Campaigning Bill

[MasterJedi]

Campaigning Bill


§1. Findings
   (a) In the recent case of True Democrat v. Department of Forum Affairs, the Supreme Court found that due to the lack of any definition of what constituted campaigning, only the narrowest of definitions could be used.
   (b) A narrow definition of campaigning allows for some campaigning activities to escape the sanctions intended to curb them.
   (c) The Senate has not only power under Article V Section 1 Clause 3 to punish campaigning under the limited definition ascribed to the term by the Supreme Court, but a broader power under Article I Section 4 Clause 6 and Article II Section 2 Clause 2 to regulate elections so as to prevent campaigning type activities.

§2. Definitions
   (a) The term "criminal campaigning" shall mean content in an ballot post clearly and obviously designed to persuade other voters. It shall include any direct exhortation to voters in general or particular to vote in a certain manner.  It shall also include any use of an image or a hyperlink containing references to one more candidates (including potential write-in candidates), save one copied from the post containing the official ballot for that election.
   (b) The term "civil campaigning" shall mean any expression of the reasons for casting a particular vote that does not constitute criminal campaigning.  The term does not include any expression of the difficulty of deciding how to vote or any unexplained statement that one or more candidates are fit or unfit to serve in an elected office.

§3. Civil Campaigning
   (a) If an administrator of a voting booth determines that a post contains civil campaigning, he shall invaldate the ballot only for those offices for which civil campaigning occured.
   (b) The voter may within 72 hours of the determiniation of an occurance of civil campaigning make an administrative appeal to the Secretary of Forum Affairs, giving his reasons for why the activity should not be considered civil campaigning.
   (c) If the Secretary determines that civil campaigning has not occurred, the ballot shall be counted for that office.
   (d) If the Secretary determines that civil campaigning has occurred, or if the Secretary fails to inform the voter of his determination within 72 hours of the voter making his appeal, the voter may appeal to the Supreme Court.
   (e) The Supreme Court may choose whether or not to hear the case.
   (f) If the result of an adminstrative or judicial appeal could affect the outcome of an election, any Justice of the Supreme Court may issue an injuction barring the carrying out of the effect of that outcome until either all appeals have been exhausted or the result would no longer affect the outcome.

§4. Criminal Campaigning
   (a) If the administrator of a voting booth determines that a post contains criminal campaigning, he shall invalidate the ballot only for those offices for which criminal campaigning occured and refer the evidence to the Attorney General for prosecution.
   (b) If the Attorney General determines that he will not prosecute for criminal campaigning, then the content shall be treated as if it were civil campaigning.
   (c) If the Attorney General fails to determine whether he will prosecute within 24 hours of receiving a referral under subsection (a), then the voter may begin an administrative appeal as if the offense were civil campaigning. Such an adminstrative appeal shall be immediately suspended if the Attorney General determines to prosecute, but any rulings made as a result of the administrative appeal shall stand until overruled by the trial court.
   (d) If the Attorney General fails to determine whether he will prosecute within 168 hours of receiving a referral under subsection (a), then all criminal charges shall be dropped.
   (e) If the voter is found guilty of criminal campaigning, then the court shall invalidate  the ballot only for those offices for which criminal campaigning occured and may additionally impose a penalty of the suspension of voting rights for a period not to exceed 120 days, or in lieu of such penalty, may impose a probationary period of not to exceed 1 year, during which the court may impose the penalty if the voter violates the terms of probation.
   (f)  If the voter is found not guilty of criminal campaigning, then the court shall also determine if the action constituted civil campaigning and order the official results of the election adjusted accordingly.
__________________________________________________________

Sponsor: Sen. Ilikeverin

[MasterJedi]

All that should be illegal is saying "Vote for this person" in the booth. Saying "This was a tough decision" or I couldn't decide but since Person X has done a good job I vote for them" shouldn't be illegal.

So I'll be against this unless it's changed.

[Gabu]

I'm not even convinced that campaigning should be illegal at all, given the alternatives.  I think that the only thing that should be illegal is making a post that that does not contain any ballot at all.  As long as you vote, the rest of what you said should be irrelevant.  It's not as if messages in the voting booth thread are any different than other messages, and if we require that all posts contain a ballot, it's not like it would clutter up the thread and make the SoFA's job harder.

[Yates]

I'm not even convinced that campaigning should be illegal at all, given the alternatives.  I think that the only thing that should be illegal is making a post that that does not contain any ballot at all.  As long as you vote, the rest of what you said should be irrelevant.  It's not as if messages in the voting booth thread are any different than other messages, and if we require that all posts contain a ballot, it's not like it would clutter up the thread and make the SoFA's job harder.

