VOTING: The Ranked Choice Constitutional Referendum

[Dr. Txec Róibeard dal Nordselvă, Esq., O.SPM, SMM]

For those interested, the discussion re: the 50 word statements went like this:

ME: "Here's the Option 1 50 words. You should put them all on a page on talossa.com."
THE SOS: "I haven't got Option 2 and 3's 50 words."
ME: "FREAKIN' YIPES!"

... and it was all sorted out in less than a day. Amazing enough that me doing my best to make sure the Status Quo and Dual Monarchy options got their statement on the ballot is being spun by the Regent into something shameful and corrupt.

D:na Seneschal, the Government does not conduct elections.  It seems deeply problematic for the Government to work in private with the Chancery to coordinate such things.  I hope it didn't go any farther and I hope that it doesn't happen again, because it's deeply inappropriate.

I am not insinuating anything: I am saying outright that it is wrong for the Government to privately coordinate with the Chancery and help administer an election.  Txec might be your close friend, and it might be trivial to reach out on Facebook and ask about this, and then help him.  And it might seem innocent to you, but it's not.  Please don't do it again.

You're right. The government is not conducting this election. I am and I own the mistakes made. My next election will go smoother as there is far more precedent for a normal Cosa election than a referendum mid-Cosa.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

D:na Seneschal: ike I said, mistakes happen. It has been a previous practice to publish election rules ahead of time, and that might be a good thing to start doing again. Elections are really complicated and additional eyes on the process helps.

As to your efforts in helping conduct the referendum, it's pretty unusual. I'm not aware of the Seneschal ever issuing 24-hour demands for statements to put on the ballot. It is actually extremely unusual for the government to involve itself in the administration of an election at all, for extremely obvious reasons. I'm not accusing you or insinuating anything. Because there was no public discussion of this at all, it must have been private. I would like to hear more about this private coordination and what it entailed, because again it's extremely unusual.

There were a couple failures on my part. First, I didn't get started on this as soon as I should have owing to being on vacation the past 3 weeks and focusing on that instead of Talossa. Second, I also didn't realize until literally the last moment that only 1 of the 50 word statements were ready so while I was focusing on working with MPF on getting this up and running, Miestra asked for the remaining 50 word statements. We already had started this election late because neither myself nor MPF realized we had to create it from scratch owing to the way the database is set up. That is it. No collusion. Thanks for assuming I'm doing things under-handed.

I'm not assuming anything. The Seneschal has confirmed that she privately reached out to you to assist in administering the election by soliciting and passing on 50 word statements. That is a known fact. I am saying that it is wrong and should not happen again, especially not in private. It sounds like it was pretty minor and not at all corrupt, which is good, but that doesn't make it a good idea. I just want to confirm explicitly that this was the exclusive extent of the coordination between your office and hers?

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

I utterly disagree with the Regent's political theory that there must be a Chinese Wall between the Government and the Chancery, and I challenge him to provide any law or precedent saying there must be so. If he's accusing me of "rigging it" in some way, let him come out and say so.

By the way, the Ministry of STUFF is working very closely with the Chancery on the question of integrating the Database, Wittenberg and talossa.com. I'll leave it to Senator Grischün to add the details, but if the Regent is going to set his hair on fire and declare it illegal and/or corrupt, then we should find out now.

---

On another issue, I must take some kind of blame for the confusion re: this referendum. My bill establishing the referendum left a lot of details out of the law, because - when written - I assumed the SoS would "fill in the gaps" with established practice. It was my failing to understand that the SoS, being brand new to the job, would not know what established practice was, and "guess" to some degree. One of those holes was exactly who was to provide the 50 word statements for each option - which ended up being entirely improvised. So I dropped Dr Nordselva in it, to some extent, and I want to apologise fro that.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

I utterly disagree with the Regent's political theory that there must be a Chinese Wall between the Government and the Chancery, and I challenge him to provide any law or precedent saying there must be so. If he's accusing me of "rigging it" in some way, let him come out and say so.

The law says pretty clearly that the Chancery conducts elections. I guess I can look up the citations if you want?

It's surprising that you're apparently eager to defend the idea that you have the legal authority to help conduct elections.

[Dr. Txec Róibeard dal Nordselvă, Esq., O.SPM, SMM]

For heavens sake. The ONLY person running this election is myself, with the help of my duly appointed deputy MPF. The Seneschal reminded me of it. She has no access to anything else. Hell, even I don't have full access to the database and I am the Secretary of State. We should move on.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

If there's a legal theory that there are laws restricting who the Secretary of State can appoint to Chancery roles or reach out to for informal assistance, I think we should hear it now

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

For heavens sake. The ONLY person running this election is myself, with the help of my duly appointed deputy MPF. The Seneschal reminded me of it. She has no access to anything else. Hell, even I don't have full access to the database and I am the Secretary of State. We should move on.

The principle involved is pretty important, right?

Honestly, I think that this should have just been another pretty minor, "Whoops, you're right, another little mistake" moment.  But the Seneschal's desire to defend it makes me worried that we're setting a bad precedent where the Seneschal does help run elections in the future.

So just to be clear (you know what a constitutional worrywart I am): the exchange above was the sum of it, and it won't happen again, right?

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

If there's a legal theory that there are laws restricting who the Secretary of State can appoint to Chancery roles or reach out to for informal assistance, I think we should hear it now

Sorry, is that what happened?  This is interesting -- are you now saying that the Secretary of State appointed you to do this?

I'm not sure why this whole discussion is so evasive... can people please just say what they mean?

