SENATE BILL: The No Moderator or Accidental Invalidation Amendment (Passed)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Senate Resolution

To allow exceptions to duplicate voting for the purposes of moderator deletion or accidental invalidation

Be it Resolved by 2/3rds in Both Houses of Congress, that when ratified by 2/3rds of the Regions, Article I, Section IV of the 4th constitution shall be amended to read as follows:

The right of citizens of the Republic of Atlasia to vote shall not be denied, except in regards to persons whose account is fewer than 168 hours old, as punishment for crimes of which the accused has been duly convicted, or in consequence of failing to meet such requirements for frequent posting or term of residency as may be established by law; but no ballot shall be counted as valid that should list the candidates for office in a script other than the Latin alphabet, or that has been edited more than twenty minutes after its posting in the voting booth. All posts made in the voting booth shall be considered as ballots, and no citizen shall cast multiple ballots in any one election during the period the voting booth is open, upon penalty of the invalidation of their vote, unless:

1. Evidence exists that the first ballot submitted by the citizen was deleted by a Moderator or Administrator of the Atlas Forum, or

2. The second ballot submitted was clearly accidental as it only lists contests not up for election within the thread it was posted on, in which case only the first ballot shall be counted, or:

3. The second ballot submitted was clearly accidental as it is identical to the first ballot and was submitted within five minutes of the first ballot, in which case only the first ballot shall be counted.  


However, in no circumstances shall a user be allowed to cast a third or subsequent ballot in any election, upon penalty of invalidation of all ballots submitted.

People's Regional Senate
Pending

Sponsor: MB
Senate Designation: SR21:02

And before anyone freaks about the formatting change, 1) this looks better and 2) even if this had passed the House previously, the body text is unchanged and thus it still counts as joint passage.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The sponsor has 24 hours to commence an advocacy for this Resolution and the other members have 48 hours to commence a response.

[YE]

Is this the original version or the version the House voted down?

[Dr. MB]

Is this the original version or the version the House voted down?

Original version.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

We seemed to have struggled with this to it mildly, I think that if we want to get anything done here it would be best for the members to state where they are at explicitly and what they are willing to support on this.

[Pyro]

This has my full support.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

What happened to the amended version? The objections I raised the first time this passed the Senate still stand.

[YE]

What happened to the amended version? The objections I raised the first time this passed the Senate still stand.

This is the problem with blindly cutting up old Wulfric bills.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

This is one of those things that without some assertive and pro-active effort taken, is going to keep getting bounced back and forth.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Okay since we know some things for certain now, I can now discuss some things publicly.


The simple fact of the matter is while presently my objective is to preserve ballots as much as possible, I cannot ensure that any ballot containing a TOS violation will be counted because in the eyes of the Atlas and such TOS compliance is insisted upon the votes are just another post subject to the same rules. My hands are somewhat tied in this regards and I am not the only board mod here.

Therefore as board moderator I strongly urge the Senators to work towards getting this done.

To begin with what happened to the amended version?

[YE]

House version failed 5-4 on a party line vote IIRC.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

House version failed 5-4 on a party line vote IIRC.

What tipped the balance for failure?

I assume some of those members are gone now?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I say we start from there and then negotiate/bribe our way to a majority.

[YE]

House version failed 5-4 on a party line vote IIRC.

What tipped the balance for failure?

I assume some of those members are gone now?

Well Labor now has this fun thing called a 6th seat so I’d say chances of success are better this go around.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

House version failed 5-4 on a party line vote IIRC.

What tipped the balance for failure?

I assume some of those members are gone now?

Well Labor now has this fun thing called a 6th seat so I’d say chances of success are better this go around.

What was the text that was voted on? Did it satisfy Truman's concerns?

[YE]

House version failed 5-4 on a party line vote IIRC.

What tipped the balance for failure?

I assume some of those members are gone now?

Well Labor now has this fun thing called a 6th seat so I’d say chances of success are better this go around.

What was the text that was voted on? Did it satisfy Truman's concerns?

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=327716.msg6922828#msg6922828

I highly doubt Truman had concerns about that because I would remember if he did.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Would members, sponsors be agreeable to amending it this, at least as a starting point? Truman your thoughts?