I concur.

[Bacon King]

I'm not even convinced that campaigning should be illegal at all, given the alternatives.  I think that the only thing that should be illegal is making a post that that does not contain any ballot at all.  As long as you vote, the rest of what you said should be irrelevant.  It's not as if messages in the voting booth thread are any different than other messages, and if we require that all posts contain a ballot, it's not like it would clutter up the thread and make the SoFA's job harder.

I concur.

I concur as well.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

All that should be illegal is saying "Vote for this person" in the booth. Saying "This was a tough decision" or I couldn't decide but since Person X has done a good job I vote for them" shouldn't be illegal.

So I'll be against this unless it's changed.

As written, the bill explictly states that something like "This was a tough decision" does not fall within the definition of "campaigning".  However, "I couldn't decide but since Person X has done a good job I vote for them" does constitute "civil campaigning" as written.

I won't be offended if the Senate should choose to revise this bill.  My intent was mainly to provide a framework for handling campaigning.  I apoligize to the Senate for posting here, but since part of the PPT's objection was invalid, I decided to address it here.

[MasterJedi]

All that should be illegal is saying "Vote for this person" in the booth. Saying "This was a tough decision" or I couldn't decide but since Person X has done a good job I vote for them" shouldn't be illegal.

So I'll be against this unless it's changed.

As written, the bill explictly states that something like "This was a tough decision" does not fall within the definition of "campaigning".  However, "I couldn't decide but since Person X has done a good job I vote for them" does constitute "civil campaigning" as written.

I won't be offended if the Senate should choose to revise this bill.  My intent was mainly to provide a framework for handling campaigning.  I apoligize to the Senate for posting here, but since part of the PPT's objection was invalid, I decided to address it here.

You're welcome to post here as much as you want. That's your right and I encourage it as well.

[Q]

Ernest knows what he's doing.  I hold his opinion on matters related to elections in the highest of regards and hope that the Senate will as well.

[Keystone Phil]

All that should be illegal is saying "Vote for this person" in the booth. Saying "This was a tough decision" or I couldn't decide but since Person X has done a good job I vote for them" shouldn't be illegal.

So I'll be against this unless it's changed.

You hit it perfectly.

[MasterJedi]

All that should be illegal is saying "Vote for this person" in the booth. Saying "This was a tough decision" or I couldn't decide but since Person X has done a good job I vote for them" shouldn't be illegal.

So I'll be against this unless it's changed.

You hit it perfectly.

Thanks. Tomorrow I'll begin working to change this. Criminal campaigning will be what I said above and the votes, as they do now, shall be discounted. Civil campaigning will be everything else besides telling the person should vote for them, and shall have no punishment.

[Hatman 🍁]

I think I concur with Senator Gabu and all the other Senators who concur with him for similar reasons. Campaigning is not a serious problem in voting booths here in Atlasia. We are not drones who are swayed to vote for a candidate based on what we see in a voting booth. Because of this, I think we should abolish this restriction on voting.

[ilikeverin]

I disagree; I think the criminal campaigning part of this bill is needed.  The civil campaigning part, maybe not (I mean, no warnings?  hmph!).

[Gabu]

I disagree; I think the criminal campaigning part of this bill is needed.

Why?  Is there something special about a post in the voting booth?  As long as the post contains a vote, I don't see what the problem is.

At the very least, it needs to be made very specific.  I'm sick and tired of people questioning the validity of a vote because the post also contained a description of or reference to a candidate.

[Emsworth]

If I may interject, I do not think that we can allow campaigning (in the strictest sense of the word) in the voting booth. If any voter makes a personal attack on a candidate, then someone is bound to respond, and the voting booth will degenerate into chaos. Furthermore, it is probable that new voters and somewhat inactive voters will be greatly influenced by any campaigning that occurs in the voting booth.

Whether minor comments should be grounds for disqualifying a vote, I do not know. I lean towards allowing the vote to be counted.

[Gabu]

If any voter makes a personal attack on a candidate, then someone is bound to respond, and the voting booth will degenerate into chaos.

Hence why I mention the caveat that I'd require that every post must contain a valid ballot.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

At the very least, it needs to be made very specific.  I'm sick and tired of people questioning the validity of a vote because the post also contained a description of or reference to a candidate.

I tried as best I could to be specific.  You have to explictly do certain things in order for it to be criminal campaigning.  You have to state your reasons for voting for it to be civil campaigning, and I made two potential grey areas (in the opinion of other people that is, personally I never saw how they could be considered campaigning of any sort) explictly not civil campaigning.  If you can find more specific language, please do.

