Lewis Trondheim vs. Secretary of Forum Affairs

[minionofmidas]

May it please the court,

I, Lewis Trondheim, do stand before this Honorable Court. I
- request that the Secretary of Forum Affairs (currently Mr. Earl A. Washburn) do be injuncted from opening a voting booth for the Senate vacancy that arose on July, 22nd due to the resignation of Sen. Conor Flynn, which according to the terms of the Proportional Representation (By-Elections) Act should have been filled at the by-election commencing July 24th, and also
- challenge the certification of said by-election, insofar as it declares only one candidate elected, rather than two as prescribed by law. No objection is raised regarding the validity or invalidity of any of the votes cast, or the declaration of election of Governor Andrew CT.


Having cast my first preference vote for the second candidate that should have been declared elected (Mr Alun Widdershins), I do believe I have standing to sue, although I am no expert in these matters.

[minionofmidas]

While a full, formal brief will be filed some time tomorrow, I would just like to make some points here:

It is not mere coincidence that the absentee booth opens following the deadline for declaring for office; voters must know the choices before them.

Actually, no. Write-in candidates can declare right until poll closing. The deadline for getting your name printed on the ballot (and write-in candidates have won in Atlasia in the past. Frequently. Including ones who filed after some votes had already been cast. I recall a certain Pacific Senate election where we had only write-in candidates.) is at the same moment as the opening of the absentee voting booth because the SoFA can't finish writing the ballot without knowing which candidates to put on it first.

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But as your preferred candidate received exactly the number of first preference votes necessary for election, your second preferences were in fact wholly immaterial whether one or two candidates are elected. Choosing not to vote for anybody else could of course have hurt you ... but that's irrespective of the number of vacancies.

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True. Although the issue was raised in the press before polls closed.

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Yes, he did. It's called the Proportional Representation (By-elections) Act.

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As previously explained, no.

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Clearly, Mr. Trondheim indicated a 48 hour buffer between when two by-elections could be paired and the filing deadline. It is certainly reasonable for Sec. Earl AW to determine the second vacancy needed a separate by-election 6 hours into absentee voting. [/quote]That's because the law was changed in between. And while the exact sequence of events is pretty complicated, the law was changed, indirectly, due to the precise situation outlined here.

[minionofmidas]

Plaintiff's brief... in two posts

Lewis Trondheim vs Secretary of Forum Affairs

Statement of Facts

Timeline of events:
July 17th, 1:20 am - vacancy in a Class B Senate Seat created by confirmation of Sen. Earl A. Washburn as Secretary of Forum Affairs
July 17th, 4:18 pm - notice of by-election (to fill said vacancy) to occur July 24th, noon to July 27th, noon
July 22nd, 5:59 pm - additional vacancy in a Class B Senate Seat created by resignation of Sen. Conor Flynn
July 24th, noon - by-election voting booth opened, with no reference to second vacancy
July 24th, 1:18 pm - notice of by-election (to fill second vacancy) to occur July 31st, 10am to August 3rd, 10 am
July 27th, 10:24 am - DoFA alerted by plaintiff to its (in plaintiff's opinion) palpable mistake in ignoring the provisions of the Proportional Representation (By-elections) Act, which calls for multiple vacancies to be filled in a single by-election if additional vacancies occur before commencement of original by-election.
Weird aside: This is probably of no legal relevancy, especially as I cannot prove it, but I myself became aware of the legal situation July 26th between 5:20 and 5:25pm, just after logging off the Forum and leaving the house. Hit me like a brick, it did, and I don't know from where the thought came or where it had been hiding until then. I might have gone back and alerted the DoFA at this point, but I was already late and there was a young lady involved. I alerted the DoFA as soon as I was capable of doing so without potential drawbacks (however slight) in my real life.
July 27th, noon - election ends
July 27th, 7:52pm - DoFA issues certification of by-election
July 28th, 1:24pm - DoFA issues statement explaining that it had "made a decision to ignore" plaintiff
July 28th, 1:43pm - Plaintiff challenges election results (initially posted accidentally in wrong thread. Error corrected 2:01pm)

Question(s) Presented

Firstly, whether the course taken by the DoFA represents a breach of the Proportional Representation (By-Elections) Act; and secondly, what remedy the Court should adopt.
Thirdly, the argument will also address some points offered by other parties in the matter so far, and seek to dismiss them as either erroneous or of lesser relevancy, and fourthly close with some possibly irrelevant ravings on why Clause 3 of the By-Elections Act exists.

