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.

[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.

[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?

[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.

[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?

[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.

[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?

[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%?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Relevant portion of the House passed version of the Federal Electoral Act:

Section 6. Voting.
1. Presidential elections in Atlasia shall be conducted using instant-runoff voting as described in subsection 7.1 - voters shall list a preference order for some, none, or all of the candidates.
2. Elections to the House of Representatives shall be conducted using single transferable vote as described in subsection 7.3 - voters shall list a preference order for some, none, or all of the candidates.
3. In any election, other than a run-off election, a voter may choose to cast a write-in vote. Any vote for a candidate who does not appear on the ballot shall be considered a write-in vote for that candidate.
4. No write-in for the House of Representatives shall be considered valid unless the candidate in question has accepted write-ins for the office by either stating as such in the Candidate Declaration Thread or by casting a vote in the election that includes a write-in for themselves. Votes for an unaccepted write-in shall automatically skip to the next preference during evaluation.
5. No write-in for the Presidential election shall be considered valid unless it is cast for a complete ticket and both candidates in question have accepted write-ins for the specific ticket in question by either stating as such in the Candidate Declaration Thread or by casting a vote in the election that includes a write-in for that same ticket.  Votes for an unaccepted write-in shall automatically skip to the next preference during evaluation.
6. No voter may edit their ballot once twenty minutes have passed since its casting, nor may they delete their own ballot - either of these actions render the voter invalid for the election, and neither that ballot nor any other ballot cast by that voter in the same election shall be counted.
7. If, in any race, only one candidate or ticket has been marked or listed on a ballot, then that ballot shall be considered a first preference vote for that candidate with no other preferences in that race.
8. If a ballot lists a Presidential candidate with no vice presidential candidate, and that presidential candidate is listed on the official ballot exactly once, on a presidential ticket, then the vote shall be considered a vote for that ticket.
9. If a ballot uses multiple indistinguishable or insortable marks to list candidates being voted for, or orders candidates without placing a mark next to them in a manner that is clearly distinguishable from reposting the exact initial ballot without marking any candidate, then the order in which the candidates are listed on that ballot shall be considered the preference order of that ballot.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

6. No voter may edit their ballot once twenty minutes have passed since its casting, nor may they delete their own ballot - either of these actions render the voter invalid for the election, and neither that ballot nor any other ballot cast by that voter in the same election shall be counted.

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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Hold up, you guys still haven’t passed the FEA? What happened?

I think it got amended in the house, plus Senate activity took a hit because of the holidays slowing progress through the House passed/amended bills.

I have repeatedly urged people to introduce such bills into the Senate introduction thread to bypass the backlog.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It looks like the electoral act will be law in the next day or two. So we we should move in a direction of amending the contained text to reflect that lest we create confusion or refuse part of the electoral act without realizing it.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The electoral act has now been signed into law, so I will repost below my earlier post comparing the texts to facilitate discussion and eventually an amendment.

6. No voter may edit their ballot once twenty minutes have passed since its casting, nor may they delete their own ballot - either of these actions render the voter invalid for the election, and neither that ballot nor any other ballot cast by that voter in the same election shall be counted.

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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

To restart things off based on where we were, the electoral has now been passed so the relevant text is this:

6. No voter may edit their ballot once twenty minutes have passed since its casting, nor may they delete their own ballot - either of these actions render the voter invalid for the election, and neither that ballot nor any other ballot cast by that voter in the same election shall be counted.

I hope to be able to offer an amendment today based on this updated statute because as things stand right now, the bill amends a law that no longer exists, also there are aspects of the existing text I am not fond of such as how it handles non-ballot posts, which could affect things like time confusion reposts (we had a few those in the past year) and other circumstances where such could be unavoidable. I don't want to cause other problems while trying to solve another.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

To restart things off based on where we were, the electoral has now been passed so the relevant text is this:

6. No voter may edit their ballot once twenty minutes have passed since its casting, nor may they delete their own ballot - either of these actions render the voter invalid for the election, and neither that ballot nor any other ballot cast by that voter in the same election shall be counted.

I hope to be able to offer an amendment today based on this updated statute because as things stand right now, the bill amends a law that no longer exists, also there are aspects of the existing text I am not fond of such as how it handles non-ballot posts, which could affect things like time confusion reposts (we had a few those in the past year) and other circumstances where such could be unavoidable. I don't want to cause other problems while trying to solve another.

With this rather odd situation in mind, would it be fair to say that the amendment is, for all intents and purposes, a re-write of the bill? I'm not opposed to pursuing such a course considering the passage of the electoral act.

I'd like to hear the sponsor's thoughts on this as well, though.

Not of the whole piece of legislation, just the bill contained alongside the constitutional amendment.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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 6 of the Federal Electoral Act of 2019 shall be amended as follows:

Section 6. Voting.
~~~
6. No voter may edit their ballot once twenty minutes have passed since its casting, nor may they delete their own ballot - either of these actions render the voter invalid for the election, and neither that ballot nor any other ballot cast by that voter in the same election shall be counted.
         a. A re-vote may be counted via a subsequent post to the first vote:
                 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.  
         b. 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.
~~~

This amendment updates the text to reflect the newly passed Federal Electoral Act of 2019 both in terms of the text that it references and updates to the text itself, which was necessary before moving forward otherwise the bill portion as it stood would be unworkable.

I also went to great lengths to preserve any intended outcomes Sestak may have had regarding multiple posts in the voting booth. Since his text doesn't ban such multiple posts, it occurred to me that this was to avoid invalidation for say pointing out the time being incorrect or some other flaw in the voting booth whereas previously the text of this bill laid a foundation by banning all extraneous posts I at least tried to narrow it just to ballot posts.

Aside from that I generally preserved the main features of the failed House text including the solutions to moderator deletion and to forum glitches, and avoided expanding beyond that to any other matters, which was my preference hence at least part of the delay.

I therefore offer the amendment. If you see any problems with the text or issues please raise them ASAP.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Sponsor?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

MB?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

MB?