Voting System Reform Commission

[Peter]

I would like to "run" for the position of Chairman. If in order, I nominate myself.

[Peter]

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 assure you that I will do my utmost to ensure that the report that this Commission produces will reflect what we genuinely believe to be in the best interests of Atlasia. Given that I will likely not run for office again, I have no hidden agenda in trying to install one preferred electoral system.

I would like to thank my fellow Commission members for the confidence they have shown in me, and to VP Emsworth for nominating me as Chair. I hope I serve you well.

I suppose we best get started: First of all I will outline how I would like the Commission to consider its subject matter.

We have been given a mandate to review the proposal for secret voting, wherein voters will have the choice of voting secretly during the allotted voting time. We are also to review the present electoral system and alternatives to it, and to decide whether a change will benefit Atlasia.

I am minded to consider these subjects separately: Because I feel that consideration of the electoral system will take longer (and will probably elicit more minority reports), I have decided that we will first of all review secret voting. Once we have considered what we need to, then we will have a short recess from taking public evidence whilst a report is produced and published. Then we will move onto a consideration of the electoral system.

I have already broken the subject of secret voting down into what I consider to be managable blocks. I will generally post a title and a list of questions: One need not answer all of these, they are simply thought provoking and responses of a more general scope are perfectably acceptable.

Consideration of each block should take no more than 2 or 3 days; Once this is over, I will move onto the next section unless it is clear debate has not concluded. Some blocks will overlap, do not hesitate to discuss them as such.

[Peter]

So here's my first set of thought provoking questions:

Secret Voting

Constitutional Concerns

"All elections to the [Presidency/Senate] shall be by public post" - Art I, Sec 4, Clause 6 and Art II, Sec 2, Clause 2

What exactly does this mean?

Is an Amendment to the Constitution necessary to ensure that Secret Voting is constitutional?

If so, what form should it take?
P.S. If anybody wants to call witnesses, feel free. I'll try to chase them up if they don't show.

[Peter]

I believe once we have established what voting by public post is we should call the other two justices to ensure that anything we produce will not be overturned.

They may well decide that issuing advisory opinions on the Constitution is illegal (as the real SCOTUS has done), but if they wish to, I won't stop them.

[Peter]

Should we use a different board for this, or just this thread?  Also, should we ban all others from typing in this thread to make it easier to read?

We'll be fine here I think. There's no need for a vote until the end and hopefully the way I organise it should mean that we don't have to refer back 12 pages to see whats being discussed.

I will probably start a new thread for the second half of the commission.

[Peter]

I tend to agree with the Vice President.

From my (slightly distant) memory of our original framing, the reason these clauses were included was to stop the use of the polling feature in our elections because it was obviously recognised they were too open to fraud. Thusly, we placed a requirement in the Constitution that all votes must be publically posted. I carried this over in my draft for our Second Constitution with a slight change in wording IIRC.

I wish to maintain the Constitution's prohibition on the polling feature, whilst making a secret ballot possible under as it is now clear that an Amendment is necessary.

I originally submitted this proposal for an Amendment to Gov. Joe Republic when the bill was first under consideration:

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.

[Peter]

Presently we are not discussing whether we want secret voting or not; My initial talking points here were to discuss what we need to do with the Constitution if we are to have it.

Campaigning may not occur in the place where voting occurs. (Article V, Section i, Clause 3)

This clause clearly implies that the Constitution foresees a single "place where voting occurs." I find it difficult to fathom that this clause refers to private message boxes: clearly, the most reasonable interpretation is that it refers to a public voting booth.

LOL, if we moved to a PM system, this could result in any PM's sent out for campaigning purposes being illegal. Actually, that would an amusing case....

Only to the extent of those PMs sent out for campaigning purposes during the actual time frame of the election itself and then only to those persons actually on the Committee, and even then, I think the point is pretty much unarguable as the clause was designed to stop persons unduly influencing other voters in the voting booth.

I will favour a secret ballot if it can be shown to be practicable, something which this Commission will examine in detail. I do urge all Committee members to maintain an open mind on this matter.

[Peter]

Given that we seem to have agreement on the Constitution's meaning as to whether it allows secret voting and how to remedy this situation, we shall now move on to our next section:

Practical and Procedural Concerns

The Committee that will receive and verify votes

How many persons should be on it?

Given the high number of persons who do run for office in each electoral cycle, how many persons should be eligible to be on the Committee in the legislative mandate?