Argument

1. The Proportional Representation (By-Elections) Act, Section 3, states that "In the event of further such vacancies arising before the commencement of the by-election, a single by-election shall be held for all the vacant seats". "Such vacancies" here refers to "a vacancy arising for whatever reason in a seat filled by Proportional Representation" (Section 2), which under the Constitution and Election Law as they currently stand is any Class B Senate Seat. (The Act was drawn up so as to need no amendation in case of an increase in the scope of Proportional Representation.)
The only other potentially ambiguous phrase is "the commencement of the by-election".

What are we defining as the commencement of the by-election? The resignation occurred after the opening of the absentee voting booth, but before the main election. I would think, logically that when the absentee voting booth opens, the election begins, although the legal definition seems to suggest perhaps otherwise.

The phrases "the election", "beginning of the election", "commencement of the election", etc occur in Article I, Section 4, Clause 3; Article II, Section 2, Clause 1; Article V, Section 2, Clauses 4 and 8, and the (superseded) IXth, the Xth, and the XIth Amendment to the Constitution, and in Section 3 Clause 1, Section 8, and Section 14 of the CESRA. In each and every instance, they unequivocally reference the opening of the Voting Booth, not the opening of the Absentee Voting Booth (and the Absentee Voting Booth is what Article V, Section 2, Clause 8 is about.)
If it were interpreted any differently, Clauses 6 and 8 of CESRA would, together, make the holding of legally correct elections in Atlasia impossible, as they would then mandate that an Absentee Voting Booth be opened immediately upon the candidate filing deadline (itself something of a misnomer in that it does not apply to write-in candidates) but that the filing deadline be seven days before the Absentee Voting Booth opens, requiring the opening of a further Absentee Voting Booth at this second filing deadline, the institution of a third filing deadline another week in the past, etc to infinity.
Also, as the relevant passages of both the Constitution and CESRA make clear, Absentee Voting is intended only for those voters who may be unable to vote on election weekend. Its use by unusually large numbers of voters in this by-election, including the plaintiff, is actually an abuse of Absentee Voting, though one not punished under Atlasian law. (This also sheds some light on why the law sees nothing problematic in allowing candidates to file for a write-in campaign after absentee votes have been cast - better to vote with incomplete information than not to be able to vote at all.)

2. The remedy sought here is, to put it in layman's terms, that we just pretend the DoFA recognized its mistake in time, and follow the course of events that would have ensued were that the case.
This remedy was proposed in order not to cripple Senate proceedings, by being the only available remedy that allows Governor Andrew CT, whose democratic election is not in doubt, to take office immediately. (He has not yet done so, for reasons beyond my ken, although the stance taken by his party in this case suggests an answer.)
An alternative remedy would of course be to hold a new by-election for both seats. The decision is up to the Supreme Court, and I can totally live with either, although I seem to recall that the less disruptive remedy is usually to be favored in such situations.
It's not as if the broad result - the election of two candidates representing the two main Atlasian political traditions - would be at all likely to change in such a new election, although, obviously, the individuals elected might, especially if a new filing period were also mandated by the Court. Certainly, the new by-election's timing would "violate" (if that's the word. Don't think it is.) election law.

3. A number of other points that have been raised...

Anyways, I invite the court to review Section 9.5 of the Consolidated Electoral System Reform Act which says the following:

"5. The administrator of a voting booth shall give registered voters seven days advance public notice, in both the Fantasy Elections Forum and the Voting Booth, of the hours in which voting shall take place for all special Senate elections called on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday; and three days advance public notice, in both the Fantasy Elections Forum and the Voting Booth, of the hours in which voting shall take place for all special Senate called on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday."

I think the intent of this section is to have special elections held on the weekend following the weekend following the said vacancy, which would not have been the case in this instance.

While that is the legal framework presupposed by this provision of CESRA, it
by no means contradicts the Proportional Representation (By-Elections) Act which changed said legal framework. It merely addresses the time by which the SoFA is to alert the public of the hours at which the by-election is to be held; it remains mute on the number of vacancies to be filled at such by-election. It does not order a special election to be called for every vacancy that arises, it just says what the SoFA has to do after he has called a special election.

