| Election Commissioner Corruption |
The actions of Hileville as Election Commissioner are completely out of line, illegal, and corrupt. Hileville has proven himself unable to act objectively, and instead has taken extraordinary measures without any legal basis to ensure that his preferred electoral outcome is certified.
On March 22, Hileville posed a legal question to the Courts. This question revolved around whether or not the Election Commissioner has the authority to declare a citizen ineligible to vote, even if citizenship has not been removed, simply because the Election Commissioner believes they no longer meet citizenship requirements. As evident by the need for a legal question, this is an unprecedented issue and the Courts are required to weigh in. Until the Courts deliver an opinion, the Election Commissioner obviously does not have any such authority. That is how our legal system works. When a government official is asking the Court if they have certain authority that is not explicit within our laws, that official cannot simply take it upon themselves to act as if they have that authority before the Courts say one way or another. However, on March 24, Hileville refused to certify the election results for Minister of Foreign Affairs. His stated reason was because he believes one of the voters is ineligible to vote. In other words, because he believes he should have the authority to remove the rights associated with citizenship because he judges somebody to not meet citizenship requirements -- a right traditionally reserved to the Administration Team -- he unilaterally granted himself that authority and refused to certify the results. Had the results been certified, the election would have been a tie and a new election would be called. Given that Hileville voted for Wolf, this was not his preferred outcome. So, when his authority to simply refuse to certify the tie was called into question, he threatened on IRC that, if continued to be pressured to certify the results, he would certify them the way he prefers. Of course, because the Court has not granted him the authority to throw out the vote in question, he could not legally certify the results he wants. But that did not stop him. On March 25, he told the Court he no longer sought their advice, granted himself whatever authority he wishes, and certified the results as a 1-vote win for Wolf. This is illegal, partisan, and corrupt behavior. Because a Court decision might not have gone his way, and because a injunction was behind sought to force him to certify results he did not like, Hileville decided to skirt the Courts and do whatever he wanted. This is not the behavior we expect from our Election Commission. If he is willing to brazenly manipulate our legal system, what else was he willing to do to ensure a win for his preferred candidate? I believe that the Assembly should strongly consider calling for a special election for the Minister of Foreign Affairs, to ensure that the results are not cast in doubt. We should do so with a new Election Commissioner, as Hileville has proven himself to put politics over the law. And we should ensure that the Administration Team conducts an activity check, so that there are no questions about who is and is not eligible to vote. If Hileville is allowed to certify whatever results he wants, despite already acknowledging that the Courts are necessary to determine if he even had the power to throw out the vote in question, then this election will forever be in doubt. A special election, which should have happened when Hileville first calculated that the results were a tie, will settle the issue fair and square. There have simply been too many irregularities and too many corrupt acts for this election to not be cast in doubt. This is not an issue of poor sportsmanship. I am ready to concede defeat when defeat is real. As evident in my conversations yesterday, I expected to lose by 1 or 2 votes. However, I believe that we are a community of laws and traditions, and that these laws and traditions have been gravely violated by Hileville. Corruption cannot be allowed to stand.
Corruption is a strong word, I'm not so sure there is ill-intent, but I don't believe that constitutionally or legally the EC has this power and more importantly, it's so murky whether Auralia even failed his citizenship requirements or not. On top of that, I think with such a close race where the votes are contested, the best thing for the community would be a re-vote (which would have happened if Auralia's vote wasn't discounted).
A re-vote would allow for new candidates to run - perhaps some of that enthusiastic talent who lost the MoRA, MoA or CoA races (not me, I'm tired.  ) and turn an ugly situation into a positive one. The problem with the vote as the MoFA race proceeded was it was very much a black and white race, either the person one side hated won, or the person who the other side hated won - a new race with a clean, wider slate of candidates would be good for TSP and settle this discord once for all.A special election would allow TSP to recuperate and re-approach the vote in such a way that the new MoFA can walk into his or her office with a secure mandate not a contested one. EDIT: Quote:So, when his authority to simply refuse to certify the tie was called into question, he threatened on IRC that, if continued to be pressured to certify the results, he would certify them the way he prefers. That's concerning though.
If you want to speak in regards to the law Uni, it states that an EC may be appointed. That's as far as it goes. The EC's abilities are completely unwritten which leads me to think the EC has an extremely wide array of discretionary power or no power at all.
(03-25-2015, 12:29 PM)TAC Wrote: If you want to speak in regards to the law Uni, it states that an EC may be appointed. That's as far as it goes. The EC's abilities are completely unwritten which leads me to think the EC has an extremely wide array of discretionary power or no power at all. The EC's powers are easily defined by the past year of practice. They do not get to pick and choose which administrative authorities they have. The EC is expected to set up election threads, verify nominations, strike out multiple votes, strike out improperly filled out ballots, and make sure people without citizenship masking aren't voting. The EC is not expected to make decisions on which masked citizens are and are not eligible to vote. If you're masked as a citizen, you are a citizen until such a time that you no longer have that mask. The EC doesn't make that determination.
How can you argue the legality of the EC if there is no current legal definiton for this position?
I agree with Sandaoguo here.
An election commissioner has never determined the validity of citizenship in TSP. Nor should they since an EC doesn't have to be a citizen themselves, and nor does the Assembly have to ratify the choice of EC. I am highly disappointed that Hileville chose to allow his support for one candidate color his judgement of what is fair and just in TSP. Escade ~ Positions Held in TSP ~ Delegate | Vice Delegate Minister of Regional Affairs, | Minister of Foreign Affairs | Minister of Military Affairs ~ The Sparkly One ~ My Pinterest
Stop with the impartiality accusation. Who I voted for has absolutely nothing to do with the outcome.
I'm still waiting for the part where The Charter, The Code of Laws or The Election Act outlines anything passed the appointment of an EC...
It doesn't? Are you sure? You were extremely unsure about this decision yesterday and discussed it with several people on IRC. If you intended to be fair and impartial you would reset the election itself rather then make a decision with so much gray area that has the ability to harm TSP in the long run.
Not because of the candidates but because of the precedence it sets. And you know this. ECs are selected without being approved, what's to keep the next EC from doing such things? Then you were well aware of TSP's election procedures. Why did you not check the citizenship list before the election started or even during the first two days and say: "WHOAH GUYS AND GIRLS, wait a minute! This list is out of date! We need the VD and Admins to correct this before elections start and so I ask to pause elections for one day or three to sort this out." Or did you even check the list then? Why not? Why did you wait until after when it came down to 1 vote and that too in a highly contested race? If you feel that you are impartial then reset the election it self, re-open nominations and have the VD and Admins do their jobs and check instead of making an ipso facto decision that benefits your candidate. Escade ~ Positions Held in TSP ~ Delegate | Vice Delegate Minister of Regional Affairs, | Minister of Foreign Affairs | Minister of Military Affairs ~ The Sparkly One ~ My Pinterest
(03-25-2015, 12:40 PM)TAC Wrote: How can you argue the legality of the EC if there is no current legal definiton for this position? Because we have legal precedents and tradition to go by. Under your logic, the EC is all-powerful and can do literally anything they want, because there's no limits placed upon their power. In reality, the EC has been a clerical position that made very limited judgement calls when an vote was obviously invalid, such as in the case of multiple votes. The question of whether Railana's vote was invalid was not obvious, which is why Hileville felt it necessary (at one point, at least) to go the Courts for clarification. It was not clear if Railana still had citizenship and it was not clear that the EC had the authority decide that question. The Courts have still not determined the answer to either of those questions. |
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I am a Super Villain
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