July 2024 Discussion on Amendments to the EC Rules

Sil Dorsett

The Belt Collector
-
-
Deputy Speaker
-
-
-
-
TNP Nation
sil_dorsett
Discord
sildorsett
With the July election done, I want to circle back around to various rules proposals and see what we're interested in implementing before the September General.

I want to amend 'Section 5: Irregular Ballots' to read as follows:
Section Five: Irregular Ballots
1. If a voter does not vote Yes or No to a question to re-open nominations for a given office, it will be assumed that the answer to the question is No.
2. In all other cases, any portion of a ballot that is properly completed will be counted, even if other portions of the ballot are not.
3. If a voter selects more candidates for a given office than are allowed, their vote for that office will not be counted.
4. If a voter selects fewer candidates for a given office than are allowed, their unused selections will be treated as abstentions, and their votes for that office will be counted.
5. If a voter misspells the name of a candidate on their ballot, their vote will be counted unless it is unclear which candidate they intended to vote for.
6. If a private ballot does not contain a ballot ID or contains a ballot ID that is not a valid Base-10 integer, the ballot will not be counted.
7. Any time a voter is at risk of having a portion of their ballot go uncounted, they must be promptly contacted by the Election Supervisors by private message and telegram.
What does this do?
1: Remove ballot disqualification for failing to answer RON.
2: Adds private ballot disqualification if the ID is not an integer. No more NuclearCheese24 or any other "Base62" nonsense. Also DQs ballots with no ID (an old idea from Peeps back in 2021. I think we do it anyways, but at least it would be codified)


I think 'Section Four: Election Procedures', Clause 6 has been frequently suggested as needing more than six hours due to time zone issues, so let's bump it to 12 hours:
7. Any time during the voting period, or twelve hours thereafter, any Election Commissioner may privately challenge a particular ballot and submit an alternate interpretation of how it should be counted. The Election Supervisors may accept or deny any challenge.

Thoughts on any of this? Any other ideas you want to push forward? This is a discussion and roundtable for more ideas to be pitched. But, whatever we come up with, I want it to go to vote in early August so we have it for September. I don't care if certain things get voted down.

I will update the voting thread templates to bump up the randomizer from '1 to 9999' to '1 to 99999999'. That does not need a rule change. Stop asking about it.
 
Last edited:
I don't see the point of the amendments to section 5. They don't seem to address the issues we've been facing recently. If people want to set their private ballot IDs to "NuclearCheese24", then that's obnoxious of them, but not something that I think needs to be banned for the sake of neatness.
 
I don't see the point of the amendments to section 5. They don't seem to address the issues we've been facing recently. If people want to set their private ballot IDs to "NuclearCheese24", then that's obnoxious of them, but not something that I think needs to be banned for the sake of neatness.
Agreed. I don't see how setting your ballot ID to NuclearCheese24 harms the integrity of the private ballot.
 
The reason for that was in response to someone setting their ballot ID to "Pallaith". To me, that's unacceptable. I don't want to see people setting IDs to impersonate others or imply that someone voted a certain way when they didn't.

NuclearCheese24 was just when I used the Base62 excuse to Simone, which was taken too seriously.
 
I don't see the point of the amendments to section 5. They don't seem to address the issues we've been facing recently. If people want to set their private ballot IDs to "NuclearCheese24", then that's obnoxious of them, but not something that I think needs to be banned for the sake of neatness.

Agreed. I don't see how setting your ballot ID to NuclearCheese24 harms the integrity of the private ballot.

The reason for that was in response to someone setting their ballot ID to "Pallaith". To me, that's unacceptable. I don't want to see people setting IDs to impersonate others or imply that someone voted a certain way when they didn't.

I agree with Sil. For all I know, next time you're getting ID that says "Gorundu", "McMasterdonia" and "Comfed" if this doesn't pass.
 
The reason for that was in response to someone setting their ballot ID to "Pallaith". To me, that's unacceptable. I don't want to see people setting IDs to impersonate others or imply that someone voted a certain way when they didn't.

NuclearCheese24 was just when I used the Base62 excuse to Simone, which was taken too seriously.
I don't think anyone confused that ballot with the real Pallaith. Any reasonable person can recognise that if a private ballot ID is someone's actual name, then it's probably not that person who voted since that would have defeated the point of private voting.
 
