Confirmation of Sil Dorsett and Dreadton as Election Commissioners

[St George]

I hereby appoint @Dreadton and @Sil Dorsett to the Election Commission. Their term is up on 22 June.
This is subject to a confirmation vote by the RA.

The delegate has nominated @Dreadton and @Sil Dorsett to the Election Commission. I now open the floor for debate and discussion on the nominations. I would welcome and invite a statement in support of the nominees from @Prydania

 

[Pallaith]

Full support. These are some of our most dedicated and prolific commissioners.

 

[Bobberino]

No complaints from me, these two are good at their jobs. Think @Dreadton should get a raise tho.

 

[Robespierre]

Both of the nominees have done well to serve dutifully on the Election Commission in the past. No objections from me.

 

[Prydania]

I would welcome and invite a statement in support of the nominees from @Prydania

Hello Mr. Speaker, Regional Assembly of the North Pacific. I wish to say that both Dreadton and Sil Dorsett have unassailable records in service to TNP in a variety of offices. Including serving on the Election Commission. I have no doubts that, if confirmed, they will continue to serve to the best of their abilities.

 

[Wonderess]

As someone who has seen their work on the commission first hand, I can tell you they take their responsibilities very seriously and have been dedicated to managing or reviewing our elections. I see no reason I nor anyone could oppose their reconfirmation.

 

[Eluvatar]

@Dreadton and @Sil Dorsett do you plan to make updates to the templates to prevent errors such as mass PMs which invite people to reply?

Suppose a candidate starts a campaign topic without declaring candidacy, what would you do as an election supervisor?

Imagine somebody starts a debate topic in the election area during an election season with the title "Ring of Fire" and asks candidates to debate each other in a no-holds-barred arena: how would you respond as an election supervisor?

Suppose a citizen votes using A, B, C instead of 1, 2, 3 to specify their preferences, would you count their vote as an election supervisor? Would you challenge it as an election commissioner reviewing the vote count?

Suppose a citizen votes for the same person twice for Justice, and another person once, would you count their vote as an election supervisor and how? Would you challenge it as an election commissioner reviewing the vote count?

 

[Sil Dorsett]

Templates
Yes, I think all the templates are in need of a review ever since the forum migration and the implementation of instant runoff voting. The counting spreadsheet also needs a look. I tried your IRV spreadsheet once and couldn't get it to work, and I fell back to using multiple old-style sheets, as was demonstrated this past election cycle. I'm not sure if I just didn't click the right buttons or if I legitimately broke something bad when I tried the IRV sheet.

Campaign Topic Without Declaring Candidacy
Kindly remind them via forum PM, a message in the thread itself, and a telegram that they need to declare candidacy in the appropriate Candidacy Declarations thread. If they don't make their declaration in the CD thread, well, that's a real shame for them. I mean, we do say "in this thread" twice when we start that thread.

Ring of Fire
Well, I'm not going to rob the community of a good debate. The worst I'd probably do is ask for the thread to be moved outside the Elections subforum, but even that I'm not really keen on. If it's relevant to the election, it should probably stay where it is. "Moderating" a "no-holds-barred" debate would be up to Forum Moderators and Admin, because forum rules are still forum rules. "No-holds-barred" is kind of a misnomer there.

ABC
I think it's pretty standard what the order of letters are in an ABC format, with A being the first option, B being the second, and so on. I wouldn't discredit the vote or challenge it in that case. Now, if the ballot looked like this...

Vice Delegate:
H. Sil Dorsett
D. Plembobria
Q. Artemis
C. Syrixia

... I would probably consider that an ambiguous vote and not count it, given the out of order and non-contiguous letters, and then wait for the inevitable Request for Review to sort it out. I mean, look at that hot mess! Who's the first preference? Sil Dorsett (top line) or Syrixia (1st alphabetically labeled)? Even if it was numbered that'd be just... weird. Though, perhaps it may be better to just drop letters and numbers altogether and just say that the votes count in the order they are listed, but that would probably require changing the Legal Code.

Edit: Now that I think about it, the Legal Code does say "with the candidate ranked 1 being the first preference, the candidate ranked 2 being the next preference, and so on." So... I guess letters don't actually count towards providing a rank? Oof... Maybe next general election I'll use letters and test the law.

Same Person Twice
I would count it as one vote for the duplicated candidate, one vote for the other, and one abstention. In that case, they've selected fewer candidates than are allowed and that's covered in the EC rules. If it appeared on the spreadsheet as 2 and 1, that'd be challenged. It's clear who the voter wants to be on the court, but they can't vote twice for the same person. Could you imagine the chaos of allowing up to three votes for the same candidate?

 

[Dreadton]

@Dreadton and @Sil Dorsett do you plan to make updates to the templates to prevent errors such as mass PMs which invite people to reply?

Sil and I had talked about this briefly during the last election. Getting the templates updated is something that I think the Cheif Election Commissioner should contact you about getting updated (I believe you maintain that particular gitlab) Although all commissioners should review the proposed changes to ensure there are no mistakes and we will only have to update it once unless the laws change again.

Suppose a candidate starts a campaign topic without declaring candidacy, what would you do as an election supervisor?

Without a formal declaration in the dedicated thread, said person is not a candidate for the election. I would suggest to that person that they declare in the proper thread if they intend to run for office. The EC has authority to designate a thread for all election declarations (EC Rule 4.3 )

Imagine somebody starts a debate topic in the election area during an election season with the title "Ring of Fire" and asks candidates to debate each other in a no-holds-barred arena: how would you respond as an election supervisor?

Theres nothing that would stop the debate topic from being in the election area and is nominally under the topic of election. Since it is election related I would not be inclined to move it. The Moderation of said thread would be under the perview of the forum administration.

Suppose a citizen votes using A, B, C instead of 1, 2, 3 to specify their preferences, would you count their vote as an election supervisor? Would you challenge it as an election commissioner reviewing the vote count?

The EC held here https://forum.thenorthpacific.org/topic/9190920/ that the vote must be unambiguous. The legal code requires that the voters prefered candidate be rank 1 not that it be numbered 1. So combining that with the EC previous interpretation If the voter votes ABC with A being first b being second and so on, the EC can determine the voters prefered choice with no ambiguity and not running afoul of the legal code. However, if they jumble the lettering then it would be an ambiguous ballot and I would challenge.

3Suppose a citizen votes for the same person twice for Justice, and another person once, would you count their vote as an election supervisor and how? Would you challenge it as an election commissioner reviewing the vote count?

I have spent the better part of two hours working on the answer to this question and I do hope I am wrong. But his vote should be counted as is. There is no provision in the legal code, constitution, bill of right, and Rules of the election that prevents him from voting for the same candidate twice for a Judicial election. The only restriction I see is in the election commision rules 5.3 which limits the vote to the number of candidates " 3. If a voter selects more candidates for a given office than are allowed, their vote for that office will not be counted. " The good thing is that no one EC can invalidate a vote and this is something I would discuss with the EC as a whole to reach a consensus.

 

[Prydania]

I move for a vote for both @Sil Dorsett and @Dreadton's confirmations.

 

[Wonderess]

I second for both

 

[St George]

Seeing a motion and a second, this is now at vote