[2402.HQ] Voting Requirements in Multi-Round Elections

High Court
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Submission

High Court of the South Pacific

I respectfully submit this case for the consideration of the High Court and in doing so state that the information contained within it is true to the best of my knowledge, and I further make myself available to answer any questions that the Court may have.

Reference Name
Voting Requirements in Multi-Round Elections

Request
Does Citizenship Act 2.2b, which requires that citizens “cast a ballot in all elections in which they are eligible to vote” apply individually to each round of a multi-round election?

Description
Citizenship Act 2.2b requires that citizens “cast a ballot in all elections in which they are eligible to vote”. While this presents no significant hurdle in single-round elections, as is the case in the election of the Prime Minister, the situation is different in the election of the Delegate where there is a forum round and a subsequent gameside round.

The multi-round election for Delegate presents a difficulty from the perspective of the Election Commissioner, who is legally required to inform the Citizenship Committee of the citizens who did or did not vote, because voting in the gameside round is limited to Native World Assembly Residents.

I ask the indulgence of the Court if I am mistaken, but I am not aware of a way to determine if a citizen is eligible to vote in the gameside round; if that is the case then the Election Commissioner would have no way to inform the Citizenship Committee, nor would the Citizenship Committee have a way to ascertain, if a citizen failed to vote in the gameside round due to negligence on their part or due to faultless ineligibility. This would have significant impact on the status of citizens, if the law is to be read as counting each round as a separate election.

Given that voting is currently ongoing for the January 2024 Delegate Election, which in turn means that the Citizenship Committee will have limited time to consider the matter of the status of non-voting citizens, I ask the Court to give expedited treatment to this case, or to consider the necessity of issuing an injunction as needed.

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High Court of the South Pacific

[2402.HQ] Voting Requirements in Multi-Round Elections

Let this serve as notice that this petition has been received by the High Court and has been assigned the following identifying information:

Docket Number
2402.HQ

Reference Name
Voting Requirements in Multi-Round Elections

Request
Does Citizenship Act 2.2b, which requires that citizens “cast a ballot in all elections in which they are eligible to vote” apply individually to each round of a multi-round election?

The petitioner and other interested parties are invited to explain the admissibility or lack thereof of this case no later than 2024-01-28T06:00:00Z, but the Court reserves the right to make a determination before then.

Submission: 24 Jan 2024

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High Court of the South Pacific

[2402.HQ] Voting Requirements in Multi-Round Elections

Whereas this Court has been asked to exercise the judicial power vested in it by Article VII of the Charter of the South Pacific, it is resolved that this case is justiciable and will be considered for resolution by a panel of two justices.

The Court grants the petitioner’s motion for the case to be given expedited treatment and will operate under the guidelines set forth in the Standards for Case Management.

The petitioner and interested parties may submit requests for the recusal of any Justice of the High Court from this case no later than 2024-01-26T21:00:00Z. Further, the petitioner and interested parties may submit arguments with their views on this case no later than 2024-01-28T21:00:00Z, but the Court reserves the right to issue an opinion before then.

Submission: 24 Jan 2024 | Determination: 25 Jan 2024

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I request the indulgence of the Court as I intend to submit a amicus curiae brief ideally today, but no later than this weekend.

1 Like
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Your Honour and may it please the Court,

Citizenship Act 2.2b requires that citizens “cast a ballot in all elections in which they are eligible to vote”, but it does not provide detailed guidance on how this would apply to multi-round elections nor, perhaps more critically, how this would be enforced in elections where eligibility cannot be definitively established. To that end I wish to bring the attention of the Court to two key matters.

First, I contend that the requirement that voters cast a ballot in all elections in which they are eligible to vote applies to both rounds of an election. I propose this on account of the fact that all elections, with the notable exception of elections for the Delegate, have a single round; it thus stands to reason that the intention of Citizenship Act 2.2b is the ensure that citizens always participate through the ballot box as a requirement to keep their status.

It would be absurd to imagine that the intent of the law would be to allow for certain situations, outside the discretion of the Citizenship Committee, where citizens could simply opt not to cast a vote where the whole intent of the law is to preclude such cases from coming into play. To the extent that an election for the Delegate is not complete until the same has been elected, and this process consists of two votes cast towards the same end, I would argue that the Court should view the requirement as applying to both rounds of an election as a single ballot to be cast.

