FT 12.24 – Ballot Succession Act (Awaiting signature)

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

It's someone's choice if they want to use their ballot to make a remark that goes against forum standards, isn't it?  Why do we need to give them another chance to vote?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

It's someone's choice if they want to use their ballot to make a remark that goes against forum standards, isn't it?  Why do we need to give them another chance to vote?

Because the legitimacy of our democratic institutions is compromised when ballots are disqualified for reasons without basis in the laws of the republic. While Atlasia exists at the pleasure of the forum administrator, and the forum Terms of Service therefore take precedence over Atlasian law, the purpose of our elections is to represent the will of the Atlasian people —and compliance with the Terms of Service is not relevant to one's right to be represented. By a contrast, someone who violates Atlasian law may be deprived of their right to vote because such represents a breach in conduct with the rest of the community —i.e. Atlasians. While violations of the Terms of Service represent a breach of conduct with the forum community, loss of the rights of Atlasian citizenship is nowhere stated as a penalty for such a breach (see, for instance, that votes by socks are still counted in spite of sock accounts being forbidden by the TOS).

Votes for socks are still counted?!  Since when?  How does *that* not compromise the legitimacy of our elections?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Honestly, I'm not sure when that precedent was established; my understanding has always been that votes valid at the time they are cast remain valid regardless of any changes to the candidate's status during the election. This was the reason several voters gave for deleting their ballots in the last by-election, for example: otherwise, Enlightened Centrist would have been elected despite being a sock of a banned poster. As for legitimacy —the argument, I suppose, would be that to disqualify votes based on the actions of a candidate would be to effectively disqualify those voters for an offense they had no part in, and declaring the loser elected without a second vote is undemocratic (in that it ignores the will of the majority, who did not want that person elected). The recourse is then to declare the banned poster elected and their seat then immediately vacated, allowing for a second vote.

Ok, but if a voter is found to be a sock, is the sock's vote counted?  I didn't think that was the case.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

nay