Request for Review

[Blue Wolf II]

I would like for the MoJ to review the Defining Player vote which occurred 4/18 to 4/25. I am specifically concerned as with whether certain legal voters who were eligible to vote were discounted and their voted struck null and void by the Prime Minister.

My concern was originally stated in that voting thread, which is now locked, and will be restated here.

Also, the voted started on the 18th but you, Grosse, said this on the 17th.

(Grosseschnauzer @ Apr 17 2007, 09:45 PM)
The following have been accepted to the Regional Assembly (or re-accepted, in a couple of cases):
PoD Gunner
purinkle
Emperor of Soleme
Fearless Leader
Pragmia
Daimiaena
punk d

Link.

By all accounts those three voters were, so should have been, allowed to participate in this vote and thus the results are (should have been): Aye -14 Nay -15 Abstain -2.

The Prime Minister claims that he was "using the GMT time stamps". However, this does not discount the fact that no matter what time stamp you use the acceptation of the RV voters by Grosse undeniably happened before the Defining Player vote was opened.

Link to the original topic.

 

[Eluvatar]

I have reviewed this matter myself and also am very disturbed.

The acceptance for purinkle, Pragmia, and punk d, occuring in this post is listed there as being:

Apr 18 2007, 02:45 AM

by GMT timestamp.

The vote thread on defining player began at:

Posted: Apr 18 2007, 01:40 PM

Note the AM in the first and the PM in the second-- the approval happened before the vote was even posted. Even better, in that thread, the following is stated by Mr Sniffles:

Voting begins at 10 am EST or 4 pm GMT and ends on the 4/25.

So in fact voting began an additional 2 hours and 20 minutes after the thread was posted following the GMT definition. Yes his times don't match, but then we still note that the 1:40 PM thread posting is after the 2:45 AM acceptance post.

Finally, reviewing the Prime Minister's count of the vote-- regardless that it has the correct outcome, I noticed the very strange counting of Katinaire as voting Aye, when his post actually consists of:

NAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I then proceded to myself count the votes which are fortunately public:

So, the vote without any votes struck in tabbed format for easy putting into a spreadsheet :

VoterVote
Emperor MatthuisAYE
flemingoviaAYE
Winter VacationersNAY
Haor ChallNAY
Fulhead LandNAY
Monte OzarkaNAY
KorinnaNAY
GrosseschnauzerAYE
Blue Wolf IINAY
carlottaguidicelliAYE
EluvatarNAY
PragmiaNAY
punk dABSTAIN
Ator PeopleAYE
RomanoffiaAYE
ByardkuriaAYE
Great Bights MumAYE
Vrtbovska ZahradaNAY
purinkleNAY
nish81NAY
SnowNekoNAY
Monumental ProportionsAYE
Southwest AsiaAYE
freedom and prideAYE
GroclantAYE
GaspoNAY
Upper KirbyNAY
MesianAYE
Zemnaya SvobodaNAY
KatinaireNAY
LebostranaABSTAIN
UnterwasserseestaatNAY
Mr.GauntNAY

Now, as SnowNeko and Nish81 applied after the vote began, it is correct that their votes should not be counted. This thus is the list of correct votes (still in spreadsheetable form):

VoterVote
Emperor MatthuisAYE
flemingoviaAYE
Winter VacationersNAY
Haor ChallNAY
Fulhead LandNAY
Monte OzarkaNAY
KorinnaNAY
GrosseschnauzerAYE
Blue Wolf IINAY
carlottaguidicelliAYE
EluvatarNAY
PragmiaNAY
punk dABSTAIN
Ator PeopleAYE
RomanoffiaAYE
ByardkuriaAYE
Great Bights MumAYE
Vrtbovska ZahradaNAY
purinkleNAY
Monumental ProportionsAYE
Southwest AsiaAYE
freedom and prideAYE
GroclantAYE
GaspoNAY
Upper KirbyNAY
MesianAYE
Zemnaya SvobodaNAY
KatinaireNAY
LebostranaABSTAIN
UnterwasserseestaatNAY
Mr.GauntNAY

Counting these ballots one gets the following results:

AYE13
NAY16
ABSTAIN2

(For full disclosure I used the following spreadsheet code, which I believe is compatible with excel:

AYE=countif(B:B,C1)
NAY=countif(B:B,C2)
ABSTAIN=countif(B:B,C3)

)

 

[Blue Wolf II]

Heh, I missed that, but that is even more disturbing and even more sneaky and underhanded.