Who should these people be?

If we decide to use non federal office holders, what requirements should we place on them being on the Committee?

What happens if an election occurs where a Committee is not able to be formed?

Should Supreme Court Justices be allowed to serve on the Committee?

Once again, the questions are just starters. I will partly address a couple of issues now:

In the debate on this issue, I presented the scenario of the last election conducted under a secret vote and showed that there would only have been one possible Committee formable. If one of those persons had been unwilling, it would have made secret voting impossible. For this reason, I must come out right now and state that I believe it is not only advisable, but absolutely imperative that we be able to use non-federal office holders, such as Governors or citizens on the Committee.

I envision persons volunteering themselves for duty a couple of weeks in advance, and then being tacked onto the bottom of the legislative list of allowed committee members after a confirmation vote by the Senate.

[Peter]

For who should be on the commission, I have a new idea.  With the AFCJ, PPT, SoFA, etc. . ., I think we should have the leader of each party.  We know that the leaders of the parties would not work in unison to try to change the results.

Party leaders are so often also holding other offices:

ILP - Emsworth - VP
CUP - Sam Spade - Senator
FLP - Al - AG
ACA - MasterJedi - Senator

The only other major party chair left is John Ford, who under the all citizens proposal could simply volunteer anyway.

[Peter]

Could we possibly have one non-officing member of each major party in Atlasia?  Or each Presidential candidate could appoint one representative to count votes.

Given that I believe there is a major desire to keep the Committee limited to 3 persons, then each major party will not be feasible because there are 5 firmly established parties right now. Presidential candidates will also suffer from the same problem given that there is a strong possibility of more than 3. The question then also arises: What do we do in Senate only elections?

Regarding my previous statement that Emsworth has read into evidence, I believe I have found ways to negate at least some of these problems in the counting phase that I will go over later.

[Peter]

The Committee that will receive and verify votes

How many persons should be on it?

There seems to be a consensus of three, as was in the original bill on this point.

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There seems to be agreement that we should allow the list of qualified Committee members extend beyond a list of office holders, possibly to a list of volunteered ordinary citizens or citizens nominated by parties. Whether a confirmation is necessary is unclear as to whether we have consensus.

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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?

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The feelings of Sam and Emsworth pretty much some up my own here - there is too much possibility of conflict of interest in a court case to have Justices serve the Committee. Gabu previously concurred in this opinion IIRC in Senate debate, so I think consensus has been reached here also.

[Peter]

This is also one of the reasons I suggested two official members and one non-official, in the hope that non-formation wouldn't happen.

I'm more than open to non-office holders being on the committee and in fact I will have to pretty much demand it in report I expect. The question presented is, even after all those possible contigencies have been gone through, if we think there is a possibility of non-formation, what do we do?

[Peter]

I will liase with Colin later in the week regarding this issue. If it is determined non-formation is a reasonable possibility, then we will return to this issue at some later date.

Next topic:

Voting secretly

How should this be achieved, by email or PM?

Should secret voters have to sign a "register" after they have voted secretly?

If so, should their vote be disqualified if they fail to sign the register?

Should official advice be published to aid voters by the Forum Affairs dept?

[Peter]

If a register is going to possibly be incomplete, then it is not a very effective list to be checking against in the first place.

Even if we did require signatures on the register, it would still erode one of the principal reasons for a secret ballot: That of keeping votes anonymous.

If the tactical voters know who has voted, they can make at least an educated guess as to which way the results are trending, and vote accordingly. Obviously they would never have the advantage they do now, but they still might be able to eek something out.

[Peter]

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.

We are not here to count heads, we are here to report feasibility. Even so, whilst apparently a majority have said that they will not use a secret ballot, this does not mean to say that some of them do not support it. I personally will not use the secret ballot - I have said this before and I will say it as many times as I am asked, yet I do support the underlying concept if it can be shown to be practical.

[Peter]

Verification of the Votes themselves and publication

When should verification take place? (i.e. when should the Committee meet to verify the votes)

Should votes be published at all? If so, when?

If votes are published, should they be published with the voters name attached?

Should a list of those who vote secretly be publicly disclosed?

Should official advice be published to aid the Committee by the Forum Affairs dept?

What happens if one of the Committee members for whatever reason becomes absent?


Counting the Votes

Should the job of effectively tallying and certifying the entire election result be devolved to the Committee away from the SoFA? Or if a list of votes is published (named or not), should the job remain with the SoFA?