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It is plaintiff's assertion that this is exactly what the DoFA's erroneous Election Certificate amounts to.

Ya, you need to find the statute that commands you to open the voting booth for the Earl vacancy by a date certain (if one exists; I assume that it does), so that you can demonstrate that one law commands you to open the voting and the other one by implication commands you to not, in order to allow for a simultaneous election. And then you argue which law should trump which based on the text, when adopted, public policy grounds and the like. Piece of cake really.

I assume that the reference here is to the Flynn vacancy, not the Washburn vacancy. There is no debate about the timing of the commencement of the Washburn by-election.
The original rules on Special Elections were vacated by the Proportional Representation Act. After the Proportional Representation Act's provisions were struck down as in part unconstitutional, they were replaced by the By-Elections Act. So I think I have my bases well covered in that respect.

(cont.d)

[minionofmidas]

(cont.d)

Some of us voted accordingly. If two senators are to be elected from this election, those of us who followed the instructions and chose to only preference the candidate we preferred, as we are allowed to do, would be harmed by changing the parameters of the election ex post facto.

How so, exactly? By choosing to preference just one candidate, what you're doing is you're expressing no preference as to who is elected if your preferred candidate is not. This is harmful to your interests if you actually do have some preference, and your preferred candidate is not elected. The risk of such harm is reduced if the number of seats is increased.
It is also harmful to your interests, though at a massively reduced percentage, if your preferred candidate exceeds the quota on first preferences alone. While this is relevant only in a multi-member election, it did not in fact happen in this election.

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[/quote]And the special election is being called within that time-frame. (shrugs). The Supreme Court has quite recently ruled on the exact meaning of Article I, section 4, clause 5 in the light of the passage of the XXIIIrd Amendment, in the case of BrandonH vs Department of Forum Affairs, finding that it "requires that vacancies to Class B Senate seats be filled by special election held for a specific time period, said time period later altered to that specified by the Eleventh Amendment." Note the indefinite terms. Previously to passage of the XXIIIrd Amendment, the fact that all vacancies were to be filled in separate elections went without saying, as the Senators in question had been elected in separate elections.

Included as an appendix here:

While a full, formal brief will be filed some time tomorrow, I would just like to make some points here:

It is not mere coincidence that the absentee booth opens following the deadline for declaring for office; voters must know the choices before them.

Actually, no. Write-in candidates can declare right until poll closing. The deadline for getting your name printed on the ballot (and write-in candidates have won in Atlasia in the past. Frequently. Including ones who filed after some votes had already been cast. I recall a certain Pacific Senate election where we had only write-in candidates.) is at the same moment as the opening of the absentee voting booth because the SoFA can't finish writing the ballot without knowing which candidates to put on it first.

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But as your preferred candidate received exactly the number of first preference votes necessary for election, your second preferences were in fact wholly immaterial whether one or two candidates are elected. Choosing not to vote for anybody else could of course have hurt you ... but that's irrespective of the number of vacancies.

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True. Although the issue was raised in the press before polls closed.

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Yes, he did. It's called the Proportional Representation (By-elections) Act.

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As previously explained, no.

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Clearly, Mr. Trondheim indicated a 48 hour buffer between when two by-elections could be paired and the filing deadline. It is certainly reasonable for Sec. Earl AW to determine the second vacancy needed a separate by-election 6 hours into absentee voting.

That's because the law was changed in between. And while the exact sequence of events is pretty complicated, the law was changed, indirectly, due to the precise situation outlined here.
[/quote]

IV.