SENATE RESOLUTION

To amend the Constitution to allow for limited Congressional input on vote invalidation, specifically with regards to double posting

Be it Resolved in both Houses of Congress Assembled,

Double Posting Leniency Resolution

Article I, Section IV of the Fourth Constitution is Amended as follows:

The right of citizens of the Republic of Atlasia to vote shall not be denied, except with regard to persons whose accounts is fewer than 168 hours old, as punishment for crimes of which the accused has been duly convicted, or in consequence of failing failure to meet such requirements for frequent posting, or term of residency, or the construction and revision of ballots as may be established by law; but no ballot shall be counted as valid that should list the candidates for office in a script other than the Latin alphabet, or that has been edited more than twenty minutes after its posting in the voting booth. All posts made in the voting booth shall be considered as ballots, and no citizen shall cast multiple ballots in any one election during the period the voting booth is open, upon penalty of the invalidation of their vote. Congress shall have power to make all needful rules governing the resolution of duplicate ballots and such other controversies as may arise, except as otherwise limited by this Constitution.

This text amends Article I, Section IV of the Fourth Constitution to allow for greater congressional authority into the regulations concerning voter invalidation, particularly with regards to the issue of posting multiple times in the voting booth. The amendment also cleans up some text issues and removes some of the explicit reasons why an amendment may be invalidated contained with the current constitutional text, likewise to facilitate said congressional authority.

People's Regional Senate
Passed 5-0 in the Atlasian Senate Assembled,


1. If the above amendment is ratified, the following legislative fix shall take effect:

Section 1 of the Federal Electoral Act shall be amended as follows:

Section 1: Votes
1. In their vote in the Elections to the House and the Presidency, each voter shall list some, none, or all of the candidates in the voter's order of preference for them.
2. If no numbering of the preferences is stated, then the candidate at the top of the list shall be presumed to be the first preference, the candidate on the second line of the list shall be presumed to be the second preference, and so on.
3. A voter may cast a write-in vote in any election, except a runoff election.
4. In order to write-in a candidate, the voter shall not be required to explicitly specify that their vote is for a write-in candidate.
5. In order for write-in votes for a candidate to qualify as countable votes, the person written-in must formally accept the write-in candidacy before the end of voting in the given election.
6. A voter may vote for "None of the Above" in any election, except a runoff election. Any voter may vote "None of the Above"; any and all lower preferences of the voter shall be ignored.
7. Persons who edit their post in which their vote(s) are contained at the place of voting after twenty minutes shall have their vote counted as void.
      a. All replies shall count as Ballots, even if later deleted, and no voter shall cast multiple ballots in an election, unless:
       I.  Evidence exists that the first ballot submitted by the citizen was deleted by a Moderator or Administrator of the Atlas Forum, or
   II. The second ballot submitted is identical to the first ballot and was submitted within five minutes of the first ballot, in which case only the first ballot shall be counted. 
   a-2. In all other cases, including all cases of casting a third or subsequent ballot, the casting of multiple ballots results in the invalidation of all of the user's votes in that election.

8. No ballot cast in a script other than the Latin Alphabet shall be counted as valid.

[Dr. MB]

Looks good to me!

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Looks good to me!

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Okay then, I offer the above as an amendment, Senators have 24 hours to object.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The amendment is adopted.


Okay before we proceed, is everyone comfortable with the attached bill? Does that need to be changed in light of the bills Sestak wrote?

[Dr. MB]

Yeah looks like it needs some change.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Am I to understand it correctly that the Electoral Act has not been passed yet? I didn't see it in the write house thread anywhere.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I would assume based on my reading of the situation that the electoral act merely needs an up or down vote in this chamber correct and thus is unlikely to be changed further? Therefore is safe to modify this based on that text even though it hasn't signed? I mean what are the chances of it being voted down or vetoed? 0%?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I would assume based on my reading of the situation that the electoral act merely needs an up or down vote in this chamber correct and thus is unlikely to be changed further? Therefore is safe to modify this based on that text even though it hasn't signed? I mean what are the chances of it being voted down or vetoed? 0%?