Talk Elections

Sponsor: ZuWo

For the record, this will have to be passed as a Constitutional Amendment.

Does "any length of time" mean edit your vote at all? Or is there supposed to be an actual length of time inserted into this?

If we do decide this is a good idea, I propose going back to the original wording from the second Consitution; however, I am opposed to eliminating the 20 minute grace period.

I  would like to thank Governor A-Bob for inviting me to address this assembly on the subject of the Vote Sanctity Act.  I consider it an honor to be asked to address this legislative body in this beautiful region.

In answer to the question from the honorable member TJ in Cleve "any length of time" means just that, that any editing of the original vote, at any time after the original vote is cast, invalidates that vote.

I would urge support for this bill, as we have seen in the last federal election, this 20 minute time frame to change a vote leaves open the possibility of a voter being manipulated into changing, or even invalidating their vote due to being pressured by someone else.

One person, one vote, per election, is a fair way to vote.  This bill eliminates any possibility of a voter being manipulated or pressured in any way by someone else.

This bill personifies democracy in action.

This bill is fair and just and puts all voters on an equal footing in every election.

The will of the people must prevail, not the will of potential manipulators looking out for their own interests.

It is the responsibility of each of us before casting our vote to know that that is the choice we have decided upon.

I urge your assembly to get behind democracy and support this bill.

Thank you, and thank you once again for inviting me to your lovely region.

Looking back at my voting record, there have been several votes I've made over the years that would have been nullified if this were law. There have been plenty of times that I, as well as many other Mideasterner's, have gone back to edit a vote a couple minutes after, sometimes just minor things (one time I decided to add "LWC" to the end of Ink's name just to be more clear ;) ) I could perhaps get behind reducing the time to 10 minutes, but I will do everything I can to get this defeated in it's current form. Not too long ago I had to edit a vote (can't remember the reason), and since my Atlas has been running slow for a while now, even though I made the edit just seconds after I posted, it took a couple minutes to update.

I would like to add, that the current wording of this is tricky, as you can edit it for the first few seconds after you post it and it doesn't show that you did. 30 seconds or a minute, I believe.

It was suggested to me that I intrdouce this bill and I did so because I think this is an issue which must be addressed by our Assembly. The "Invaligate" affair has shown us how problematic it can be if people make use of the possibility to edit their vote after they have already cast it. In fact, "Invaligate" has demonstrated that the vote editing practice can lead to wrong allegations and ensuing bickering and this can be prevented with the current bill.
Let me be clear about that - the "Invaligate" affair was blown out of proportion and the conduct of some of the President's political adversaries was not helpful. Our former President was accused of campaigning for the invalidation of votes but it eventually turned out that the allegations of crime which some people made against him were incorrect and, in my view, based on irrational antipathy towards him. As a result, it was logical that he was not found guilty and I welcome that.
But as I said, in order to prevent such events to ever happen again I support the idea to get rid of the option to edit a vote altogether. Every voter's got two eyes, a brain and, additionally, a preview function on the forum which they can use in order to check what their vote's going to look like. In my opinion, this must suffice. Double check your vote before casting it, and you won't encounter any problems. As in real life, once you put your ballot in the ballot-box, there's no second chance or editing.

Edit: You see, I frequently edit my posts but that's because of linguistic reasons. I don't want to do the same when it comes to my votes. ;)

This coming from the individual who attempted to get me to change my Senate vote because I voted for Napoleon in the last Atlasian election, moments after I had voted.  I do not know how many other voters you attempted to get to change their votes.

This bill would eliminate that blatant interference with voters and their votes. 

Protip: Don't spoil your ballot by needlessly adding LWC to your ballot. Fake problem solved!

P.S. ZuWo, if you want to claim that I am lying about Tmthforu's actions, perhaps you would like to ask whethear or not he'd like me to release some PMs (presumably some of the ones he asked Jake Matthews to delete before getting him banned and evading a fair trial). So see what the boss thinks and ill provide the necessary evidence of why he polls worse than even Rowan Brandon against Polnut. Or, apologize for making false allegations. Thanks! ;D

Napoleon, any time I ever tried to engage in Northeast affairs, you'd always criticize me for it and call me a nitwit. Now, I don't have much of a problem with you engaging in Mideast affairs, but at least bring something constructive to the table. That may not have been a pressing time  to edit your ballot, but there have been times in the past where it has been needed, not just by me, but many other Atlasians.