Done in the format of a timeline:
June 30th, 2007 - (Future) Proportional Representation Act and End to Districts Amendment introduced. Original version of PR Act calls for holding of single by-election for several seats only if by-elections due on same weekend.
Sep 6th, 2007 - Due to concerns about the democratic nature of holding a by-election, in which everyone can participate, for a seat effectively filled by only one fifth of the voters, the Senate reaches a tortuous compromise that allows major parties to fill their own vacancies, reserving by-elections only for seats held by members of minor parties and independents. Compromise is further amended on Sep 13th.
Sep 20th, 2007 - Proportional Representation Act, as amended, passed into law
Sep 23th, 2007 - End to Districts Amendment passed by Senate
Oct 2nd, 2007 - End to Districts Amendment fails to obtain ratification by regions
Nov 13th, 2007 - End to Districts Amendment reintroduced
Dec 14th, 2007 - End to Districts Amendment passed by Senate
Dec 30th, 2007 - End to Districts Amendment ratified by regions, becomes XXIIIrd Amendment
March 2008 - a lawsuit (BrandonH vs DoFA) is filed over the issue of applicability of the PR Act's compromise to Class B seats not yet filled by PR (Class B seats coming up for election in april, august and december).
April 8th, 2008 - PR Act's compromise formula struck down by SC on account of violation of Article I, Section 4, Clause 5.
April 14th, 2008 - Proportional Representation (By-Elections) Act introduced. Largely incorporates remedy proposed by SC into law. The act's Section 3, as a bow to democracy issues addressed in original Senate deliberations, slightly widens (compared to original version of PR Act) scope of provision to hold multiple by-elections simultaneously. Sponsor (= plaintiff) labors over exact wording of provision, eventually deciding that he may propose an alternative once the bill reaches Senate floor, which he promptly forgets all about.
May 10th, 2008 - reaches Senate floor. Clause 3 never debated on by Senators.
June 4th, 2008 - passes into law.

And yet another excourse: Why holding two separate by-elections is so much less democratic than holding a single by-election.
In the April, 2008 elections, five pr seats had been filled with 3 NLC, 1 PLP and 1 JCP member. Vacancies arising were for PLP seat and one NLC seat.
According to DoFA Certification, asingle seat by-election was narrowishly won by NLC candidate:
34% of voters had their vote count for their first preference.
8% of voters had their vote count for their second preference.
4% of voters had their vote count for their third preference.
2% of voters had their vote count for their fourth preference.
52% of voters had no influence on the election result.

According to 2-seat count:
56% of voters have their vote count for their first preference.
14% of voters have their vote count for their second preference.
2% of voters have their vote count for their third preference.
28% of voters have no influence on the election result.

Were a second by-election to be held within a week of the first, the results could be assumed to at least roughly mirror those of the first by-election, both in quantitative terms of reflection of popular will as a percentage of voters, and - though this is less certain - in qualitative terms of whose will, exactly, is reflected in the result.

Conclusion

The SoFA has no excuse for not following the Proportional Representation (By-Elections) Act to the letter. The remedy proposed by plaintiff is the one least disruptive to the laws of the nation, although other remedies are possible.

[minionofmidas]

Not a part of my brief... but as I won't be available later today, treat this as a submission to any possible Q&A session.

Lewis missed an event in his timeline which is rather critical. The voting booth for the Earl seat opened 5-6 hours before Conor resigned.

Absentee Voting Booth. Not the same thing as the Voting Booth. Issue adressed in full gory detail in the remainder of the brief, I think, even though it's missing from the timeline (not sure right now if that was an oversight or a conscious decision of mine... )

As to the issue of the remedy to be sought (ie, the possibility of a new election for both seats): I might have sought such an outcome, had the issue of who, exactly, would have won the second seat been at all ambiguous/swayable by a small handful of tactical votes if people had known what they're doing. In this election, that was simply not the case.
To make it clearer to Cash how STV works:
There is, really, only one way tactical voting can affect the outcome of STV elections: If a candidate (let's call him X) is in danger of being eliminated early but has the potential to win a seat if he can avoid early elimination (because he has few first but lots of second preferences). In such situations, it's possible to tactically vote for a lower preference of yours (let's call her Y) ahead of your true first preference Z (provided that Z is in no danger of early elimination) in order to lift Y ahead of X and thus knock out X at an early stage, leading to the eventual election of Z instead of X. There are numerous instances in Atlasian history where this happened or came close to happening, or where it would have been possible but wasn't tried, but not in this election. None of the other candidates besides Andrew and Al were in any position to knock Al out at any stage of the count.

Somebody (Cash, I think) pointed out that the SoFA is required by law to give ballot instructions to the voters, and these instructions falsely claimed the election to be for a single seat. The relevant statute is CESRA, Section 9, Clauses 2 and 3:
"2. The administrator of a voting booth shall be free to design the ballot as he or she sees fit, as long as the content of the ballot is clear and unambiguous.
3. The administrator of a voting booth shall post links to all relevant statute regarding electoral law on the ballot."
While one might argue that it doesn't say that the content of the ballot needs to be truthful as well as clear and unambiguous I know I wouldn't be swayed by such an argument either.
However, the SoFA's instructions were incorrect not only in not linking to relevant statute, but also in referencing the wrong statute in simple text - referring to the repealed Section 20 of the PR Act instead of the PR (By-Elections) Act. I only just checked this - had he linked to the By-Elections Act, I would have been arguing here that the ballot instructions in the Absentee Voting Booth did in fact address the issue that the no. of vacancies to be filled was as yet indeterminate, and that those in the Voting Booth actually made it clear that there were two vacancies.

