Confirmation Hearing: Mr. Moderate (Secretary of Forum Affairs)

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

I want to thank the Vice President for opening these hearings, and will gladly answer any questions that my fellow Senators (or, indeed, any Atlasian) may have for me.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

No, I agree that the Senate should not be a rubber stamp.  I have voted against more Presidential nominations than probably any other Senator has had the opportunity to.

But I can't see any justification for the reasons that people are disappointed with this particular nominee- it has all to do with the fact that he is not someone else, and his merits are being glossed over because of it.

As I said, I will not vote against Mr. Moderate. However, I wish to express my displeasure with the President. I will not roll over for the President because he says so.

I never asked anyone to "roll over." I'm asking people to stop acting childish because they didn't get who they wanted. That's not how this works. You don't roll over me and I sure as hell won't roll over for you.

You are talking down to the Senate. I believe we are as capable, perhaps more capable as a chamber of many voices, to make this decision. If the Senate, or any individual Senator, or any Atlasian at all, believes the President is making an incorrect decision, it is our right and our duty to point out that error and call for its correction. In the case of Senators, we have greater authority than the citizenry in calling out such errors and thus have the greatest duty to express our own opinions, in speeches and in votes.

If you, as President, feel that our votes, or my own vote individually, force you to roll over, then you fundamentally misunderstand the balance of power.


I have no question for Mr. Moderate, and I would like him to know that this bears nothing against him.

While I am disappointed that I will not have your vote for confirmation, I fully understand your reasons and bear no grudges.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

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No, there is not.  My job requires me to be on the internet most the time, which is why I am here most hours of the day.

I am sure there will be periods from time to time when I am not fully available (vacations, etc.), but thankfully, the duties of the SoFA are pegged to the calendar—it is easy to know when my services will be required, for the most part, and plan accordingly.

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When a questionable registration comes up, I will work to resolve the matter immediately, before voting takes place.  If there is a question regarding whether or not the registration is fraudulent, I will contact and confer with the Attorney General to discuss matters and devise a course of action, if one is called for.  I do not take challenges to the integrity of our voting process lightly.

Campaigning in the election thread is a bit more of a grey area.  If it is blatant and malicious, I will have little choice but to follow the law.  This here is an area I would have to use my best judgement, and I sincerely hope a situation does not arise in which I may be called upon to have to invalidate anyones' vote.[/quote]

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It would likely be easiest to keep a constantly updated copy here.  Voter registration happens infrequently enough to make that possible.

At the very least, voter rolls will be updated prior to every regional election.  I will strive to provide each regional official in charge of elections a list of valid registered voters for reference.  The last thing I want to happen on my watch is a replay of the Northeast Gubernatiorial Election, where the result (8-7-1-1) was decided because Eraserhead's vote was disqualified.

I like what Lewis has been doing regarding voter notification, and would continue that process of notifying voters when they fall off the rolls, or a similar issue arises.  People should have confidence that when they vote, their vote will actually count.

I thank the Senator for his questions.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

1) Do you agree with the previous administration's decision to recognize Kosovo?

2) What position, if any, do you believe Atlasia should take on the recent Colombia-Ecuador-Venezuela situation?

3) If Quebec were to pass a referendum to secede from Canada, should Atlasia recognize Quebec as an independent nation? Same question in regards to Scotland and the United Kingdom

4) Should Atlasian relations and policy towards China be restricted, limited or changed given China's treatment of political prisoners, ethnic minorities, religious leaders and their general suppression of human rights?

Thank yee kindly, sir.

I will gladly answer these questions if they were indeed put forward for me, the Secretary of Forum Affairs, but I suspect you intended to ask these of the nominee for Secretary of External Affairs.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

1. Open-ended question:  How do you plan on handling things for the trial run of the proportional voting system in a couple of months?

2. I would like to know what improvements you will make to the running of the SoFA and your opinion of the way the SoFA was run by the prior administrator (both positive and negative)

More to come.

I'm going to answer these questions in reverse order if I may, because I'd like to give a little thought to the question posed in 1 and give a more detailed response in short order.

I want to again take a moment to make clear that I think Lewis has been doing an admirable job in his post, but there are a number of places where I take issue with his term, primarily as they relate to the understanding of Atlasian law.

I've already referenced the Eraserhead/Tik votes, so I will not get into that here.  The more pressing place of disagreement concerns the filling of the District 5 vacancy (and should I be ultimately be confirmed, the District 2 vacancy as well).