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

No, the SoS didn't appoint me to anything. I offered informal assistance. And I will do so again, as and when it is necessary or useful to do so, as long as there is no law against it; and if the Regent doesn't like it, I suppose he has certain options, one of them being "lumping it".

However, I should emphasise that this was a very special case. I recognized that one reason preparations for the referendum were not going smoothly was that the SoS really didn't know what to do; I expected him to fill the gaps with traditional practice, but that was possibly foolish. So this was a case of me cleaning up my own mess. I refuse any suggestion that there was anything improper about it; but it shouldn't happen on a regular basis, certainly not in general elections, and I am considering legislation which would regularise the conduct of occasional referendums.

[Eiric S. Bornatfiglheu]

From my point of view, the Seneschal mentioned that the 50 word statement for Diarchy had not been received.  So I shot it over so it could be included.  Easy peasy lemon-squeezy.

I'm sorry, but the Regent's slimy insinuations and general mieda are one of the major reasons I'd rather do just about anything than check Witt.  This is the same Regent, I may add, that went behind the Seneschal's back to coordinate activities with my own Ministry.  There was grace then when sorting things out, but evidently it all got used up.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

No, the SoS didn't appoint me to anything. I offered informal assistance. And I will do so again, as and when it is necessary or useful to do so, as long as there is no law against it; and if the Regent doesn't like it, I suppose he has certain options, one of them being "lumping it".

However, I should emphasise that this was a very special case. I recognized that one reason preparations for the referendum were not going smoothly was that the SoS really didn't know what to do; I expected him to fill the gaps with traditional practice, but that was possibly foolish. So this was a case of me cleaning up my own mess. I refuse any suggestion that there was anything improper about it; but it shouldn't happen on a regular basis, certainly not in general elections, and I am considering legislation which would regularise the conduct of occasional referendums.

I'm glad to hear you recognize the impropriety of this activity, generally, even if this instance was innocent. Thank you very much.

And just to confirm, this was the extent of it entirely in this referendum?

[Eðo Grischun]

By the way, the Ministry of STUFF is working very closely with the Chancery on the question of integrating the Database, Wittenberg and talossa.com. I'll leave it to Senator Grischün to add the details, but if the Regent is going to set his hair on fire and declare it illegal and/or corrupt, then we should find out now.

I'll do so in a different thread so that the different discussions don't get confused with each other.  All I'll say on it in this thread is that the work being done is strictly technical and IT related.  Further, I have been appointed to serve as a Deputy in the Chancery for this explicit purpose so that I can legally perform tasks on the Wittenberg backend, such as coding.  There is zero reason anybody, including the Regent, should get upset at what we are doing.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

By the way, the Ministry of STUFF is working very closely with the Chancery on the question of integrating the Database, Wittenberg and talossa.com. I'll leave it to Senator Grischün to add the details, but if the Regent is going to set his hair on fire and declare it illegal and/or corrupt, then we should find out now.

I'll do so in a different thread so that the different discussions don't get confused with each other.  All I'll say on it in this thread is that the work being done is strictly technical and IT related.  Further, I have been appointed to serve as a Deputy in the Chancery for this explicit purpose so that I can legally perform tasks on the Wittenberg backend, such as coding.  There is zero reason anybody, including the Regent, should get upset at what we are doing.

I agree. You were legally appointed to the office in public, and you don't seem to be doing anything that would be problematic from the perspective of a separation of powers. I don't believe I raised any concerns about this?

[Dr. Txec Róibeard dal Nordselvă, Esq., O.SPM, SMM]

For heavens sake. The ONLY person running this election is myself, with the help of my duly appointed deputy MPF. The Seneschal reminded me of it. She has no access to anything else. Hell, even I don't have full access to the database and I am the Secretary of State. We should move on.

The principle involved is pretty important, right?

Honestly, I think that this should have just been another pretty minor, "Whoops, you're right, another little mistake" moment.  But the Seneschal's desire to defend it makes me worried that we're setting a bad precedent where the Seneschal does help run elections in the future.

So just to be clear (you know what a constitutional worrywart I am): the exchange above was the sum of it, and it won't happen again, right?

Respectfully, the only person making this any kind of a deal at all is The Regent. I also cannot say if I will ever be reminded of a duty again by anyone outside the Chancery as I cannot pretend to foretell the future. There are lots of duties the Chancery undertakes and being that I've not been in the job long I am still learning.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

For heavens sake. The ONLY person running this election is myself, with the help of my duly appointed deputy MPF. The Seneschal reminded me of it. She has no access to anything else. Hell, even I don't have full access to the database and I am the Secretary of State. We should move on.

The principle involved is pretty important, right?

Honestly, I think that this should have just been another pretty minor, "Whoops, you're right, another little mistake" moment.  But the Seneschal's desire to defend it makes me worried that we're setting a bad precedent where the Seneschal does help run elections in the future.

So just to be clear (you know what a constitutional worrywart I am): the exchange above was the sum of it, and it won't happen again, right?

Respectfully, the only person making this any kind of a deal at all is The Regent. I also cannot say if I will ever be reminded of a duty again by anyone outside the Chancery as I cannot pretend to foretell the future. There are lots of duties the Chancery undertakes and being that I've not been in the job long I am still learning.

I agree that I am the only one raising any objections to this

I also 100% agree that someone just reminding you to do something isn't a problem. If that was the extent of what happened here, it doesn't seem like it would be an issue at all.

And just to confirm, since no one seems to be answering this question despite asking it multiple times: this was the extent of the Seneschal's private coordination with you about this referendum, right?