Finally, one more issue that hasn't been addressed:
The timing here was somewhat unfortunate. Though Conor resigned a sizeable period of time before the election commenced, he didn't exactly advertise the fact in broad red letters across the top of the Fantasy Elections Board, and it didn't come to the SoFA's attention - nor mine - until the election had commenced. Further time elapsed until the legal situation was noted, by which time (though the polls were still open) everybody had already voted. What I'm trying to say is that the SoFA has my full sympathy here. He made a palpable mistake, but it could have happened to everybody. Of course, as the legal situation is now more widely known, these circumstances are unlikely to repeat themselves.
Should the court find that the two vacancies were to be filled simultaneously but that we can't just turn back the clock and use the actual election results but need a whole new election, I would be very thankful if the verdict addressed the matter of the point in time at which this remedy became unavailable. I'm sure current and future SoFAs would be thankful as well.

[minionofmidas]

In Atlasia, voting is constitutionally mandated to be by public post. Those who vote late have an immense information advantage over those who vote early, including those who vote absentee.
This is no violation of "equal protection of the laws" principles because voters choose when to cast their ballot, and therefore earlier voters forego the right to that occasionally crucial information voluntarily. (Anyways earlier voters set the framework within which later voters can vote tactically - or cannot, depending how the earlier votes fall exactly).
Similarly - though that's not what the absentee ballot is originally for - absentee voters chose to vote early in this election. I know I did. Every single absentee voter posted during the regular ballot hours (three of them only a handful of times, implying they might have had reason to be unsure of their internet access during polling hours) - 30.5 times on average.
The same holds with candidacies - although there is a filing deadline for getting on the ballot that's before the opening of the absentee booth, write-in candidates may, and frequently do, declare afterwards. According to the logic applied here, that too would have to be declared unconstitutional. And the effect of that can be quite large, if you made a choice between two choices you consider inferior, and then suddenly the candidate you really want declares - imagine if he loses by a vote. By comparison, the exact number of vacancies is basically a trifling point.

[minionofmidas]

"trifling" if voters are aware of the possibility, as they ought to be, that is.

[minionofmidas]

But write in candidacies and votes as well as when to vote are the choice of the voter and candidate and each one can make a choice. Every voter has an equal right to write in a candidate throughout the entire election, including absentee voting. Changing the nature of the election midstream as the plaintiff is asking here is an act of government and a very different animal so to speak.

It remains a pr election, conducted by the same method, with only the number of vacancies to be filled changing. Consider for a moment, not this election but rather future elections - basically, according to the act the number of vacancies is provisionally established during absentee voting. Obviously, that fact should have been clearly advertised by the SoFA. The Department of Forum Affairs gives each voter an equal opportunity to vote whenever they choose during the alloted time. Whether or not to wait is a choice of the voter, not an act of government, thus not an equal protection violation.

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An individual's tactical vote options change, due to another individual's action and the way government recognizes such action. That's much the same thing as an additional Senator resigning, the only difference being that the "new candidate" scenario is more likely to actually affect the way people would have voted (in meaningful ways. Low-down preferences on ballots with a first preference for the vote leader don't count.)

[minionofmidas]

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Amicus argues, and we agree, that our constitution speaks in the singular, not plural, in this section.  Amicus further contends that while the PR act compels the SoFA to hold a national vote for a vacant Class B seat and that the clause of the PR Act creates a contradiction with our constitution as to how to treat multiple, but not quite simultaneous class B vacancies.

Actually... by that reading, the conflict exists even when the two vacancies are exactly simultaneous.

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Uh...

Oh well. No point rehashing the argument again, is there? I'll just do it in three sentences anyways because I'll have to scream loudly out of the window otherwise:
It's not called a SINGLE transferable vote for nothing. Voters would not have had an additional vote. The effect of the number of vacancies on voters' ballots is in almost all circumstances ZERO.