Winfield, what I did, while may be considered unethical, was perfectly legal. This bill may be "ethics reform", but it has some serious flaws. You failed to address the concern on slow computers, a problem I know I have had in the past, and I remember a voter from the IDS having the same problem in the June elections. You also failed to address that a voter can edit their vote within the first minute and it not show up. How would we be able to enforce that?

I'm confident a majority of Mideasterners will agree with me that while a reduction would be fine, completely wiping out the ability to edit votes goes too far.

Governor and Senator from the Northeast,

thank you (Governor) for your input on the bill in question, but it is now up to the Mideast to debate the Vote Sanctity Act.

If there is no notation at the bottom of the entry that the vote was edited, then for purposes of counting the vote, it was not edited.

Besides that, no entry is deemed to be edited if there is not a notation at the bottom of the entry stating the edit date and time.  

Understood.  My apologies.

It's just a technicality - the law itself say's you can't edit your vote from the moment you post it. I'm just pointing out that you can't technically enforce this law on the first minute after you post it. I can't see any real legal issues rising from this, it's just a point I was making.

I'd still like a supporter of this bill to ease my concern regarding slow computers.

Tmth, I have the right to defend myself if I am under attack by the Assemblyman. You consistently try to compare two totally different situations.

^^That, is not defending yourself. That's called trying to be a smartass.

"Invaligate" is over and done with. If you want to discuss it more with ZuWu, find another thread, Dave knows you've already cluttered enough with it as is. We are here trying to find ways to improve our region. Unless you share that same goal, you really don't have much business here.

Way to quote only part of my post! Also, my suggestion is a pretty good counter argument to your point. The guy with the slow computer was too slow to even make the twenty minute mark.

Anyways, if you insist I will have some PMs posted.

Incorrect. When I made my post asking you to post something constructive, the above post was all you made. You edited on the last paragraph 20 minutes later. Then you use my words, words I made BEFORE you made the edit, and said you deserved to respond to ZuWo's claims, claims you hadn't responded to when I made the post. Quit trying to be so sneaky.

I never "insisted" on having PM's published, and I never will, especially if they come from you.

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Now, regarding the one thing relevant you've actually said in the thread, he was ready to edit his vote (IIRC) just minutes before the 20 minutes had elapsed, but was unable to successfully do it because of a slow site. At least for me, the problem is just on Atlas, my computer itself is fine. There have been times I've done formatting edits within the first minute, but it still showed that it had been edited because it took so long to edit. It usually takes my computer, on average, around 20 seconds to amend a post.

Don't accuse me of being sneaky. I don't know whether to laugh or facepalm at that. I edited my post twice, by the way.

I thought you had expressed regret, guess not.

When I quoted your post, just minutes after you posted, only the first paragraph was up.

I've stated before that I regret what I did, but I'm not sure how my frustration that you're hijacking a Mideast Government thread with stuff not relating to the bill at hand shows I have no regrets. Please take your snide comments somewhere else, because they are not wanted here.

Ambassador, in this very thread you and Assemblyman ZuWo have launched attacks on myself and others such as Snowguy. If you feel this thread is unfit for me to defend my character, stop attacking me and ask ZuWo to kindly leave me out of this discussion. I reserve the right to defend myself with untruths are spoken.

Sometimes a voter mistakenly puts two candidate with the same rank in an IRV election. In those cases, allowing a time for the mistake to be spotted and corrected can be helpful.

Actually any citizen in Atlasia is free to debate the matter. Badger practically held a seat here when I was Speaker.

Yet another instance in which a voter may need to edit their ballot for a very valid reason.

Please remember, I'm supportive of bringing down the time, I just don't think the bill in it's current form would be wise. I'd be accepting of 10 or even 5 minutes.