What about the RON "assume no" part of the Section Five amendment? I'd be willing to break that out into its own vote while we debate the Ballot ID thing. I'd rather not lose the RON part because the Ballot ID part didn't pass.
 
What about the RON "assume no" part of the Section Five amendment? I'd be willing to break that out into its own vote while we debate the Ballot ID thing. I'd rather not lose the RON part because the Ballot ID part didn't pass.
I feel like the RON part has a bit more political consideration to it. By forcing people to choose an option for RON, it creates more awareness for what RON is and puts more spotlight on the yes vote. So the change would make RON less likely to succeed. Personally, I'm in favour of the status quo, but I'm not really sure if the EC should be making this decision. Perhaps it should be codified in the Legal Code.
 
Since the thread seems to be generic and about any changes we want to kick around, I would like to revisit a few that had been discussed previously.

Firstly though, my suggestion for what Sil proposed is that we take random ballot IDs out of their hands and put it into ours. Have the EC assign a random ballot ID to each voter after they cast their private ballot, like a receipt, and they can compare that receipt to the ballot ID assigned to their vote when it’s posted in the thread. Allows us to use smaller and more predictable numbers as well which helps keep track of them and helps make counting just that little bit easier.

Regarding RON, there isn’t anything in the legal code that says an answer to RON has to be chosen, but Gorundu is right about the logic of that requirement. RON is hard enough to achieve when you’re forced to answer the question, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. A sustained campaign could still be done in those circumstances and that’s what it takes anyway. I’d like to hear more takes on this one, I could take it or leave it. Definitely can see the RA stepping in if they don’t like the change, but I’m not at the point where I think they should make this call from the get go.

Now for the other proposals I wanted to bring up. The first addresses the recent timing concerns with EC appointments and being absent because of when terms expire. This ought to help a bit (there is probably a more complete fix but that should be a legal code change, and not appropriate for this venue).

15. An Election Commissioner will be considered absent during any election in which they are a candidate, and during any election which began prior to the start of their term. Absent Election Commissioners may not supervise an election or participate in any decisions made by the Election Commission as a whole.

And finally the classics, things I had brought up ages ago that never got resolved:

Section Four: Election Procedures
1. In advance of any regularly scheduled election, Election Supervisors will obtain lists from the Speaker's office of all citizens who are eligible to run for office. In the case of a special election, such a list must be obtained before the close of candidacy declarations.
2. After voting begins, Election Supervisors will promptly obtain a list from the Speaker's office of all citizens who are eligible to vote.
3. During candidacy declarations, Election Supervisors are obligated to include a list of declared candidates in the opening post of the thread for candidacy declarations. They are encouraged, but not required, to include lists of those who have been nominated, those who have declined nominations, and those who were nominated, but not eligible to run. In some circumstances, such as when all citizens have been nominated for office, it would be appropriate to omit such lists, or put them inside spoiler tags.
4. During voting, private ballots will be announced in separate posts. If a private ballot is changed, the corresponding post will be edited accordingly.
5. Public ballots may be changed by the voter either by editing the original ballot directly or by making a new post in the voting thread. Any time a voter casts more than one ballot, only the latest one will be counted.
6. Election Supervisors will endeavor to keep an up to date tally of votes available to the Election Commission at-large. The Election Supervisors may modify how each ballot is counted until they certify the final results, or present the results to the commission at large to be certified.
7. Any time during the voting period, or six twelve hours thereafter, any Election Commissioner may privately challenge a particular ballot and submit an alternate interpretation of how it should be counted. The Election Supervisors may accept or deny any challenge.
8. If a ballot is modified by the voter, any prior challenge of that ballot will be null and void.
9. If the results of challenged ballots could change the outcome of the election, tThe results must be promptly certified by the Election Commission at large. Otherwise, the Election Supervisors will promptly certify the results after the voting period endsonce the challenge period is over.
10. To certify the results at large, the Election Supervisors will promptly present the results of the election to the Election Commission for certification by majority vote. Simultaneously, the Election Commission will also vote on the outcome of each any outstanding challenged ballots. If the vote to certify the results fails, then each challenged ballot will be counted according to the outcome of their respective votes. The results will then be considered certified. All certification votes will end as soon as an absolute majority of non-absent commissioners have voted or twenty-four (24) hours have elapsed from the start of the vote, whichever is sooner.