It is my interpretation of Atlasian law that the Senate voted and passed in September of last year the Proportional Representation Act, which President Wixted has into effect by Executive Order this past December.  Per sections 18–22 of said act, no special election is called for, regardless of the manner in which the five current "District" Senators were originally elected.

Being the Senator Ebowed is a member of a party (JCP) with four members, the JCP is tasked with providing Lewis the name of his replacement within ten days of the vacancy occuring.  A similar mechanism will have to take place (with the NLC party) to fill my seat.


With regard to the improvements I'd make as SoFA—well, I would continue (what I believe to be Lewis's new operating procedure) notifying voters of registration issues to correct problems before they arise, especially with active Atlasians.

Lewis made for a terrific, active SoFA, and I will follow in that tradition.  I will further notify elections officials in the five regions when an issue arises with one of their voters, such that votes can be properly tallied in all elections.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

I'm a little worried this got lost, so I'm re-asking it:

To see if the appointee understands the new system, I have a question.

Will the midterm Senate elections be open-list or closed-list?

Indeed it did get lost.  My apologies.

If I indeed understand the gentleman's question, he is asking whether or not the PR-STV system Atlasia has installed calls for a closed-list system where parties rank their choices for election, and then voters rank their choices for party (and seats are distributed proportionally); or an open-list system where voters rank their choices for candidate.

The "new" Atlasian system, on the voter end, will be virtually identical to their experience voting in past elections—the main difference being a choice between significantly more candidates.  The Proportional Representation Act in no way altered Section 1 of the Consolidated Electoral System Reform Act, which calls for an open-list system where voters rank candidates, not party lists.

Candidates will be elected based on their first preference votes, and then based on their redistributed second preference votes (and beyond as needed).  The detailed explanation of how votes will count can be found in the text of the Proportional Representation Act.

Thank you for the question.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Before I forget, let me come back to a question asked earlier by Sen. Spade.

1. Open-ended question:  How do you plan on handling things for the trial run of the proportional voting system in a couple of months?

Well, as I have said before, the experience on the end of the voter will not change in any significant manner.  More candidates will be elected, but voters will still be numerically ranking candidates for Senate as before.

The main piece of voter education that needs to be done, I feel, is to discourage the use of voting by use of the letter X.  If needed, I will do my best to divine voter intentions (not difficult to do if the X was used as a bullet vote).

Once the voters have done their part, the simple part will be calculating the "quota"—[the number of valid votes divided by six (assuming five seats being up for election)] plus one.

Beyond that, the challenge becomes keeping close tallies on redistributions of votes that exceed the quota.  I will use excel spreadsheets to keep track of these calculations, much as I used excel spreadsheets to tally votes as part of my "Northeast News Service Decision (Feb) 2008" coverage.  Each round will be kept separate, and the results/methodology of each round (preference redistribution) will be fully disclosed to the public for verification purposes.

This will, without a doubt, be the most complex calculation of votes every performed by an Atlasian SoFA.  As such, I will make a detailed accounting of each round, much as I had included with my analysis of the Dec 07/Feb 08 elections.

Because the process is new, I will encourage the public to challenge any discrepancies in the vote they may find.  As soon as feasibly possible, I will provide the official SoFA tally of the vote, complete with methodology and explanations (if necessary).  I will give the public 24 hours to question or protest said results, and will throughly look into any complaint/issue.

After twenty-four hours have passed without complaint from the public (or, 24 hours following my own ruling on any issue brought up by a voter/candidate), I will certify the results as official and declare the five candidates to be elected.

The XLS spreadsheet file used will be available to anyone in Atlasia on public request.

While the SoFA is not required to do any of this, I think extra care and scrutiny in the first ever nationwide multiple candidate PR-STV effort will indeed be a good thing.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Will there be a group voting ticket to aid voters, as used in elections for the Australian Senate?

This is a good question.  After considering the matter, I believe it would most fair to hold a random drawing for ballot placement without consideration to party or incumbency.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Will there be a group voting ticket to aid voters, as used in elections for the Australian Senate?

This is a good question.  After considering the matter, I believe it would most fair to hold a random drawing for ballot placement without consideration to party or incumbency.

What I am referring to is a ticket with two halves. On the top are party tickets (ordered randomly). A vote here will count the vote for the party default, submitted by the party to te SoFA beforehand. On the bottom are the candidates (ordered randomly).