No one is going to see a vote, PM the citizen who voted, and get them to read the message, decide to change their vote, and actually do it in 60 seconds

We could surely make room for that. Giving the Governor power to publicly approve their ballot change if they preferenced the same person twice (or whoever is in charge of the voting booth). Tmth changing the time from 20 to 5 to 30 to 1 minute, no time change addresses the reason this bill was brought up.

Alright, a misinterpretation on my part then. Sorry Governor Winfield.

But please, everyone, discuss the bill and nothing else. If someone wants to feud with other people he/she should do so somewhere else. The reason why I mentioned "Invaligate" was to highlight why we need a bill that puts an end to the practice of editing votes. As this case showed, editing votes can lead to massive arguments, which hurts Atlasia in the long term.
The bill offers an easy solution to the problem.

In addition to my previous remarks on your above statement, I will point out that your statement is completely irrelevant and is nothing more than a smoke screen with which you are attempting to mask the real issue here, which is voter manipulation, to which Atlasia should put an end to, once and for all.   

Test 5

You can go 40 seconds without it being detected. Still I believe it is impossible for some to be pressured into changing their vote and actually carrying it out in 40 seconds.

Please stop with that, I'm not trying to mask anything, and I don't appreciate you accusing me of doing so. I was merely making a point, just as you've made points in this thread as well.

I'm not trying to keep voter manipulation, I'm showing potential problems if the bill is passed in it's current form, problems you've done little to address. You just keep saying the same thing over and over again - I'm a bad person for trying to get someone to change their vote and I'm trying to make up excuse after excuse for this not to pass. 5 minutes is a short amount of time to where not much could be done, but it's also enough time to allow someone to make an edit if they messed up, by way of preferencing, misspelling, forgot to add candidate, etc. I don't think what I'm supporting is ridiculous at all. It's fair.

I thought it was a minute.  Now, I'm not sure if that means minute as in 60 seconds or minute as in within the minute of the timestamp it was posted (so if it was 12:12:01, it'd be 59 seconds; 12:12:57, then 3 seconds).

Yes sorry I mean a minute 40. Someone else can try to confirm this.

Anything is possible - someone could be contacted to change their vote through some form of instant messaging. Perhaps it's a zombie who accidentally voting for the wrong candidate, and their "master" telling them to fix it. ;)

In the 1000-1 chance it's happens fast enough sure. However right now Winfield is right, there's a huge amount of this pressuring to change your vote after voting crap going on and cutting an edit down to as little time (none) as possible is the way to solve it. Then adding an amendment allowing a voter to publicly change their vote with the approval of the election administer for preferencing two or more candidates for the same preference would solve that. We don't have redoes in RL when going to the polls, and we already have a preview option and you can change your vote around while preparing your post. That should be plenty. If a voter doesn't take the responsibility to ensure their vote is how they want it before voting, that is their fault.

Debate having ended for more than 24 hours, this is now brought to a vote.  Members will vote AYE, NAY, or ABSTAIN.  This will be a 48 hour vote.

NAY

Aye

Aye; I am a little flaky on this but I see failing to have such strict rules has caused quite a bit of controversy before and I'd rather not see "it" (I will offer no interpretation on what "it" is and please, no one try and convince me of anything before another fight breaks out) happen again.

Doesn't this need to be a Constitutional Amendment?

Assuming the vote will have to be stopped, I'd like for the Assembly to consider the following amendment:

You've got a point here. Actually, that's what Speaker Inks stated right after the bill was introduced to the Assembly. I'm not sure on how we'll have to proceed, though. Will the Act have to be ruled invalid or can we get it passed (if there's a majority) and then propose it as a Constitutional Amendment to the People of the Mideast?

I think Inks should just end the vote, make amendments, then pass it. Or I guess you could kill the bill and re-introduce, but that'd take longer.

Voting has now ended.  The AYEs are 2, and the NAYs are 1, with 2 not voting.  The AYEs have it, and the bill is passed onto the Governor for his signature or veto.

Seeing as I am the only NAY vote, and I have no interest in this passing, there is nobody who can make a motion to reconsider.  This will have to get vetoed and reintroduced.

And if it were signed it would effectively do nothing?

It would make it illegal to change one's vote.  Obviously this would be challenged in the courts, yadda yadda, gets overturned.  So, yes, essentially does nothing.