Section Six: Citizen Petitions
1. While an election is in progress, Ccitizens may petition the Election Commission at large to review a decision of the Election Supervisors in a thread in the Elections forum.
2. When such a petition is submitted, the Election Commission at large will promptly vote between the following options:
a. Uphold the decision of the Election Supervisors
b. Overrule the decision and continue the election
c. Overrule the decision and restart the voting period
d. Overrule the decision and restart the election
3. When an election is not in progress, citizens may petition the Election Commission at large to amend certified election results they believe to have been counted or recorded incorrectly in a thread in the Elections forum.
4. When such a petition is submitted, the citizen must present an alternative count and identify the perceived error(s) in the count, and the Election Commission at large will promptly vote between the following options:
a. Affirm the certified results
b. Overturn the certified results and revise the election results with the petitioner's alternative count
c. Overturn the certified results and revise the election results with a new count determined by the Election Commission during the review of the petition
5. A majority vote by the Election Commission to overturn certified results and revise them with new results will be considered a new certification vote, and a note will be added to the official original results thread stating that the original results were overturned and revised with a new set of certified results. These revised results will be recorded along with a note of which vote(s) were reconsidered in the decision and the date of the new certification.
26. During this process, if an election is in progress and
three or more Election Commissioners move that the election should be halted, the Election Supervisors will immediately halt the election.
37. Election Commissioners can only vote for one option, and if an option gains a majority, it will be put into effect.
48. If no option gains a majority and an election is in progress, the election will be halted (if it has not been already) while the commission deliberates.
59. The Chief Election Commissioner will endeavor to efficiently determine a course of action that has majority support of the election commission, and put it to vote.
How do we feel about these changes?
 
@Pallaith Do you have a mechanism for dealing with a situation where a citizen's petition to amend the results actually changes the winner of the election? I'm okay with everything else of yours.

People are going to have to start paying more attention across the board, and not just in the EC, if you know what I mean...
 
Last edited:
@Pallaith Do you have a mechanism for dealing with a situation where a citizen's petition to amend the results actually changes the winner of the election? I'm okay with everything else of yours.

People are going to have to start paying more attention across the board, and not just in the EC, if you know what I mean...
I do not have a mechanism for this, but I also don’t believe the EC is the proper venue for that mechanism. That’s a legal code matter. As I have said previously, there are political remedies to that problem, and they would likely follow any correction of results that reveals an official was put into office who actually lost the election. But for the EC to claim the power to remove an official from office after recertifying a previously certified election is a stretch.
 
I think something's off with the ordering of the new Section Six clauses. I think the new clause 6 should be right after clause 2, and the new clauses 7-9 should be between the new clauses 4 and 5. Also noting that the section as it currently stands has two clauses both numbered 2, so the changes below also reflect me correcting the numbering:
Section Six: Citizen Petitions
1. While an election is in progress, Ccitizens may petition the Election Commission at large to review a decision of the Election Supervisors in a thread in the Elections forum.
2. When such a petition is submitted, the Election Commission at large will promptly vote between the following options:
a. Uphold the decision of the Election Supervisors
b. Overrule the decision and continue the election
c. Overrule the decision and restart the voting period
d. Overrule the decision and restart the election
23. During this process, if an election is in progress and three or more Election Commissioners move that the election should be halted, the Election Supervisors will immediately halt the election.
4. When an election is not in progress, citizens may petition the Election Commission at large to amend certified election results they believe to have been counted or recorded incorrectly in a thread in the Elections forum.
5. When such a petition is submitted, the citizen must present an alternative count and identify the perceived error(s) in the count, and the Election Commission at large will promptly vote between the following options:
a. Affirm the certified results
b. Overturn the certified results and revise the election results with the petitioner's alternative count
c. Overturn the certified results and revise the election results with a new count determined by the Election Commission during the review of the petition

36. Election Commissioners can only vote for one option, and if an option gains a majority, it will be put into effect.
47. If no option gains a majority and an election is in progress, the election will be halted (if it has not been already) while the commission deliberates.
58. The Chief Election Commissioner will endeavor to efficiently determine a course of action that has majority support of the election commission, and put it to vote.
9. A majority vote by the Election Commission to overturn certified results and revise them with new results will be considered a new certification vote, and a note will be added to the official original results thread stating that the original results were overturned and revised with a new set of certified results. These revised results will be recorded along with a note of which vote(s) were reconsidered in the decision and the date of the new certification.
 
