Dept. of Fed. Elections

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Franzl, I have a question.

Are you going to open a booth, like the last time, on midnight Central European time (your and mine timezone), or, as it was practicized before, midnight "Atlas time"?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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This part of Bgwah's bill would solve that problem.

If Snowguy or Kal had bothered to bring it to the floor, we might be better off.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

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This part of Bgwah's bill would solve that problem.

If Snowguy or Kal had bothered to bring it to the floor, we might be better off.

Get off me, dude, I was doing nomination stuff, while ceding rest to the PPT

[Franzl]

Franzl, I have a question.

Are you going to open a booth, like the last time, on midnight Central European time (your and mine timezone), or, as it was practicized before, midnight "Atlas time"?

I'm going to keep it at 17:00 (5pm) Atlas time.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Franzl, you should definitely open a single voting booth and resolve this eleciton through STV. If nobody challenges the constitutionality of your act, the Supreme Court will have nothing to say, and if someone does, we have a possibility to change the jurisprudence for good.

[Fritz]

I agree with Antonio.

[Pheurton Skeurto]

So let me get this straight...we're having TWO separate elections?

2 candidates in one race and 3 in the other?

Well...maybe I could even it up...

[Franzl]

I've made my decision regarding how I intend to run the special election on March 10.

I am going to proceed with a single STV election in which both vacant seats will be elected. The alternative, in my opinion, would lead to a lot of unnecessary chaos and would make a mockery of the supposedly proportional representation intended in the first place by the law.

Naturally, I would prefer for this not to be challenged in court, but if it should be, I am prepared to defend my actions in court. So I suppose we'll just see what happens.

If we wind up having to repeat one or more of the elections, I apologize in advance.....but I believe I am acting in the interests of the Atlasian voters.

The election will begin as planned at 5pm Eastern on Thursday, March 10. Candidacy declaration ends 24 hours before the earliest possible beginning of the election (which would mean you have until Tuesday night at midnight to declare.)

Happy voting.

[Pheurton Skeurto]

I'm behind you, Franzl!

[Franzl]

Lief has resigned his Senate seat effective immediately.

So 3 seats are up for election this weekend.

[Rowan]

If we are not going to follow the law, I intend to sue. If we are not a nation of laws, what are we?

[bgwah]

Interestingly enough, I already introduced a bill in the Senate to number the at-large seats. Coincidence!?

[Brandon H]

The court's ruling was merely that the number of candidates in the special election could not be changed after absentee voting began.  While it ruled that portion of the law unconstitutional, that merely means that special elections do not have to be held in that manner, not that they cannot.

I am going with this interpretation as I remember absentee voting already starting being an issue in this case.

I support Franzl's plan. I almost have a creative work around if there are any constitutional issues.

[California8429]

Hurray for Franzl's plan

[Franzl]

I should note that absentee ballots can be requested now. Not sure what good it does since regular voting will commence in slightly over 8 hours....but if you want, you can vote absentee.

[Franzl]

I'm delaying the opening of the voting booth until 6pm Eastern. I'm on my phone and I can't make it home and create the ballot until then.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

[minionofmidas]

I can only urge the DoFA to end such vile misinformation:

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Calculations about known candidate strength aside, the minimum number of votes everybody in an STV election should cast is n-x, where n is the number of candidates and x is the number of seats to fill. This number, or any above it, ensures your vote will be fully counted in the last distribution (though it may still be counted for the defeated runner-up, of course.)
The more seats there are, the fewer votes you need to cast in order to vote intelligently.

[Franzl]

12 hours left to vote!

[bgwah]

What about daylight savings?

[Associate Justice PiT]

What about daylight savings?

     The forum seems to ignore daylight savings, so I think there will be no problems if we specify forum time.

[bgwah]

What about daylight savings?

     The forum seems to ignore daylight savings, so I think there will be no problems if we specify forum time.

I think it just says EST, though!

[Franzl]

Official notice: Voting ends precisely 72 hours after it began. I wasn't aware the U.S. was changing clocks this weekend.

[Franzl]

Voting has ended.

I'm going to begin the counting and certification process immediately, but this is a relatively complex and time consuming count.....so don't expect final results for a while.

I'll probably have it within an hour or two. If I decide to go to bed before finishing, though, I'll let you all know.

[Franzl]

Update: I've determined that every vote cast was valid. I've checked twice and I'll go through it one more time because the election is extremely close.

Not sure if the counts will be released before I go to bed.

[Franzl]

Alright I'm calling it a night as far as this here is concerned.

As said, I believe every single vote cast was valid.....so you probably have a relatively good idea of what's going on if you've been following Lewis count.

I certainly need to do my own count entirely (it's my job ), and part of it is done already.....but Lewis is someone whose work can very likely be trusted