Voting System Reform Commission

[Emsworth]

All necessary appointments having been made, the Voting System Reform Commission has been formed. It consists of the following members:

Emsworth (Vice President)
Wildcard (Governor of the Pacific Region)
KEmperor (Chief Justice)
ILikeVerin (Secretary of Forum Affairs)
Peter Bell (Deputy Secretary of Forum Affairs)
Gabu (President pro tempore)
True Independent (Senator)
Sam Spade (Senator)
Colin Wixted (Senator)

I suggest that our first order of business should be the election of a Chairman.

[Emsworth]

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 thank Sen. True Independent for the nomination; however, I already have plenty of work with the Senate.

[Emsworth]

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.

[Emsworth]

What a load of crap.

Thank you for your very constructive criticism. Seriously, what would you suggest? Just arbitrarily picking any voting system some Senator happens to suggest?

[Emsworth]

All we really need is one person to organize and conduct the whole thing.  If Peter becomes absent, we can always just pick someone else at that time.

That's perfectly acceptable to me.

[Emsworth]

What a load of crap.

Thank you for your very constructive criticism. Seriously, what would you suggest? Just arbitrarily picking any voting system some Senator happens to suggest?

No i was refering to the fact that the usual good old boys got picked for the "commission"

Ah, my apologies: the context was unclear.

As to the membership:
- The Chief Justice is automatically a member under the original law (perfectly legitimate -- there could be constitutional issues involved, and the judicial branch should be included for balance)
- The Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Forum Affairs are automatically members as well (once again, perfectly legitimate -- the executive branch should be represented, and this is within the province of the Department of Forum Affairs)

As to the appointed members:
- The four Senators on the Commission were the only ones willing to serve

So that only leaves Wildcard and me as true appointees to the Commission.

[Emsworth]

I will first address the constitutional issue.

The Constitution provides:

All elections to the Senate shall be by public post. (Article I, Section iv, Clause 6)

All elections to the Presidency shall be by public post. (Article II, Section ii, Clause 2)

The meaning of these clauses is, to me, very clear. Undoubtedly, they mean that voters must publicly post their ballots in the election. I can think of no other reasonable interpretation of these words that would pass muster.

It was clearly the intent of the Framers of this clause that voters should publicly post their own ballots. Several clauses of the Constitution support this view. For example:

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.

Another important clause of the Constitution is:

Persons who edit the post in which their vote(s) are contained at the place of voting shall have their vote counted as void. (Article V, Section ii, Clause 9)

Once again, we find a reference to "the place of voting," clearly implying that there is to be a single voting booth in which citizens publicly cast their ballots. But, there is an even clearer implication in the words: "Persons who edit the post in which their vote(s) are contained ..." Here, the Constitution undeniably implies that voters will be posting their own votes.

The idea that it is constitutional for a voter to send his ballot secretly to someone else, who would then post all the ballots without revealing which vote belonged to which person, is a perversion of the Constitution, both in letter and in spirit. It has been said that there is a loophole, because the Constitution does not explicitly say, "each citizen shall cast his vote in a public post." But such an explicit statement is not necessary. It is abundantly clear to me that the requirement that all elections shall be "by public post" requires each voter to publicly cast his own ballot. This is clear to me not only from the two clauses requiring voting by public post themselves, but also from other clauses in the Constitution, which provide context and aid in interpretation. For, if the Constitution allows someone else to post one's ballot, these clauses, taken in context, shall effectively be meaningless.

If we decide that anything but voting by publicly posting one's own ballot is constitutional, we would be blatantly ignoring the clear and undeniable intent of the Framers. Worse still, we would be twisting and perverting the text of the Constitution to achieve our own ends.

[Emsworth]

To add to my previous post:

An amendment is definitely necessary to ensure secret voting. But "polling" should not be permitted, as it is too open to fraud.

[Emsworth]

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.

[Emsworth]

How many persons should be on it?

There should be no fewer than three. If there is one, the potential for fraud is obviously very great; if there are two, collusion is rather simple.

