general agreement that the Supreme Court Justices should not serve on the Committee.

I am more in favour of Sam's idea than Senator True Independents or the orginal proposal. However I believe that the ordinary citizen should not be a pick of the President. This would give the President a political appointment on any committee and may lead to that person being biased in their counting and striking of secret ballots. It should either be a random selection from a list of candidates or it should be given on a first come first served basis so that neither the Senate nor the President have any political leeway over the committee.

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PM is the only way it can be done, their is no other good way to do it. I believe that voters must sign a secret balloting register and if they do not sign it and try to vote then their secret ballot must not be counted. They can then be told by the SoFA or any other official who recieves the ballot that they are still allowed to vote in the Public Voting Booth and that they are not penalized for trying to vote secretly without filling out the register. If we do not have a system like this in place then their is no reason to have a register in the first place. Why have a register if it's optional?

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When will these ballots be published? At the end of an election? During the election? The only way I would support a secret ballot would be if the ballots are published during the election and that new ballots are added as they come in since this would not end the fun of watching the results come in and getting accurate up to the minute results from the various Atlasian news sources. I think this would also dissaude tactical voting since the ballots could not be submitted in real time and thus their would be a delay between when a secret ballot is cast and when it is put up on a public thread. This could mean that at the end of an election their could be 2 or 3 secret ballots which would tip the election in favour of someone else but you still tactically vote as if those 2 or 3 votes had not happened due to the delay in publishing the ballots. All else seems fine.

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Well I believe this ties in with the register. If the person signs the register and votes both privately and publically I believe his secret ballot should count. If he does not sign the register and votes twice, once secretly once publically, his public one will be counted. If the two ballots are different the one that will be counted is the one that he is on the register for.

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Well I believe that this needs to be discussed much further than it has been. This is one of the main obsticals to secret balloting especially if all three people are cabinet officials or are selected by the President they may feel some sort of loyalty to the party or the President and thus throw the election using corrupt means. We need to investigate this further before this commission delivers a final report.

[Colin]

It should either be a random selection from a list of candidates or it should be given on a first come first served basis so that neither the Senate nor the President have any political leeway over the committee.

First come, first served is somewhat risky - you could end up with literally anybody. Ultimately leaving it to the Forum Affairs Dept to choose the third member from a list of volunteers is my preferred method.

Yes that was my thinking as well even while I was writing it. You're idea sounds decent and wouldn't be as political as a Presidential appointment. A random selection could also work as long as all the candidates were well informed and active Atlasians.

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Well how else can we do it? Can we penelize someone for trying to vote in secret? I, personally, think we shouldn't but I would be open to any arguement that you would like to make saying how that would not work. To answer your next question I personally really don't know the public vote should be counted since it is an official ballot with no errors post in the correct manner.

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Thought as much.

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Yes I know my idea would not completely get rid of tactical voting but I believe that it is the only way to keep the fun of elections going while still having a secret ballot. Otherwise it's three days of sitting on your ass wondering who will win itstead of three days of results, discussion and interest in the election.

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I understand. We also need to discuss further this ability for committee members to use tactical voting themselves since several people who have been known for tactical voting, like yourself, could very well be on the committee. I do not believe their is anything wrong with tactical voting but if a few people can use it while others can't doesn't that just screw up the entire argument for secret ballot anyway?

[Colin]

Well I'm here, as always.

[Colin]

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. #4 or #3. #4 is better than #3 in my mind.

[Colin]

I concur with the report, though I object to the whole system of the secret ballot.

Will we now proceed to our second stated objective? That of discussing the possibilities of the use of more simplified or more accurate voting systems in Atlasia.