Oh.  In this case, no, there will not be straight party ticket voting.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

But sections 18-22, if read separately, do not even mention the fashion in which Senators were elected at all: "In the event of a vacancy arising for whatever reason, where the concerned ex-Senator is a member..." If they are to be interpreted separately from sections 1-17, clearly the same would apply to Class A Senators?

This is indeed an interesting debate.  When I cast my ballot for the PRA here in the Senate, I did not take into consideration the possibility of vacancies before the holding of the first nationwide PR-STV election.  That being said:

While I agree that sections 1–17 are to be read in conjunction with the entire text of the bill, we part ways in that I interpret sections 18–22 to apply to all Class B Senators effective December 31, 2007 (the date of President Wixted's activation by Executive Order), and not just seats filled by STV (which, of course, will be one and the same come this April).  As far as legislative intent, I sincerely doubt the Senate had even considered this scenario, and I hesitate to read further into the PRA than the letter of the law.

I can honestly say that I was largely neutral with regard to the issue of filling vacancies, and would have been ultimately satisfied with whatever solution the Senate came up with regard to them.  I am in no way 'ideologically enthusiastic' of the idea of the JCP getting to fill the "Ebowed seat" (indeed, I have made comments elsewhere indicating my generic displeasure on a personal level with Governor Bgwah's (Jesus's) filling of such vacancies in the past); it is simply my interpretation of the law which this Senate has passed.

Also, depending on the timing of your swearing-in and the diverse deadlines (the new law's ten days as well as polls opening, candidate filing deadline, absentee voting opening [as soon as is practicable after the filing deadline]) do you intend to actually cancel the already scheduled election for which - to use a worst-case scenario - votes may already have been cast?

You already know my interpretation of the PRA: I would not have held a special election for the Ebowed seat, and that—unless otherwise directed by statute, court, or Executive Order—I will seek to have a vacancy in District 2 filled in accordance with the PRA.

Should any Atlasian citizen disagree with me on this, I fully encourage them (and please, do not read any arrogance in the statement) to take the matter to court.  I will gladly stand by the decision of the Supreme Court on this, no matter what it may be.

In the short term, I will not cancel the Special Election to be held in District 5 (especially considering that voting will likely be well underway or potentially even finished if/when I am confirmed as SoFA).  It is my gut feeling that (considering the JCP's strength in the District) no matter how the District 5 vacancy is filled, the seat will be "won" by the same person regardless of mechanism.

Still, I do encourage Governor Bgwah to convene the JCP and make a determination as to how the District 5 seat would be filled in accordance with the PRA before the statutory deadline (March 17, IIRC offhand) as a failsafe, should the matter ultimately come before and be decided by the Supreme Court.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

And though the question was not asked, I think it important enough to weigh in on the issue:

I stand by the current SoFA in opposition to the proposed constitutional amendment to make the position of SoFA directly elected.

I do understand the disappointment many feel over Mr. Trondheim now being renominated to the post of SoFA.  Realize, however, that the opposition stems largely from charges that the SoFA should be as independent from political machinations as possible.  I do not feel that making the position directly elected would be a solution to the "problem"—indeed, I worry that it would make the office more political, not less.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

If there are no more questions, I'd like to make a closing statement...

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Tactical nuclear strikes, when appropriate.

Any other queries?

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Fine, I'll close up quickly.

I want to thank everyone for their questions—I honestly didn't expect this nomination to be so contentious.  But it has definitely been a positive process over all, and I'm glad to have been given this opportunity to give some insight into how I'll function as SoFA.

Hopefully, these proceedings—and my performance over the past four months in tracking election returns—have given my nine colleagues confidence in my future performance.  I know that many, perhaps even a significant majority, would prefer this to be a hearing to reconfirm sitting SoFA Lewis Trondheim.

Regardless of what we hope for and want, Mr. Trondheim is not the nominee—I am.  The President has already made the decision to replace Lewis Trondheim, and the Senate has no say in that decision.  What the Senate does have a say in is whom the President gets to nominate in his place.

That nominee is myself.  I don't think that anyone disagrees with the fact that I will do a good job as SoFA and make a very capable replacement for Mr. Trondheim.  If SoFA Trondheim must be replaced, please make sure he is replaced by someone you have full confidence in.  The job is just that important.

Thank you for your time, and once again, I ask for your votes.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Being the nominee in question, I shall abstain.