Second, and perhaps surprisingly in a contradictory manner, I also contend that the Election Commissioner and the Citizenship Committee have limitations in their ability to verify the eligibility of a citizen to cast ballots in the second round of an election for the Delegate. I beg the indulgence of the Court if I am mistaken in this, but I do not believe there is a way to determine if someone is, as the law requires, a “Native”. One can determine if someone is a “Resident” and a “World Assembly Member”, but native status is one condition that cannot be verified with ease. If this holds true, and in this I again admit that my knowledge is limited, then the eligibility of citizens could be impossible to verify and therefore citizens would run the risk of seemingly failing the requirement when in reality they may not be eligible in the first place, to the detriment of their status as citizens if this nuance is not considered.

For the foregoing reasons I ask the Court to rule that voting is required in all rounds in a multi-round election but that, absent the ability to verify eligibility in poll-based elections, voting in the second round of the election of the Delegate cannot be enforced lest citizens be unfairly removed from the rolls due to no fault of their own.

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Your Honor, and may it please the Court.

If I may make two brief caveats before turning to to the core of my argument. First, I assume for purposes of this brief that Native status is difficult if not impossible for the EC to verify. Second, I agree that Kringle’s interpretation of the statutes at issue is a reasonable one. But I am not convinced that it is the only reasonable reading. Thus, my goal is simply to raise what I see as an alternative, equally plausible interpretation for the Court’s consideration.

As I read the Citizenship Act, a citizen complies with the requirements of Article 2, Section (2)b if they cast a ballot in either the forum or gameside rounds of the Delegate election. That section provides “to retain citizenship status once granted, citizens of the Coalition must . . . cast a ballot in all elections in which they are eligible to vote and are not on a leave of absence.” (emphasis added). So, every time there is an “election,” every citizen not on leave of absence must cast “a” ballot–i.e., one ballot–in that “election” or lose their citizenship status. If the two rounds of the Delegate election were considered two separate elections, then there would be no doubt that a citizen who is eligible to vote in both would be required to do so to retain citizenship status. But the Delegate electoral system does not comprise two separate elections. On the contrary, the Elections Act expressly states that the “Delegate will be elected in a two-round process constituting a single election.” Elections Act, Article 3, Section (1) (emphasis added). Thus, by voting in the forum round of the Delegate election, a citizen has cast “a” ballot in that single election. That is all the Citizenship Act requires.

Admittedly, one might fault my interpretation for drawing too much meaning from a single word–“a”–especially where the conclusion I reach seems inconsistent with the overall purpose behind the Citizenship Act’s requirement. That is a fair criticism. But I’m not sure it is any less reasonable than the alternative, which requires interpreting the independent casting of two ballots as a single vote in a single election.

Finally, I believe my interpretation would be easily administrable for the EC. They would simply check if a citizen voted in either the forum or gameside rounds and, if not, they would inform the Citizenship Committee of that fact. That said, I admit to knowing relatively little about the mechanics of election administration, so I acknowledge that I may be mistaken on this point.

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Your Honor,

It should be noted that use of the term “Native” in Article 3.3.a of the Elections Act should be construed as to refer to the game’s definition of native in on-site polls, where the definition is “Nations that possess more Regional Influence here than in any other region.” Any additional definition or usage if the word is unnecessary as far as the law ought to be concerned.

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For Immediate Release
01 February 2024

High Court of the South Pacific

[2402.HQ] Voting Requirements in Multi-Round Elections

The High Court provides notice to the general public that the opinion on [2402.HQ] Voting Requirements in Multi-Round Elections will be released on 2024-02-02T04:00:00Z. The Court will thereafter entertain questions and doubts regarding the legal reasoning expressed in its opinion and the process it followed in the consideration of the legal question, but it will not consider questions regarding the political ramifications of the same, nor will it express opinions of a political nature on any other unrelated subject.

Submission: 24 Jan 2024 | Determination: 25 Jan 2024

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High Court of the South Pacific

[2402.HQ] Voting Requirements in Multi-Round Elections

Legal Question

Does Citizenship Act 2.2b, which requires that citizens “cast a ballot in all elections in which they are eligible to vote,” apply individually to each round of a multi-round election?

Summary of the Opinion

It is the opinion of the Court that all stages in a multi-round election constitute a single election, and thus, voting in either (or both) round(s) of the election would satisfy the requirement for retaining citizenship to cast a ballot in every election. Article 3 Section 1 of the Elections Act supports this by declaring the Delegate election (the election in question) a single election. In effect, it essentially makes it optional for citizens who cast a ballot in the first round to cast a ballot in the second round or, alternatively, gives citizens a chance to retain their citizenship if they did not vote in the first round.

Justice GRIFFINDOR delivered the opinion, signed also by Justice PRONOUN

The High Court has been petitioned by the Election Commissioner, Kris Kringle, to interpret and clarify provisions within regional law under its authority found in Article VII, Section 6 of the Charter (1). The clarification sought relates to provisions in the Citizenship Act, specifically Article 2, Section 2, Clause B of the Citizenship Act. The aforementioned law states that citizens must vote in all elections they are eligible to vote in order to maintain citizenship. The existence of a multi-round election left confusion on whether a citizen had to vote in all rounds of the election and, if yes, how eligibility for the second round could be determined.