Last edited:
You have a slight typo which came from not showing proper edit text in clause 1, but I have no problem with your re-ordering of the clauses for section 6. I would remind the chief commissioner that my proposed amendments included changes to section 4 which are not in Gorundu's corrected text. This isn't the RA so I am sure you will be able to stitch the two together without trouble.

I am not sure what brain fart happened when I made my original post, but the absence language I proposed would be a legal code amendment. Considering I mentioned in that same sentence a more complete fix would be done there, I am more than a little annoyed this fix wasn't included in my original version of my proposed continuous commissioners act. I have added it to that bill as it is still in formal debate.
 
I would remind the chief commissioner that my proposed amendments included changes to section 4 which are not in Gorundu's corrected text. This isn't the RA so I am sure you will be able to stitch the two together without trouble.
Of course.

The numbering of Section Six, even with Gorundu's revisions, still feels weird, and let me write down my thoughts...
Clause 1 refers to decisions during the election cycle. Clause 2 refers to what to do about that kind of petition. Clause 3 refers to halting the election during one of these mid-election petitions.
Clause 4, however, begins talking about post-election results changes. Clause 5 refers to what to do about that.
Clause 6, 7, and 8 then deal with both situations, before returning to only post-election results changes for clause 9.

I suppose it's not terrible. I personally would have split this into two sections, one dealing with "Citizen Petitions During The Election" and "Citizen Petitions Regarding Election Results", but I don't think it would affect the functionality of what you two have already written.

I'm happy to take Pallaith's Section 4 changes and Gorundu's revisions of Pallaith's Section 6 changes to vote, since that seems to be what you're all hungry for. Just motion and second for it.

I'll pester you all about Section 5 later.
 
Sorry Sil, hadn’t meant to hijack your original proposal, I just already answered my thoughts on it.

To be clearer, I do not support your integer thing, because I believe EC assignment of private ballot IDs is a superior system and avoids not only what you’re trying to avoid, but most other kinds of shenanigans we can’t even predict. The less involvement the voters have with clerical matters that can impact their votes, the better. Which is why I also support doing away with discounting votes that didn’t select a RON preference. It’s tragic for a vote to be thrown away because they didn’t answer something that almost never matters in an election. If it’s a safety valve, it’s there to be used if we need it. If they ignore it, they’re not choosing to employ it. This isn’t something that can work with abstentions, so no response to RON should be a default No vote on the question.

Propose wording for the EC assignment of private ballot IDs and default RON selection for lack of response, let’s get some consensus on it, and then add that to our final proposal to vote on. I have to imagine that is a much simpler change to set up.
 
To be clearer, I do not support your integer thing, because I believe EC assignment of private ballot IDs is a superior system and avoids not only what you’re trying to avoid, but most other kinds of shenanigans we can’t even predict. The less involvement the voters have with clerical matters that can impact their votes, the better. Which is why I also support doing away with discounting votes that didn’t select a RON preference. It’s tragic for a vote to be thrown away because they didn’t answer something that almost never matters in an election. If it’s a safety valve, it’s there to be used if we need it. If they ignore it, they’re not choosing to employ it. This isn’t something that can work with abstentions, so no response to RON should be a default No vote on the question.

Propose wording for the EC assignment of private ballot IDs and default RON selection for lack of response, let’s get some consensus on it, and then add that to our final proposal to vote on. I have to imagine that is a much simpler change to set up.

I can live with that.

