AVFOINPG vs. Senate of Atlasia

[OBD]

I, OBD, chief counsel for Atlasian Voters For Originality In Naked Power Grabs (AVFOINPG), humbly request that the Supreme Court issue an immediate injunction preventing the seating of Wulfric AKA Dwarven Dragon in the Senate by the President Pro Tempore.

On March 26, 2024, Party Chair of Hui Liliʻuokalani, Lawer, appointed Wulfric AKA Dwarven Dragon to the Senate seat vacated by Laki, under the authority granted to Party Chairs by Article III, Section 2, Clause I.iii of the Atlasian constitution. It is the view of AVFOINPG that this appointment was not legitimate under Atlasian law, and that Wulfric AKA Dwarven Dragon should not be seated by the Atlasian Senate.

Article III, Section 2, Clause I.iii of the Atlasian Constitution covers procedures for the filling of vacancies in the Senate. I have attached the relevant text below.

iii. At-large Senate vacancies shall be filled through appointment by the executive of the former Senator’s Party; but should a vacancy occur as the result of the death, expulsion, or resignation of an at-large Senator not being a member of a major Party, then a special election shall be held within twenty days of the vacancy to choose a replacement to serve the remainder of the existing term.

The bolded text is the crux of this case - can Hui Liliʻuokalani be considered a major party? I present as Exhibit A the most recent census, and Exhibit B the most recent legislation governing the definition of a major party.

Exhibit A

Atlasia Census
March 24, 2024

	DA	Fed	GOP	HL	Lab	Lib	NKT	Pax	SNP	Ind	Oth	Total
Lincoln	11 (---)	8 (---)	0 (---)	0 (---)	17 (---)	4 (---)	2 (---)	8 (---)	1 (---)	5 (---)	0 (---)	56 (---)
South	0 (---)	9 (---)	0 (---)	0 (---)	2 (---)	0 (---)	0 (---)	6 (---)	39 (---)	2 (---)	0 (---)	58 (---)
Fremont	2 (---)	5 (---)	3 (---)	3 (---)	6 (---)	0 (---)	1 (---)	17 (---)	0 (---)	6 (---)	3 (---)	47 (---)
Total	13 (---)	22 (---)	3 (---)	3 (---)	25 (---)	4 (---)	3 (---)	31 (---	40 (---)	13 (---)	3 (---)	161 (---)

This job is easier than I expected

Exhibit B

Amendment to the Census Act

Section I: Title
1. This act shall be known as Census Act of 2023

Section II: Defining Major Party

Section 2 of The census act will be amended as following

1. The Cabinet member assigned the portfolio of Census Administrator shall maintain a census document listing all registered voters in Atlasia. For each voter, the census shall list:

a. Their permanent Atlas Forum username
b. The federal and regional political parties they are registered with
c. The state they are registered in
d. The region they reside in
e. Whether or not the voter voted or attempted to vote in each of the last three federal elections.
f. If, according to the provisions of this act, a voter is presently ineligible to move regions, the date by which they shall become eligible to move regions
2. The Census shall be made publicly available to view by all Atlasian citizens.

3. The Census Administrator shall publicly update the census regularly; they are recommended to do so once per week.

4. At least ninety-six hours prior to the start of any federal election, the Census Administrator shall post a public census update indicating the registered voter roll exactly as it stood one hundred and sixty-eight hours prior to the start of the election, so that all citizens shall have access to the accurate list of voters with eligible registrations for the election.

5. Following a federal election, the Census Administrator shall, with all appropriate haste, post an update in which they clearly indicate the voters who have been automatically deregistered according to the provisions of this act, as well as update the census document to reflect these deregistrations.

6. a. For census purposes, a major party will be defined as having three or more registered users being part of them, minor and other parties with less than three users registering for them will be classified in "other".

b. Additionally, a party will only be considered major if it has a party information thread outlining platform, party color and bylaws, has a party chair, and has opened a convention at least once within the past eight months.


Section 3: Enactment

This act will be immediately in effect.

