Petition to the Election Commission

Abbey

Abbey

TNPer
Election Commissioners,

I hereby submit a petition that the Special AG election should not have been restarted as at the current time, James has not yet lost his citizenship and therefore has not dropped out of the race. He is in fact still on the RA Rolls and thus is still a citizen, despite being banned from the forum.

He is still eligible to run and thus the election should not have been restarted.

Thank you for your time,

Abbey
 
This petition will follow the procedures laid out in the EC rules. I will start a topic in the EC subforum in about 4 hours or a bit sooner.
 
After considering your petition, the Election Commission has decided to uphold the decision to restart the voting period. You are correct that James Urquhart was not a citizen when the voting period was restarted, and so the decision to do so was incorrect. However, because he has since lost citizenship (after leaving the region), he is no longer a valid candidate, and the commission has determined that the best course of action is to continue the current round of voting.

The deliberations of the EC on your petition can be found in this forum thread, as well as in the following logs from discord:
[7:33 PM] COE: @Election Commissioner URGENT: http://forum.thenorthpacific.org/topic/9092831/
[7:34 PM] COE: All EC's have a vote, including current election supervisors
[7:43 PM] COE: If one of the options gets four votes, I can end the vote early. Otherwise, it will last three days
[7:44 PM] Darcania: Voted
[7:44 PM] COE: Oh crap, he left the region
[7:47 PM] Darcania: Yes
[7:49 PM] Darcania: Can't have this be too easy, can we
[7:50 PM] COE: So basically, restarting the vote was the correct move, you just did it 16 hours too early
[7:50 PM] Siwale: Exactly. I can't seem to find that option though :P
[7:51 PM] COE: I'm tempted to go none of the above now, and say "Establish precedent that the decision was incorrect, but continue the current voting period because restarting now is just a waste of time that will have no effect on the outcome of the election, even a theoretical one"
[7:52 PM] Darcania: if someone proposes that as an option I'm willing to change my vote to agree
[7:52 PM] Siwale: Me too
[7:58 PM] COE: OK, it is worth noting here that I probably shouldn't have included "because it is in compliance with the law and the rules of the Election Commission" in option 1
[7:58 PM] COE: To exercise any of our powers to alter the election schedule, we have to determine that the decision under review was not in compliance with the law and the EC rules
[7:59 PM] COE: But that doesn't mean we can't make that determination, and then elect not to exercise those powers
[8:00 PM] COE: Which seems to be Elu's perspective
[8:01 PM] Siwale: I feel like we are all on a similar page but are all voting differently given the options we have to select from.
[8:01 PM] SillyString: Yeah, I originally intepreted Option 1 as elu did, but then rethought it
[8:02 PM] SillyString: but if we can rephrase option 1 I think that's best
[8:02 PM] COE: We most certainly can
[8:02 PM] Darcania: perhaps in future we can use that same template with the causal dependent clauses removed :P
[8:02 PM] Eluvatar: http://forum.thenorthpacific.org/single/?p=10101896&t=9092831
[8:02 PM] COE: Well, the "because" clauses are important for options 2-4
[8:03 PM] Eluvatar: My preferred solution is adding an option 5 that reflects what SillyString and I are saying.
[8:03 PM] COE: There's a problem with that
[8:03 PM] SillyString: The law only lays out 4 options
[8:04 PM] COE: And I can only end the vote early if one of those four options gets an absolute majority
[8:04 PM] Eluvatar: so...
[8:04 PM] SillyString: So, I think I disagree on the "because" clauses being more important for options 2-4. I think there could plausibly be cases where we might say that the decision of the supervisors was in compliance with the law, but we're still overruling them
[8:04 PM] Eluvatar: "b. Overrule the decision and continue the election" ?
[8:04 PM] COE: Because Zyvet didn't like my language about "if the outcome is no longer in doubt"
[8:04 PM] Eluvatar: No, that goes back to the original vote topic which is now incorrect.
[8:04 PM] SillyString: right
[8:04 PM] COE: @SillyString that would be illegal
[8:05 PM] SillyString: I don't think it would necessarily be, just as I dn't think it's illegal for us to say "that was wrong when it happened but it's now ok"
[8:05 PM] COE:
19. If the full Election Commission determines that the actions under review are not in compliance with the law or their adopted rules, they will have the power, by majority vote, to overrule them. If deemed necessary, they will also have the power, by majority vote, to restart the election, or designate different commissioners to supervise the election.
Click to expand...
[8:05 PM] SillyString: just because the ECs have made a legal decision doesn't mean theirs was the only legal decision
[8:05 PM] Eluvatar: But I imagine the supervisors should have discretion within the law and rules
[8:05 PM] Eluvatar: to choose which legal decision to take
[8:06 PM] SillyString: k nevermind I missed the clause after 18 :P
[8:06 PM] COE: Yeah, that was my compromise with punk d
[8:06 PM] COE: OK, so how about I strip the "because" language from clause one, because it is not required by law, and not reflective of what the rules actually say we're voting on
[8:06 PM] Eluvatar: Fine by me
[8:07 PM] COE: And then we all indicate that we recognize that the decision was not legal, but that the best course of action is to uphold it
[8:08 PM] Eluvatar: When you put it that way... :P
[8:08 PM] SillyString: shush eru
[8:10 PM] COE: Kind of like when the court let Douria stay in the RA when they determined that he shouldn't have been let in in the first place
[8:12 PM] COE: Option One has been edited to read "Uphold the decision."
[8:19 PM] COE: @Eluvatar Can you affirm in the thread that your vote is unaffected by the change in language?
[8:22 PM] Eluvatar: done
[8:24 PM] Siwale: That makes 4 votes for the same option.
Click to expand...
 
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