Sadly, that also seems to go for the court's comprehension of the PR Act.

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And they are (well. Should have been. Will be in the future) aware, by the mere fact laws are on the books on the matter, that additional vacancies can occur.
The reasoning here is sound, actually... but only as to the remedy I sought in this particular situation. As to the Act itself, I'm trying really hard to refrain from really strong language here.

Meh. Oh well.

[minionofmidas]

Well, Senator, remember that you're a Senator.

I'm not a Class B Senator. I can't resign the minute one of my colleagues does. And I don't suppose an Amendment to remove the offending lines from IV 1 5 (which IMHO is actually the bit about "shall be called" - no new election for the extra vacancy was to be called according to the By Elections Act. If I'd struck down my law it'd have been based on that bit. ) will pass the Senate... I seem to have been pretty alone in this battle.

No, the only logical thing to do is to give up on the battle to keep a minimum of democracy in the filling of PR by-elections. It's not THAT big an issue really - how often are such simultaneous vacancies about to reoccur anyways?

[minionofmidas]

Well, all these problems would be fixed if we simply abandoned Class B by-elections. The countback method would be much easier.

No. No, it wouldn't...

Besides, it would also take an amendment.

[minionofmidas]

Alright, so I thought countback was more complex than it really is. It could work.

I'll probably calculate later tonight who would have filled these vacancies under countback.

[minionofmidas]

It's still horridly complex. One would first have to do a redistribution of Afleitch and Colin's mini surpluses, as these aren't represented at equal value yet.

Vote pool for the Earl vacancy:
-Earl's eight original votes, at 9/10th value (remainder redistributed, and thus still represented)
-Sensei's two votes, both of which transferred to Earl, electing him, at 9/10th value
-Scrap that: Six of the ten Earl and Sensei votes - the ones that ended up with Lewis either directly or via Happy Warrior - are actually to be included at full value (9/10th of their value because they elected Earl, the remaining tenth because it didn't elect anybody).
-Lewis' original six votes, and the vote I picked up from Jake (full value - these didn't elect anybody)
-From the Rocky surplus, Lewis received 0.3/9.3 of 2 of Rocky's votes (which might have travelled to Rocky from elsewhere, I didn't check yet) and also 0.3/9.3 of the 1/10th of a vote among the three Rocky had picked up from the Earl surplus that travels on to him.
For sanity preservation's sake, I will round to three digits behind the point at almost every step of the way, and thus treat 0.3/9.3 as 0.032, and 0.3*0.1/9.3 as .003. Error corrected.
-The Colin surplus is ~.197/9.197, or approximately .021 per whole vote involved (9 of those), .002 for the 1/10 vote Colin got from Earl's surplus, and .001 for the three votes Colin got from Rocky's surplus.
The Afleitch surplus is ~.135/9.135, or approximately .015 per whole vote involved (again 9 of those). The value of the four votes Afleitch got from the Rocky surplus, nevermind the two tenth of votes that travelled to Afleitch via Earl and Rocky, is below .0005. They will be ignored.
Note that part of these surpluses will flow to CK, not Lewis, thus be represented already and not be involved in the actual countback. Those that exhaust (list neither JCP candidate) will be included, though.

Next step: Locating which votes these are, exactly.

[minionofmidas]

Full strength votes (Lewis): 7
Franzl, Jas, Al, BRTD, Brandon H, Lewis, Verin
Full strength votes (Earl, surplus to Lewis): 6
Earl, benconstine, Old Europe, Lief, Evilmex, Smash
.903 votes (Earl, surplus to Rocky, thence to Lewis): 1
Sensei
.902 votes (Earl, surplus to Colin, thence exhausted): 1
TCash
.9 votes (Earl, surplus to Rocky, thence to Afleitch): 2
Happy Warrior, Meeker
.032 votes (Rocky, surplus to Lewis): 2 Error corrected.
Speedy, Xahar
.021 votes (Colin, surplus to Lewis or in Phil's case exhausted): 8
Verily, Colin, MAS, Phil, Bacon King, Pete, TD, Jake
.015 votes (Afleitch, surplus to Lewis): 3
Conor, SPC, Mr Moderate
.001 votes (Rocky, surplus to Colin, thence to Lewis): 2
Jedi, AndrewCT

