Election Ruling

Essentially, the ruling is thus.

HC is eligible, although he didn't have the endorsements when he actually declared, because continuing to actively work on getting elected is as good as saying "Elect me". Since he did this after he was eligible, he's good.

Az is not eligible, not due to endorsement issues, but because he did not file his candidacy until after the constitutionally designated period had ended.

As an aside, I wrestled for a bit on whether or not the NPA endorsements could count as nominations for purposes of the "three nominations by others = candidacy" rule. However, for NPA> 5 members, this would make the "endorsements, then declaration" rule a paradox, and therefore I ruled they did not count. For the same reason, expressing interest in the position to feel out NPA support, or gain such, was not considered to be equivalent to declaring candidacy.

Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves.

Just as a matter of interest may I ask if the Court considered the misleading post made by Hersfod in the nomination thread?

Hersfold Posted: Apr 27 2006, 09:18 PM


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Oop. Sorry.

Everyone's got only a couple more days to enter! Make sure you declare your candidacy!

And I will have limited computer access over the next few days. Horrible timing, I know, but I will be back in time to verify the ballot even if the list above isn't updated right.

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This post was made more like a coupe of hours not a coupe of days before the closing of nominations

EDIT: Rather more seriously did the Court consider the initial post in the nominations thread which includes this statement:

Any Regional Assembly member may nominate any Regional Assembly member for any position, including themselves, as long as the nominee meets all eligibility requirements. Nominations will close at 12:00 PM GMT (8:00 PM EST) on Saturday the 29th. No nominations after that point will be accepted.

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Note: Presumably Hersfold (aka The Voting Booth) meant 12:00AM.

Both of these postings were noted. However, it is the opinion of the Court that procedural updates within the election comission do not supercede the explicitly-defined timeframe given within the cited texts.

Hmm!

I may be misunderstanding you here but you seem to be saying that the electoral commisioner can post whatever dates he likes for nominations to close but that if he makes a mistake then it's hard luck on anyone who assumed he did his job correctly and didn't confirm his opinion by checking with the constitution?

I would suggest that the mis-posting of the dates has unfairly penalised candidates for election, such as Azazel and maybe others and ought to be a matter for consideration as to whether either the dates as posted shoud stand or whether there is a case for re-starting the whole election procedure.

I say that as a concerned Regional Assembly member who has no intentions of standing in any position and has therefore not at all been penalised by this error.

EDIT: Spelling

While it would be nice if we all knew the constitution off by heart, the election procedure are an especially convoluted set of dates and rules.

While strictly speaking Az did declare his candidacy outside of the official nomination period, the fact that it had been stated by the election commissioner that this period would still be open has to be taken into account.

Especially when in the same breath, the rules concerning the MoD candidates approval by the NPA, are allowed such leeway. If we were to apply the same strict reading, HC's candidacy is equally illegal. The constitution clearly states candidates for the MoD position must recieve approval prior to declaring. There are no provisions for half declaring and finishing it off later.

Now if there is some confusion over what should happen when during election, thats fine. But surely thats something we should be looking at fixing as a region, not by penalising candidates.

This is the fourth election cycle since the constitutional convention when the current election cycle schedule has been used; and the third election cycle since the additional endorsement of the MoD candidates was adopted into the constitution.

The constitution is quite explicit about the months, days and hours on which the elections themselves are held. Likewise, the pre-voting period dates (for NPA endorsements and the declaration/nomination periods) are computed the same way, and all times are in GMT. And the three-day period for verifying eligibility has not changed since that was added during the constitutional convention.

If there is a fault, then it seems to fall in the hands of the MoD in my opinion, since it is up to the NPA to decide on the process by which it chooses whom to "endorse" and the procedures for doing so are under the control of the NPA and its leadership.

I don't know why Hersfold posted the 29th; there is nothing that supports that date being used. The problem may be that in some instances the month preceding the election dates themselves vary between 30 days (as is the case with April this time) and 31 days (as was the case with January last time).

I think the correct procedure would have been for the MoD and the NPA to have asked for a civil remedy on an expedited basis as soon as they realized they were starting late. That did not happen, and no matter what the esteemed Chief Justice rules, there would not be an ideal solution.

IMHO, there was a cock up with the NPA voting being held late but ultimately to me it would seem most logical to just allow either both or neither us of us to run. And out of those two it seems most sensible to allow both of us to run- so it might not be technically what the Constitution says but, as we're aware there was a cock up with the NPA voting late and I don't see anything wrong with a little flexibility because of that. That, of course, is my personal -entirely legally ignorant- opinion.

It is not the role of the Court to find potential errors by the citizens and officials of the region. The role of the Court is to consider, analyze, and rule on those requests filed before it. In lieu of any such request, the Court cannot and should not intervene.

As Grosseschnauzer noted, the Constitution very explicitly lays out a period of nomination for candidacy. Nominations outside this period can not be considered in accordance with Regional law. There is no such restriction on the method by which a candidate declares their candidacy. Similarly, no law states that, if a candidate is ineligible for an office, but then becomes eligible during the nomination period, they cannot declare candidacy at that time. What may appear to be "leeway" is in fact interpretation within the bounds of the written law. In the matter of eligible dates, no such interpretation is available.

Oh lord. Gone for a few days...

Not surprisingly, I am not a walking Constitution, and therefore don't have everything memorized, particularly the MoD procedures. I thought that the nomination period for the office ran the same as the others, and was caught a bit off guard when I started seeing posts and messages asking if Az had gotten in on time.

This post was made more like a couple of hours not a couple of days before the closing of nominations

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If you mean MoD elections, yes, possibly. However, the great majority of offices still had several days to be nominated. I'm pretty sure I made that post in the general nomination topic, not the NPA endorement one.

Note: Presumably Hersfold (aka The Voting Booth) meant 12:00AM.

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Yes, I did. Sorry.

I don't know why Hersfold posted the 29th; there is nothing that supports that date being used. The problem may be that in some instances the month preceding the election dates themselves vary between 30 days (as is the case with April this time) and 31 days (as was the case with January last time).

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That was intentional. The extra day was added so that I, as Election Commissioner, would have time to verify the legality of all the candidates and deal with any issues such as this. As long as the nomination and election periods are both the specified length and the elections start on time, I really don't see how there could be a problem there, as long as the dates are clearly advertized, which I made sure they were.

In the matter of eligible dates, no such interpretation is available.

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This post has me mildly confused. Does it mean that Azazel is indeed eligible to run, or does the original ruling above stand?

The ruling has not changed.

Ok, then, thank you.