If a voter votes both publically and secretly, should both their votes be discounted even if these votes are identical?

If a voter votes twice secretly, should this be treated as in public voting as a disqualified voter?

If votes are not published what checks will be put in place to ensure that there is a uniform standard applied to all ballots
I'm including these two sections together because they are pretty much inseparable.

In my vision of the system, the Committee will meet and verify the content of the ballots, and without doing any actual counting, will then publish the list of votes (without the name of the voter and excepting only those who voted twice) after the election has ended. The SoFA will then do the counting. The names of the secret voters will then also be published (for asterisking purposes) in a randomised order by the committee.

I think the votes should be published and counted publically because it means that ultimately if a mistake is made, it can be picked up by others - Its not that I don't trust the committee to be honest, but we all make mistakes and the more of us counting the same ballots, the better. Also, it allows candidates to review themselves any "dubious" ballots that do get counted so that if they wish to pursue a litigative path, they can do so fully aware of what they are challenging.

[Peter]

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.

[Peter]

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?

[Peter]

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.

Voting secretly

There is apparent consensus that voting should be by PM. There is support for a register being used that voters must sign to indicate that they have voted secretly. There is no consensus on whether failure to sign should disqualify votes cast. Official advice should be published by the DoFA for the voters to aid them.

Verification of the Votes themselves and publication

The Committee should meet as soon after the closing of voting as possible. The votes themselves should be published, but without the names of the voters attached and in a randomised order so that the voter cannot be matched up with his ballot. A list of secret voters should be disclosed, whether by the signed register or by the Committee.

If a Committee member becomes absent, the remaining two members may meet as a quorum to verify the votes

Counting the Votes

Once the list of votes is published, the SoFA should conduct the full count. The Committee should thus only verify votes, not count them.

Voting twice secretly should disqualify both votes. There has been no discussion of voting twice, once publicly and once secretly.

Other issues for consideration

We are yet to consider measures that we would put in place to minimise corruption on the part of the committee members.

[Peter]

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I honestly don't really have any plans in mind to deal with this problem in advance.  The only way it's really come into my thinking so far is in the belief that 2 out of the 3 members of the committee should be the SoFA and GM, the two most non-partisan positions in Atlasia.

One point I am especially concerned about is the exclusive ability of committee members to vote tactically, whereas this is denied to other voters. A committee member may not only cast a tactical ballot of his own, but also may reveal the totals to some other citizen who would then be able to vote tactically.

I have thought about this, and there is no means that I can see to absolutely overcome it. However, I believe that if we simply ask Committee members to vote publicly and within the first 24 hours of polling, then this problem would be eliminated. Obivously we cannot force them, but I'm sure we can appeal to their sense of decency and fair play to get them to comply.

[Peter]

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.

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So essentially if you vote secretly without signing the register, if you cast a public vote it will still count?

This raises another related question in my mind: If we have a compulsory register (which seems to have support), and then you sign it, but fail to actually secretly vote, and then vote publicly, what happens?

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I envision them being published as soon after verification as possible, which would obviously be at the end of an election.

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I doubt it: There were about 5 hours between the last 5 votes in the last election and the votes before it: I would probably have had all the votes cast to that point at my disposal, and thus my tactical advantage would have been identical.

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Yes, I should have been more specific and noted that it will be. I am simply trying to fill in the gaps of what should have been discussed by now, but due to low participation has not been.

[Peter]

Now that the election is over, hopefully I can refocus the attention of committee members onto this issue.

[Peter]

Given that there is not much discussion on previous topics, we shall move onto what should be our final topic:

Prevention of Fraud

What specific offences on the part of the electoral committee should we criminalise?

Beyond criminalisation, are there any particular safeguards we can put in place to stop fraud?

After this, we will recover partially covered areas and then draft a final report.

[Peter]

This is getting somewhat slow, and since I can think of little to add myself or that could be added by others, we will move into the report drafting phase.

You can see my initial workings of a draft here

As I have already begun to do, I will appendix much of the technical detail for the sake of ordinary citizens and others who have to end up reading through this.

Comments on my drafts are welcome. I will work on more of it this evening.

[Peter]

Peter, do you mind if I edit my earlier statement (presented as Appendix 2) for clarity, etc.?

Not at all.

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The Secret Voting Bill presently on the draft is the SVB as it stood before being placed into this Commission's mandate. I strongly suspect the replacement suggested will be somewhat different from that which the Senate had previously considered.