Sum: 16.886

Quota: 9

[minionofmidas]

Vote count (Earl, Rocky, Colin, Afleitch, Culture King treated as if they don't exist, remember)

Round 1:Sensei 7.704 (Earl, benconstine, Lief, Evilmex, Smash 1, Sensei .903, Happy, Meeker .9, AndrewCT .001)
Lewis 7.074 (Franzl, Jas, Al, BRTD, Old Europe, Lewis, Verin 1, Speedy .032, MAS, Pete .021)
SPC 1.015 (Brandon 1, SPC .015)
Bacon King .981 (TCash .902, Verily, Colin, Bacon King .021, Moderate .015, Jedi .001)
Happy .032 (Xahar .032)
Jake .042 (Phil, Jake .021)
Hashemite .036 (TD .021, Conor .015)

Hashemite, Jake, Happy, Bacon King, and SPC may be eliminated in a single turn.

Round 2:
Sensei 8.732 (Earl, benconstine, Lief, Evilmex, Smash 1, Sensei .903, TCash .902, Happy, Meeker .9, Xahar .032, Verily, Colin, TD .021, Conor, Moderate .015, AndrewCT, Jedi .001)
Lewis 8.131 (Franzl, Jas, Al, BRTD, Old Europe, Lewis, Verin, Brandon 1, Speedy .032, MAS, Pete, Bacon, Jake .021, SPC .015)
exhausted .021 (Phil .021)

Sensei elected without a quota (sparing the countback method some embarassment - there would probably need to be some provision to eliminate candidates elected in the other Class as well.)

For the Rocky vacancy, I assume the changes due to the Earl countback would also have to be taken into account, so the votes involved are now Rocky's final count votes (amended for redistribution of slight surplus), plus the Lewis votes from the Earl countback, and the exhausted Phil thingy.

Another minor tripup I noticed: STV produces ballots that are invalid in the lower part (although some voting systems consider them wholly invalid, avoiding the problem) due to numbering errors, ie if a voter used pref. 8 twice. This happened three times in the April elections. With countback, because some preferences are ignored, these lower pref.s may as it were spring back to life (didn't happen in this countback, but still an amusing possibility. )

[minionofmidas]

Rocky redistribution...

9 Rocky votes at .968: Speedy, Jedi, Inks, AndrewCT, Hashemite, Matchu, Polnut, Xahar, PBrunsel
3 Earl to Rocky votes at .097: Happy, Meeker, Sensei

plus
8 Lewis votes at 1: Franzl, Jas, Al, BRTD, Old Europe, Lewis, Verin, Brandon
1 missing .032 of a Rocky vote, lifting it to 1: Speedy
5 Colin votes at .021: MAS, Pete, Bacon, Jake, Phil
1 Afleitch vote at .015: SPC

total of 17.155
Quota of 9 (thank god there was no further Sensei surplus to redistribute. )

Vote counte (Rocky, Colin, Afleitch, CK, Earl, Sensei treated as if they don't exist):

Round 1:Lewis 8.042 (Franzl, Speedy, Jas, Al, BRTD, Old Europe, Lewis, Verin 1, MAS, Pete .021)
Happy 3.195 (Matchu, Polnut, Xahar .968, Sensei, Happy, Meeker .097)
Hashemite 2.904 (Inks, AndrewCT, Hash .968)
SPC 1.983 (Brandon 1, PBrunsel .968, SPC .015)
Bacon King .989 (Jedi .968, Bacon King .021)
Jake .042 (Phil, Jake .021)

Jake and Bacon King may be eliminated in a single turn.

Round 2:Lewis 8.084 (Franzl, Speedy, Jas, Al, BRTD, Old Europe, Lewis, Verin 1, MAS, Pete, Bacon, Jake .021)
Happy 4.163 (Matchu, Polnut, Xahar, Jedi .968, Sensei, Happy, Meeker .097)
Hashemite 2.904 (Inks, AndrewCT, Hash .968)
SPC 1.983 (Brandon 1, PBrunsel .968, SPC .015)
exhausted .021 (Phil .021)

SPC eliminated.