Section Four: Election Procedures
1. In advance of any regularly scheduled election, Election Supervisors will obtain lists from the Speaker's office of all citizens who are eligible to run for office. In the case of a special election, such a list must be obtained before the close of candidacy declarations.
2. After voting begins, Election Supervisors will promptly obtain a list from the Speaker's office of all citizens who are eligible to vote.
3. During candidacy declarations, Election Supervisors are obligated to include a list of declared candidates in the opening post of the thread for candidacy declarations. They are encouraged, but not required, to include lists of those who have been nominated, those who have declined nominations, and those who were nominated, but not eligible to run. In some circumstances, such as when all citizens have been nominated for office, it would be appropriate to omit such lists, or put them inside spoiler tags.
4. During voting, private ballots will be announced in separate posts. The Election Supervisors are required to reply in the same private conversation thread in which a private ballot was cast to assign a unique identifier to that ballot. The Election Supervisors will then post the ballot, with the assigned unique identifier, to the voting thread. If a private ballot is changed, the corresponding post will be edited accordingly.
6. Public ballots may be changed by the voter either by editing the original ballot directly or by making a new post in the voting thread. Any time a voter casts more than one ballot, only the latest one will be counted.
7. Election Supervisors will endeavor to keep an up to date tally of votes available to the Election Commission at-large. The Election Supervisors may modify how each ballot is counted until they certify the final results, or present the results to the commission at large to be certified.
8. Any time during the voting period, or twelve hours thereafter, any Election Commissioner may privately challenge a particular ballot and submit an alternate interpretation of how it should be counted. The Election Supervisors may accept or deny any challenge.
9. If a ballot is modified by the voter, any prior challenge of that ballot will be null and void.
10. The results must be promptly certified by the Election Commission at large once the challenge period is over.
11. To certify the results, the Election Supervisors will promptly present the results of the election to the Election Commission for certification by majority vote. Simultaneously, the Election Commission will also vote on the outcome of any outstanding challenged ballots. All certification votes will end as soon as an absolute majority of non-absent commissioners have voted or twenty-four (24) hours have elapsed from the start of the vote, whichever is sooner.

Section Five: Irregular Ballots
1. If a voter does not vote Yes or No to a question to re-open nominations for a given office, their vote for that office will not be counted it will be counted as if the answer to the question is No.
2. In all other cases, any portion of a ballot that is properly completed will be counted, even if other portions of the ballot are not.
3. If a voter selects more candidates for a given office than are allowed, their vote for that office will not be counted.
4. If a voter selects fewer candidates for a given office than are allowed, their unused selections will be treated as abstentions, and their votes for that office will be counted.
5. If a voter misspells the name of a candidate on their ballot, their vote will be counted unless it is unclear which candidate they intended to vote for.
6. Any time a voter is at risk of having a portion of their ballot go uncounted, they must be promptly contacted by the Election Supervisors by private message and telegram.

This does include your changes to Section 4, Pallaith.

Section Four of the Rules of the Election Commission is amended to read as follows:
Section Four: Election Procedures
1. In advance of any regularly scheduled election, Election Supervisors will obtain lists from the Speaker's office of all citizens who are eligible to run for office. In the case of a special election, such a list must be obtained before the close of candidacy declarations.
2. After voting begins, Election Supervisors will promptly obtain a list from the Speaker's office of all citizens who are eligible to vote.
3. During candidacy declarations, Election Supervisors are obligated to include a list of declared candidates in the opening post of the thread for candidacy declarations. They are encouraged, but not required, to include lists of those who have been nominated, those who have declined nominations, and those who were nominated, but not eligible to run. In some circumstances, such as when all citizens have been nominated for office, it would be appropriate to omit such lists, or put them inside spoiler tags.
4. During voting, private ballots will be announced in separate posts. The Election Supervisors are required to reply in the same private conversation thread in which a private ballot was cast to assign a unique identifier to that ballot. The Election Supervisors will then post the ballot, with the assigned unique identifier, to the voting thread. If a private ballot is changed, the corresponding post will be edited accordingly.
5. Public ballots may be changed by the voter either by editing the original ballot directly or by making a new post in the voting thread. Any time a voter casts more than one ballot, only the latest one will be counted.
6. Election Supervisors will endeavor to keep an up to date tally of votes available to the Election Commission at-large. The Election Supervisors may modify how each ballot is counted until they certify the final results, or present the results to the commission at large to be certified.
7. Any time during the voting period, or twelve hours thereafter, any Election Commissioner may privately challenge a particular ballot and submit an alternate interpretation of how it should be counted. The Election Supervisors may accept or deny any challenge.
8. If a ballot is modified by the voter, any prior challenge of that ballot will be null and void.
9. The results must be promptly certified by the Election Commission at large once the challenge period is over.
10. To certify the results, the Election Supervisors will promptly present the results of the election to the Election Commission for certification by majority vote. Simultaneously, the Election Commission will also vote on the outcome of any outstanding challenged ballots. All certification votes will end as soon as an absolute majority of non-absent commissioners have voted or twenty-four (24) hours have elapsed from the start of the vote, whichever is sooner.