At the time of the most recent Census, on March 24, 2024, Hui Liliʻuokalani was a major party, with three members - HL23, ReallySuper, and Laki. However, on March 25, 2024, Laki deregistered from Atlasia, formally removing major party status from Hui Liliʻuokalani by reducing their membership to two. Hence, as Hui Liliʻuokalani lost major party status, a special election should have been triggered under Article III, Section 2, Clause I.iii.

Exhibit C

Deregistering

It's my last wish HL23 fullfills my term.

In conclusion, under Atlasian law, Hui Liliʻuokalani, former Senator Laki's former party, ceased to be a major party on March 25, 2024. Hence, under Article III, Section 2, Clause I.iii of the Atlasian constitution, a special election for the seat should have been triggered, and Lawer AKA Classic Liminal lacks the constitutional authority to appoint a new member to the seat. I humbly request that this honorable body provide immediate clarity to the situation and ensure that the special election owed to the Atlasian people by the Constitution go forward.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

In my capacity as Attorney General, I hereby recuse myself from this case. Another cabinet member may submit a brief for the government if they so wish.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

In my personal capacity, I would submit that the most logical reading of Article 2, Section 2, 1-3. of the Constitution is that it applies as of the time the vacancy is created, not at some later juncture. Laki resigned from the Senate Seat at 11:29:42 AM Eastern, before his deregistration at 11:30:23 AM Eastern. Therefore, at the time the vacancy was created, the HI Party was still a major party with 3 members, and therefore the responsibility for appointing a Senator was with the party executive, regardless of whether the party fell under major party status for a time at some later point. There was no party executive, therefore it fell to the party to elect one and then have that executive select a candidate. The executive was chosen by a majority of the members of the party and the executive appointed someone who was part of the party at that time.

I would remind the court that its precedent is to not involve itself in internal party deliberations, see Tack50 v Wulfric (2019): https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=436487.0 . People may not like the fact that the HI party had no established bylaws or chair, but it simply did not. People may surmise that ReallySuper had powers based on being the 'founder', but the constitution does not recognize that, only an 'executive', of which the party simply had none. People may not like the fact that a majority of members of the party during the raid did what they did, but the fact is there is nothing in the constitution or in the non-existent HI bylaws to prevent it, and therefore the court has no role to do so.

Thus, I would ask the court to deny the injunction and dismiss the case with full prejudice.

[reagente]

Amicus Filing from Many Concerned Denizens Organized Nationally Against Low Down Scoundrels (MCDONALDS) in support of petitioner:

The court should reject Dwarven Dragon's reasoning, as he has advanced a concocted word salad that makes a mockery of our constitution and attempts to have it both ways.

Despite such text appearing nowhere in the Constitution, Dwarven Dragon attempts to claim that "shall be filled through appointment by the executive of the former Senator’s Party" should instead read "shall be filled through appointment by the executive of the former Senator’s Party [provided it was a major party at the resignation]". If this is true, why is it the case that the appointment would not be made by the executive at the time of the vacancy, which was ReallySuper, both as party founder and under the de facto officer doctrine? If the text implies that major party status is at time of resignation, why does it not also imply appointment is made by the party executive at time of resignation?

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

I hereby withdraw my previous brief. I instead submit to the court that we had no right to take over the convention from the party's founder or their designee in HL23, and therefore all actions that followed were invalid. I further submit to the court that I retain the viewpoint that the correct point of evaluation for how the vacancy should be filled is the party's status when the vacancy was created, and therefore the appointment of HL23 by defacto Chair ReallySuper, should be formally recognized as valid.

[OBD]

Updated filing:

Since AVFOINPG has filed this case, Dwarven Dragon AKA Wulfric has resigned from his 'Senate seat' - if he can be considered to have held it in the first place. However, Wulfric was a member of the Peace Party at the time of resigning the 'seat', so if his appointment was legitimate (which AVFOINPG disputes) this would then grant appointment power over the seat to the chair of the Peace Party (currently vacant). We request urgent clarification from the Supreme Court regarding this matter - who, if anyone, holds appointment power over the seat, or shall a special election be ordered?