[WMS]

I would lean toward leniency if for no other reason that because of 1) unlimited write-in votes and 2) no secret ballot, we will always have a problem with commentary in people's votes, and we might as well make it so that people's votes are not discarded because of it.

[MasterJedi]

I really don't have time to write the amendment that I said I would. So unless somebody else wants to I'll be voting against this.

[MasterJedi]

No debate in 24 hours and no amendments so: I hereby open up the final vote on this amendment. Please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.

§1. Findings
   (a) In the recent case of True Democrat v. Department of Forum Affairs, the Supreme Court found that due to the lack of any definition of what constituted campaigning, only the narrowest of definitions could be used.
   (b) A narrow definition of campaigning allows for some campaigning activities to escape the sanctions intended to curb them.
   (c) The Senate has not only power under Article V Section 1 Clause 3 to punish campaigning under the limited definition ascribed to the term by the Supreme Court, but a broader power under Article I Section 4 Clause 6 and Article II Section 2 Clause 2 to regulate elections so as to prevent campaigning type activities.

§2. Definitions
   (a) The term "criminal campaigning" shall mean content in an ballot post clearly and obviously designed to persuade other voters. It shall include any direct exhortation to voters in general or particular to vote in a certain manner.  It shall also include any use of an image or a hyperlink containing references to one more candidates (including potential write-in candidates), save one copied from the post containing the official ballot for that election.
   (b) The term "civil campaigning" shall mean any expression of the reasons for casting a particular vote that does not constitute criminal campaigning.  The term does not include any expression of the difficulty of deciding how to vote or any unexplained statement that one or more candidates are fit or unfit to serve in an elected office.

§3. Civil Campaigning
   (a) If an administrator of a voting booth determines that a post contains civil campaigning, he shall invaldate the ballot only for those offices for which civil campaigning occured.
   (b) The voter may within 72 hours of the determiniation of an occurance of civil campaigning make an administrative appeal to the Secretary of Forum Affairs, giving his reasons for why the activity should not be considered civil campaigning.
   (c) If the Secretary determines that civil campaigning has not occurred, the ballot shall be counted for that office.
   (d) If the Secretary determines that civil campaigning has occurred, or if the Secretary fails to inform the voter of his determination within 72 hours of the voter making his appeal, the voter may appeal to the Supreme Court.
   (e) The Supreme Court may choose whether or not to hear the case.
   (f) If the result of an adminstrative or judicial appeal could affect the outcome of an election, any Justice of the Supreme Court may issue an injuction barring the carrying out of the effect of that outcome until either all appeals have been exhausted or the result would no longer affect the outcome.

§4. Criminal Campaigning
   (a) If the administrator of a voting booth determines that a post contains criminal campaigning, he shall invalidate the ballot only for those offices for which criminal campaigning occured and refer the evidence to the Attorney General for prosecution.
   (b) If the Attorney General determines that he will not prosecute for criminal campaigning, then the content shall be treated as if it were civil campaigning.
   (c) If the Attorney General fails to determine whether he will prosecute within 24 hours of receiving a referral under subsection (a), then the voter may begin an administrative appeal as if the offense were civil campaigning. Such an adminstrative appeal shall be immediately suspended if the Attorney General determines to prosecute, but any rulings made as a result of the administrative appeal shall stand until overruled by the trial court.
   (d) If the Attorney General fails to determine whether he will prosecute within 168 hours of receiving a referral under subsection (a), then all criminal charges shall be dropped.
   (e) If the voter is found guilty of criminal campaigning, then the court shall invalidate  the ballot only for those offices for which criminal campaigning occured and may additionally impose a penalty of the suspension of voting rights for a period not to exceed 120 days, or in lieu of such penalty, may impose a probationary period of not to exceed 1 year, during which the court may impose the penalty if the voter violates the terms of probation.
   (f)  If the voter is found not guilty of criminal campaigning, then the court shall also determine if the action constituted civil campaigning and order the official results of the election adjusted accordingly.

[MasterJedi]

Nay

[Keystone Phil]

Nay

[ilikeverin]

Yup

[Democratic Hawk]

Basically, I think this Bill is too austere, so after much thought I vote Nay

'Hawk'

[Gabu]

Nay.

I'll write up what I think it should look like sometime soon.  We should really get this campaigining in the voting booth thing cleared up, but these are not the measures that I think should be taken.

[Bacon King]

Nay.