Section Five of the Rules of the Election Commission is amended to read as follows:
Section Five: Irregular Ballots
1. If a voter does not vote Yes or No to a question to re-open nominations for a given office, it will be counted as if the answer to the question is No.
2. In all other cases, any portion of a ballot that is properly completed will be counted, even if other portions of the ballot are not.
3. If a voter selects more candidates for a given office than are allowed, their vote for that office will not be counted.
4. If a voter selects fewer candidates for a given office than are allowed, their unused selections will be treated as abstentions, and their votes for that office will be counted.
5. If a voter misspells the name of a candidate on their ballot, their vote will be counted unless it is unclear which candidate they intended to vote for.
6. Any time a voter is at risk of having a portion of their ballot go uncounted, they must be promptly contacted by the Election Supervisors by private message and telegram.

Section Six of the Rules of the Election Commission is amended to read as follows:
Section Six: Citizen Petitions
1. [While an election is in progress, citizens may petition the Election Commission at large to review a decision of the Election Supervisors in a thread in the Elections forum.
2. When such a petition is submitted, the Election Commission at large will promptly vote between the following options:
a. Uphold the decision of the Election Supervisors
b. Overrule the decision and continue the election
c. Overrule the decision and restart the voting period
d. Overrule the decision and restart the election
3. During this process, if an election is in progress and three or more Election Commissioners move that the election should be halted, the Election Supervisors will immediately halt the election.
4. When an election is not in progress, citizens may petition the Election Commission at large to amend certified election results they believe to have been counted or recorded incorrectly in a thread in the Elections forum.
5. When such a petition is submitted, the citizen must present an alternative count and identify the perceived error(s) in the count, and the Election Commission at large will promptly vote between the following options:
a. Affirm the certified results
b. Overturn the certified results and revise the election results with the petitioner's alternative count
c. Overturn the certified results and revise the election results with a new count determined by the Election Commission during the review of the petition

6. Election Commissioners can only vote for one option, and if an option gains a majority, it will be put into effect.
7. If no option gains a majority and an election is in progress, the election will be halted (if it has not been already) while the commission deliberates.
8. The Chief Election Commissioner will endeavor to efficiently determine a course of action that has majority support of the election commission, and put it to vote.
9. A majority vote by the Election Commission to overturn certified results and revise them with new results will be considered a new certification vote, and a note will be added to the official original results thread stating that the original results were overturned and revised with a new set of certified results. These revised results will be recorded along with a note of which vote(s) were reconsidered in the decision and the date of the new certification.
 
Last edited:
I suppose the next question is do we want to vote on each component separately or all together?

If we were to break it apart, it would be as follows:

Question 1: My change to Section 4, Clause 4. (The "Private Ballot ID Assignment" Proposal)
Question 2: Pallaith's changes to Section 4, Clauses 7, 9 and 10. (The "Certification Procedure" Proposal)
Question 3: My change to Section 5, Clause 1. (The "RON Defaults to No" Proposal)
Question 4: Pallaith's changes to Section 6 with Gorundu's revisions in its entirety. (The "Citizens Petitions Regarding Election Results" Proposal)
 
We have something like a consensus for the section 6 and section 4 proposals, if we could determine something similar for the private ballot ID and RON changes, I don't see why we wouldn't just do one vote. If anyone feels strongly about some but not others, I would rather they let us know now and if we can't come to some kind of agreement, have us do the separate options as Sil outlined.
 
We have something like a consensus for the section 6 and section 4 proposals, if we could determine something similar for the private ballot ID and RON changes, I don't see why we wouldn't just do one vote. If anyone feels strongly about some but not others, I would rather they let us know now and if we can't come to some kind of agreement, have us do the separate options as Sil outlined.

Voting separately sounds easier, just in case.
 
I will state for the record that I'm against the RON change. Everything else I am in agreement with.
 
Back
Top