If there are too many, on the other hand, the probability that all would be online at the time of certification is too low, and logistical problems will ensue.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

If necessary, any citizen, even one who holds no position, should be able to sit on this Committee (but see the exception for Justices below). There need be no specific numerical limit.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Appointment by some federal officer, or by consensus of some group of federal officers, should suffice. Confirmation is not, I think a wise idea: for, if a Senator votes not to confirm, he is stating that he does not trust the nominee, which may lead the nominee to be prejudiced in the vote counting.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

It is the Court which will resolve all electoral disputes. But if one of the Justices was in the first instance involved in the matter, he would be precluded from deciding the same case later. Therefore, Justices should not sit on this Committee.

[Emsworth]

I read the following statement into evidence:

Any of those who are allowed to sit on the Committee must be willing to confirm their availability a week in advance, and then must be willing to go through the painful process of:

1. Actually convening as a group. Anybody who thinks getting 3 people online at the same time is easy just needs to ask the Supreme Court about its recent deliberations, especially if we have to work across large time differences or persons who usually do not spend large amounts of time on AIM or other messenging softwares.
2. Then counting the votes in the precise and painstaking way that will be needed to ensure accurate results.

My guess is that if a committee is able to be formed, it may take several days before results are declared, and any post-election litigation that could occur might actually run past Inauguration Day. In effect, the two week buffer built into the Constitution to ensure that legal disputes are settled could be lost.

In effect, this legislation stacks the deck against the Forum Affairs Dept from the outset by leaving us with very few options to form a Committee in an election with a large field. The result could be a total train wreck with a victor not declared for some days, or even worse, no Committee at all and thus the entire set of secret votes thrown out from the start.

And these problems grow even further, if we add more members to the Committee.

[Emsworth]

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.

But then, what if the candidate appoints a non-serious or non-cooperative poster? For instance, what if Jesus decides to run and appoint opebo?

Also, this would give us a committee of perhaps ten members; to expect all of whom to meet at midnight on the relevant day would not be reasonable.

[Emsworth]

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

I confess that I have no answer here.

[Emsworth]

How should this be achieved, by email or PM?

PM. I don't really see much advantage to e-mail over PM, and the latter seems simpler

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Yes, I think so, to prevent frauds by the Committee.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Yes.

[Emsworth]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I would say as soon as possible after the election.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Yes, as soon as possible after the election.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I don't think so; then, it seems rather pointless, I think, to have a secret ballot in the first place.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I believe that voters should sign a register indicating that a secret ballot was cast; the committee need only correct errors in the register.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I presume that a quorum would still be allowed to meet. I don't see much else that we can do.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Once the list is published, we can let the SoFA count.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Absolutely.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This could be resolved if each ballot is published without the voter's name attached.

One other issue we must consider is the possibility of a Committee member disclosing the ballots to another voter in order to help him vote tactically.

[Emsworth]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I would support Sam Spade's proposal. The third member should be a nominee of the President; if either of the other two are unable to serve, then they should also be replaced by any two others appointed by the President.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This is indeed something I am unsure about.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I would say yes. Signing the register is meant to prevent fraud; the signature should be absolutely mandatory.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The problem of voting once publicly and once secretly should be resolved if all voters have to sign a register. But if the voter still votes twice, both ballots should be discounted.

[Emsworth]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

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.

[Emsworth]

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?

The following, at the very least, ought to be criminalized:
- Revealing or publicly discussing vote totals, results, or individual votes before the election ends
- Revealing a voter's identity without his consent
- Fraudulently counting the results
- Gross negligence in conducting the election

As to specific measures to combat fraud, I fear that I cannot think of any.

[Emsworth]

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

Also, I have a suggestion for Section 2 of the proposed Secret Voting Bill: Instead of ranking the Senators based on district or region, they should be ranked on the basis of seniority (i.e., length of unbroken service).

[Emsworth]

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. #4, and if the list is exhausted #1; members of this list/presidential nominees should also be used to fill in for the SoFA or GM if necessary.

[Emsworth]

I vote to concur in the whole report.