Request the MoJ also review the Prime Ministers actions for criminal offenses.

 

[Eluvatar]

I would like to note that my statements are statements of the facts, of what incorrect counting has occurred.

I am not attempting to imply anything about intentions.

EDIT:

Performing further examination, VOTE; Associate Justice Nominees, Mr. Gaunt and Romanoffia also began after the acceptance of the aforementioned RA members, but their votes were still denied.

 

[Grosseschnauzer]

The issue has never arisen in the past because in the past forum ADMIN held back maskings until there was clearly no vote in progress.

The only reason masks were changed right then was because of the insistence of Former English Colony to do so so she could resign. Coincidentially (or maybe not), Mr. Snifffles started a voting thread, and then resigned. Everything happened on the exact same day/ Coincidence?

Now, I have just received an email from PODgunner that in fact, his listed TNP nation had CTE'd during this last week, and that in fact he was ineligible at the time of the votes.

Hello Grosse,
am sorry but the last week was a very busy one. I have just noticed that my tnp nation has cted. Shame on me but it happens. HERE is my new nation in TNP. I am intersted in being active in the RA so I have dedicated it also.
Please make the necessary corection. If there is someone else I should adress, please guide me.
Thank You,
PoD Gunner.

I have no way of knowing, at this point whether the MIIA records provided to me were as current as they should have been, since FEC directed the removal of a number of RA members, presumably because they had the same problem.

The disposion of both vedotes does not change one way or the other. The two nominees were confirmed, and the proposed amendment failed to reach a two-thirds vote. The only possible issue is whether the former Speaker's practice of submitting Constitutional amendment poposals to a revote if they achieved a 50% plus one threshhold was or was not correct under Article VII and the RA voting procedure provisions of Article IV. I have not posted a ruling on that part of it, as Acting Speaker, because I am not certain M. Sniffles' procedure was correct. I had planned to leave it to the next Speaker to resolve since I had sponsored the one proposal, and I wanted to avoid the exact concern that has arisen.

If my belief is correct that Mr. Sniffles has been following an erroneous procedure during his tenure, then the one proposal is a dead bill, and there is no point to this petition. And the two nominations were confirmed whether or not those votes were valid.

i will state however, that as forum admin in the future the maskings will not be changed to add RA members when a RA vote is ongoing. That will avoid this problem from recurring. I do have to wonder how carefuoly RA applications are being checked, in that PoDgunner was one of these very recent admittees to the RA.

 

[Southwest Asia]

In theory, I should be able to bring Grosse to trial over Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution:

5. All Nations of The North Pacific have the right to be protected against the abuse of powers by any official of a government authority of the region. Any Nation of The North Pacific has the right to request the impeachment of any official of a government authority of the region in accordance with this Constitution, that is deemed to have participated in such acts.

However, that would be stupid. The closeness of the time between the acceptance of the new RA members and the vote help to highlight the possibility of ballot stuffing. The PM seems to have merely made a simple mistake, and does not appear to have had any clear goals of denying these people their votes.

In any case, those votes would not have swayed the results on way or the other, as even if all 5 votes had been counted for AYE, the bill wouldn't have attained the necessary 60% of the votes needed to pass.

If someone seriously wants to take up this case, then by all means respond, but realize that:

1. I'm pretty sure that this was simply a mistake.
2. These trials wouldn't result in the bill passing regardless.
3. Nothing beneficial would come from this.

In the future I'd suggest that Grosse simply be more careful next time.

 

[Eluvatar]

All votes removed were nay votes, and a nay vote was flipped to an aye vote.

Our worry was that Grosseschnauzer may have in some capacity favored the bill.

However as nothing would come of this, I do not believe this matter needs further addressing.

What is the opinion of the Original Poster, Blue Wolf II?

 

[Blue Wolf II]

Ditto.

 

[Southwest Asia]

Ok, thread closed.