Looking at laws on the books, the Court has a few relevant provisions to consider when crafting its opinion. The first provision to consider is Article 3, Section 1 of the Elections Act, which states that “the Delegate will be elected in a two-round process constituting a single election” (2). This section is straightforward and explicitly notes that despite running on different platforms (offsite forums vs in-game polls), the two separate ballots constitute one election for Delegate.

The second provision that should be considered is the provision relating to continued eligibility for citizenship. Article 2, Section 2 of the Citizenship Act states that all citizens must “cast a ballot in all elections in which they are eligible to vote” (3). This provision of the law is also straightforward and makes it clear the voting requirements for citizens in all elections.

When these two provisions are considered together, it becomes clear that while citizens must vote in all elections, the Delegate election itself is one election that happens to have two rounds. This begs whether voting in each round of the Delegate election is required to maintain citizenship. The Court finds this not to be the case. By casting a ballot in either round of the election, a citizen fulfills the requirement to vote in all elections in which they are eligible. Voting in one round but not the other is akin to spoiling your ballot in single-round elections, which, according to the Assembly Record (4), was allowed explicitly to prevent mistakes in a cast ballot from impacting continued citizenship.

It is worth considering how the Election Commissioner would verify whether a citizen had voted, particularly in the second round of the Delegate election. For the first round of the election, it is clear who is eligible to vote, and the list of voting citizens can be cross-checked against the list of eligible citizens to determine which citizens met the voting requirements in that round. Moving on to the second round of the Delegate Election, Article 3, Section 3, Clause A of the Elections Act states that “eligible members may cast their ballots” and further defines the eligible members as “Native World Assembly members” (5). The Election Commissioner noted in their amicus brief that they can determine whether a member is a “resident” and a “World Assembly” nation but not a “native” nation. “Native” is defined by NationStates as “having more influence in [the South Pacific] than in any other region” (6).

The inability of the Election Commissioner to determine citizen eligibility in the second round of the Delegate election stems from two factors. First, without a way to determine if a nation is a native, the Election Commissioner cannot assume they were eligible because there is a chance the nation is, in fact, not a native and thus not eligible for the second round. Second, Article 3, Section 3, Clause A mentions “members” voting, not citizens. Citizens are members of the region, but not all members are citizens. The criteria to meet citizenship requirements differ from the requirements to be eligible to vote in the second round of the Delegate election. This mismatch in eligibility criteria means that there is a possibility for a citizen to be eligible to vote in the first round but still removed from the rolls because they did not fulfill the member eligibility requirements for the second round. To avoid possible unintentional disenfranchisement, the Court must conclude that the second round of the Delegate election alone cannot be used to determine loss of eligibility for citizenship. However, suppose a citizen did not vote in the first round but did vote in the second round. In that case, they should be entitled to continued citizenship because they proved themselves eligible to vote by voting and thus met the requirements for continued citizenship eligibility.

As the Court nears the end of the opinion, it will summarize the case again. Despite taking place on two different platforms with two different constituencies, the Delegate election is still considered one election under the law. As a result, a citizen needs only cast a ballot in at least one round of the election to be considered eligible for continued citizenship after the election. Further, since the Citizenship Committee cannot conclusively determine which citizens are eligible to vote in the second round, they cannot use not voting in the second round to justify a non-maintaining of citizenship on otherwise compliant citizens. However, citizens can still vote in the second round to maintain citizenship eligibility if they did not vote in the first round of the Delegate election since they proved their eligibility to vote by voting.

It is so ordered.

Footnotes and References

(1) Charter of the Coalition of the South Pacific; Article VII, Section 6 (2024). The MATT-DUCK Law Archive.
(2) Elections Act; Article 3, Section 1 (2024). The MATT-DUCK Law Archive.
(3) Citizenship Act; Article 2, Section 2 (2023). The MATT-DUCK Law Archive.
(4) Assembly Discussion of the Voter Registration Legislation; Retrieved from: [2339.AB] Amended Voter Registration Bill - #23 by Pronoun
(5) Elections Act; Article 3, Section 3, Clause A (2024). The MATT-DUCK Law Archive.
(6) [the South Pacific] is actually “your” in the on-site description of “Native” but was changed for clarity. The description of “Native” is found within the poll building area of the South Pacific’s Admin Panel.

Submission: 24 Jan 2024 | Determination: 25 Jan 2024 | Opinion: 01 Feb 2024