Department of Justice – Attorney General Truman

[Former President tack50]

It might be a good idea to have Atlasia's criminal code posted in the DoJ's office. As controversial as AZ's tenure was, that was one thing where he was right.

[Former President tack50]

Uh, I think this is somewhat different from say, the Peebs scenario (where she is both RG and SoFE, but the 2 offices are separate and she could easily be fired from one and kept in the other)

I think now there is only a single office, the office of Attorney General, which also absorbs all the powers of the office of SoIA?

[Former President tack50]

If this is the place to ask the Attorney General a question about election law. Is it legal to contact a voter after they posted a ballot to ask them to edit a ballot, to change the preferences or to add office they didn't fill on the ballot.

Not the attorney general but here is my guess.

Currently, the Federal Electoral Act and the constitution specify the reasons why a ballot can be invalidated (among those, editing after 20 minutes or posting twice are included). However they say nothing about asking people to edit; so I don't think there is a good argument for a civil case.

As for a criminal case, back in the pre-reset days the law was a bit stricter on this regard and there was sort of a precedent involving LeBron Fitzgerald. However our current laws are a bit more relaxed. The relevant crime in Atlasia for something like this would be Electoral Intimidation:

(f) Electoral Intimidation. This offence shall be defined as the placing of undue pressure on a citizen of the Republic to cast a ballot in a particular way, to not cast a ballot at all, or to invalidate a ballot already cast via direct threats of revenge, blackmail, or retribution. In those cases in which undue pressure has been applied in the form of credible threats to disclose personal information, the offence shall be known as Grievous Electoral Intimidation.

So in other words, unless you can prove that a certain voter was blackmailed or intimidated, it seems to be legal.

There is however another crime that could be argued to have happened, that being Election Fraud:

(d) Electoral Fraud. This offence shall be defined as the manipulation of of the republic's electoral procedures and practices with the aim of fraudulently altering the results of a specific electoral contest.

You can argue that PMing someone to invalidate their vote is a manipulation of electoral practices; but that is not the greatest of interpretations. In fact under a very loose interpretation you could even argue that PMing people about the election at all should be illegal!

So I wonder what that crime is meant to prevent but whatever.

TL;DR: I am like 95% sure that PMing someone like that is legal

[Former President tack50]

PM posting is against the ToS, this has been established by the moderators many times, so not sure why it still happens.

I think there is an "unofficial" exception of sorts in Atlasia, where the moderators simply pretend they didn't see anything. At least for PMs relating to the game.

Posting PMs has been a big tradition in Atlasia; with the exception of a small period between 2009 and 2010 where it was a crime.

[Former President tack50]

PM posting is against the ToS, this has been established by the moderators many times, so not sure why it still happens.

I think there is an "unofficial" exception of sorts in Atlasia, where the moderators simply pretend they didn't see anything. At least for PMs relating to the game.

Posting PMs has been a big tradition in Atlasia; with the exception of a small period between 2009 and 2010 where it was a crime.

Posting PM is illegal under the forum's rules.

Yeah, my point was more that the moderators haven't really enforced that part of the ToS in Atlasia. PM leaks have been a thing since like forever; yet no moderator has ever deleted a PM leak?

Posting PMs is a ToS breach, just one which goes unpunished generally. Of course if Yankee wants to start to enforce it that's something he can totally start doing. The ToS are still above this game after all.