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(Cure typos) An Amendment to the Elections act - Domais - 12-09-2021 In the most recent election for MoD a few people wrote "Domain" instead of "Domais" and had their votes tossed, not that it has any effect on the outcome of the election as it was like 28 to 1. Currently, those votes can't be counted and the typo can't be cured so I have introduced this to fix that problem before it happens in a contested election. Quote:2. Electoral System RE: (Cure typos) An Amendment to the Elections act - Kris Kringle - 12-09-2021 I feel I should clarify that, even though I think the Commissioner has the ability to exercise discretion to interpret the intent of a vote, I deliberately instituted the typo rule because I wanted to exclude that possibility. I don't believe that, as a matter of principle, elections should be decided on subjective criteria. If an individual is elected it should be because a majority of the region clearly wanted them there, not because an official thinks that a majority may exist, based on their interpretation of certain votes. I don't think a single person should be trusted with that kind of power of decision, and I certainly don't trust myself with it.
If people want to be able to change their votes then by all means let's amend the law. I think it's common sense that one should check their vote before submitting, but I don't particularly mind giving people the option of editing their votes; if anything, that would mean one less thing for me to check when tallying. I would feel much differently about an amendment that forces the Commissioner to use subjective criteria to tally votes, so much so that I would seriously consider whether I should let someone else handle that sort of responsibility. RE: (Cure typos) An Amendment to the Elections act - Nakari - 12-09-2021 (12-09-2021, 09:32 PM)Kris Kringle Wrote: Imo, a policy of no mistakes and no edits would disproportionately disadvantage candidates with hard to spell names - consider someone like Phoenix, whose name has repeatedly been spelled as Pheonix in elections simply because Phoenix is an uncommon word with unintuitive spelling. I think if lots of people voted for "Pheonixofthesun14" they'd still be expressing a pretty clear preference for Phoenix, especially if they are ranking multiple people and the only 'missing' name is Phoenix. Other people who might be disadvantaged are people with names very similar to a existing word, like Libetarian Republics. Like, it would still be incredibly clear who was being voted for, but some people just have harder names or names more vulnerable to autocorrect. I think we can't have both "no typos" and "no edits" so I'm fine with this. I think the phrasing is a bit much though. Perhaps just 4. Voters are permitted to correct spelling errors by publicly informing the Election Commission within 12 hours of casting their vote as long as it does not alter the original intent of the vote. Some discretion will probably still have to be present but like, I trust an EC can distinguish between "oops I misspelled Libetarian as Libertarian" and "oops I misspelled Roavin as Apatosaurus". RE: (Cure typos) An Amendment to the Elections act - Kris Kringle - 12-09-2021 I respectfully disagree. I don't think the Commissioner should be in a position of deciding after the fact what each voter meant, nor should voters be explaining after the fact what they meant. The intent of a vote should stand on its own without needing an individual to interpret it, and potentially causing disruption to the process along the way.
If we want to allow people to change their vote while voting is underway, either because they changed their mind or they noticed a typo, then I'm all for it. If we want to have the Commissioner accept different variations of a name then I'm also all for it, and in fact I accounted for that in the Voting Booth thread during the recent election. There is no reason why anyone can't approach the Commissioner and confirm if a name would be accepted, even if the simpler and more logical option would be to simply copy the name that is stated in the ballot. (12-04-2021, 08:00 PM)Kris Kringle Wrote: RE: (Cure typos) An Amendment to the Elections act - sandaoguo - 12-10-2021 Honestly, it’s not a lot to ask people to literally copy and paste a ballot that is provided for them in perfectly spelled form, and then change around the order of names. If you don’t copy/paste the ballot, you take on the risk of making a mistake on your own. I’m fully 100% against allowing any editing of ballots, for any reason. If you want to debate whether or not the EC should be forced to accept typos, that’s fine. But we banned editing for a reason, and all those reasons still apply. Even if I somehow found a way to get edit history into MyBB, the EC would then have to review that history to verify nothing suspicious went on. Running elections is hard enough, stop trying to make it harder or you’ll soon find nobody wants to be EC (just as nobody wants to be LegCom, barely anyone wants to be Chair, because of how nonsensically difficult we’ve made those jobs). People can take 15 seconds to do their due diligence in typing correctly and reviewing their ballot before hitting send. RE: (Cure typos) An Amendment to the Elections act - Tsunamy - 12-10-2021 Wait ... we're not counting ballots with typos? What about if you use a nickname? Does that mean that if we vote for "Glen" it won't be counted because we might not mean sandaoguo? What if someone had used "Dom" instead of "Domais"? RE: (Cure typos) An Amendment to the Elections act - Belschaft - 12-10-2021 I mean I was pretty certain that my vote for Reagan (and the associated joke) wouldn’t count, and I’m pretty sure that Apatosaurus also knew that when he voted for the shitty ginger wizard. I think we probably should be able to trust the Commissioner to be sensible and know that a vote for “Bels” or “Belshaft” is for me and count them accordingly, and the Elections Act already allows for the Commissioner to arbitrate any disputes. It’s certainly been the case that such have been counted in the past - the problem here seems to be that Kris is being overly strict. He’s certainly operating within his remit but I’m not sure the policy is entirely reasonable. RE: (Cure typos) An Amendment to the Elections act - sandaoguo - 12-10-2021 I do think asking the EC to change policy is much more reasonable than amending our election laws here. RE: (Cure typos) An Amendment to the Elections act - Quebecshire - 12-10-2021 I disagree with disallowing ballots to be edited. However, I think allowing a voter to clarify innocent typos (like Domais autocorrecting to Domain, or things of that variety) that clearly do not alter the intent of the original vote should be accepted. (12-10-2021, 09:58 AM)Tsunamy Wrote: Wait ... we're not counting ballots with typos? Per Kris' post during the opening of the voting booth (emphasis mine), (12-04-2021, 08:00 PM)Kris Kringle Wrote: The Election Commissioner will not exercise discretion to interpret the intent of votes that do not name a candidate exactly as they are listed on the official ballot. Any vote containing preferences for unrecognised candidates will have such preferences removed from the tally. Any vote only containing preferences for unrecognised candidates will be removed from the tally. RE: (Cure typos) An Amendment to the Elections act - Tsunamy - 12-10-2021 (12-10-2021, 01:54 PM)Quebecshire Wrote: I disagree with disallowing ballots to be edited. However, I think allowing a voter to clarify innocent typos (like Domais autocorrecting to Domain, or things of that variety) that clearly do not alter the intent of the original vote should be accepted. I'm with Glen and Bels that an EC policy change would be the best way to handle this. And, I'm with Nakari that the EC should be able to make minor changes here. If we're not going to use common sense — which, is up to Kris's discretion and although I disagree with his decision, I understand his logic — I think that needs to be made crystal clear so people can cut and paste ballots as needed. In the past, I've certainly voted for Glen, Bels, Pen, and even tsu, which seemingly would not be counted under the current setup. This is Kris' prerogative as EC, but the voting public needs to know the standards prior to voting. |