Round 3:Lewis 9.099 (Franzl, Speedy, Jas, Al, BRTD, Old Europe, Lewis, Verin, Brandon 1, MAS, Pete, Bacon, Jake .021, SPC .015)
Happy 5.131 (Matchu, Polnut, Xahar, Jedi, PBrunsel .968, Sensei, Happy, Meeker .097)
Hashemite 2.904 (Inks, AndrewCT, Hash .968)
exhausted .021 (Phil .021)

Lewis elected. Of course, there's the slight matter of me being in the Senate already, but creating a rule for that would change the previous countback so I'm leaving that to one of you. Ignoring that for a moment, should another vacancy arise then my surplus would have to be redistributed first.

[minionofmidas]

That is a problem, I guess. But we can let you choose. Either there's a Midwestern special election, or that seat becomes vacant and another countback is held.

Giving me the choice creates, in all the minor regions, a problem - it virtually allows me to handpick the new Senator, as I'd presumably check whether there is anybody available who wants the seat. Much better to state simply that people who already are Senators cannot take the seat, and that countback is repeated excluding them. (This would avoid the problem I cited with the original Sensei countback. It also spares the trouble of redistributing my surplus.) Same if a person refuses to take the seat - maybe give them a time window to decline election by countback (declaring them elected automatically creates a problem if they are, say, the President, or a Governor, as they would lose that position if they were elected Senator. There was an ill-advised ruling on the point a while back, when Everett never turned up to swear in.)

So... Lewis Class B countback...
same voter pool as Rocky countback, but Lewis now also treated as if he doesn't exist...

Round 1:
Happy 6.195 (BRTD, Old Europe, Verin 1, Matchu, Polnut, Xahar .968, Sensei, Happy, Meeker .097)
Hashemite 3.904 (Franzl 1, Inks, AndrewCT, Hash .968)
Jake 2.063 (Jas, Al 1, Phil, Jake, Pete .021)
SPC 1.983 (Brandon 1, PBrunsel .968, SPC .015)
Bacon King 1.010 (Jedi .968, Bacon King, MAS .021)
exhausted 1 (Speedy 1)
invalid 1 (Lewis 1)

Speedy only preferenced people ignored for the countback and one unaccepted write-in. My first seven preferences were all for people ignored for the countback plus two unaccepted write-ins, and I accidentally cast two 8th preferences for Happy and Bacon King.
None of this can affect the quota, as the quota is not recalculated at all - the original quota continues to be used (there would otherwise be a proportionality issue arising in the case of further vacancies.)

Bacon King eliminated.

Round 2:
Happy 7.163 (BRTD, Old Europe, Verin 1, Matchu, Polnut, Xahar, Jedi .968, Sensei, Happy, Meeker .097)
Hashemite 3.904 (Franzl 1, Inks, AndrewCT, Hash .968)
Jake 2.084 (Jas, Al 1, Phil, Jake, Pete, Bacon .021)
SPC 2.004 (Brandon 1, PBrunsel .968, MAS .021, SPC .015)
exhausted 1 (Speedy 1)
invalid 1 (Lewis 1)

SPC eliminated.

Round 3:
Happy 8.131 (BRTD, Old Europe, Verin 1, Matchu, Polnut, Xahar, Jedi, PBrunsel .968, Sensei, Happy, Meeker .097)
Hashemite 3.925 (Franzl 1, Inks, AndrewCT, Hash .968, MAS .021)
Jake 3.099 (Jas, Al, Brandon 1, Phil, Jake, Pete, Bacon .021, SPC .015)
exhausted 1 (Speedy 1)
invalid 1 (Lewis 1)

Because Happy has more votes than Hashemite and Jake combined (ie, eliminating Jake cannot "materially affect the count"), he is declared elected without a quota.

And if another vacancy arises, the "spring to life" thingy I described above actually happens with my vote!

[minionofmidas]

The concurrence will probably be released this evening - maybe tomorrow.

waiting...

[minionofmidas]

Thanks - I always figured that must be the reason why I lost this case! (Totally, I mean. Not as far as that specific election was concerned.) I could never think of any other potential reason...

[minionofmidas]

Yeah, there was an s missing, basically. Or at least, you could see it that way. I always knew that was the weak point of the case (and remember it now rereading. Well, reskimming.) That's what Section 3 A of Bullmoose's verdict says, too. It's Section 3 B that I felt ... well, at the time, and a little worked up over the issue, felt intellectually insulted and anyways incredibly frustrated by. And I still can see why. -_-

[minionofmidas]

Even our avatar shapes are somewhat similar!