Your Honor, and may it please the Court,
I presided over a federal election for President and Vice President last week in my capacity as Secretary of Federal Elections which Napoleon and Kalwejt won and in which the plaintiff, along with his running mate, bgwah, received the lowest number of votes of the four official tickets. The result was certified this past Monday afternoon, and there is no public dispute over the accuracy of the count. The plaintiff seeks to overturn the result of this democratic election and impose on the Atlasian electorate an outcome justified by a misguided and misleading interpretation of Atlasian law and constitutional doctrine. The court must find in favor of the Department of Federal Elections for the following reasons:
First, that the Preamble to the Third Constitution (the text of which the plaintiff mistakenly identifies in his brief as Art. III, §1, Cl. 5) is a statement of intent and purpose by the authors of the Constitution with no objective meaning and has no place in determining the rightful winner of an election. The plaintiff regards the Preamble in his brief as a series of ironclad dicta holding sway over every law, act and behavior taking place in Atlasia, and assumes it to have the necessary force to enable the nullification of any law, act or behavior which runs contrary to his interpretation of, for instance,
blessings of liberty or
general welfare. The preamble does not have the force of law. It is merely a statement of the intent of its authors in the drafting of a Constitution. Nowhere exist guidelines or standards for the specific enforcement of the Preamble - the text is inherently ambiguous and does not offer us any so-called bright lines or litmus tests to help us determine who should win an election. The Court would be swamped by frivolous disputes motivated by differing interpretations of the Preamble if this case were decided in favor of the plaintiff and accorded recognition as judicial precedent.
Second, that the section of Art. I §5 cited by the plaintiff has no meaningful relevance to the matter at hand. The "public interest" protection therein is a constitutional bulwark against the use of power by the Senate to act contrary to "public health and commerce". But the certification of the election by my office does not concern the use of power by the Senate. Even if, as the plaintiff contests, Senate power is implied by the election of the Vice President (the President of the Senate), a violation of Art. I §5 Cl. 30-31 has not yet occurred. This portion of the plaintiff's argument rests upon the hypothetical future actions of the Vice President, which he projects to run contrary to the "public interest" protection against the Senate.
Third, that the so-called "Genesis thread" cited by the plaintiff as support for his argument does not deserve the Court's attention - indulging the plaintiff's megalomania does not help us understand whether or not my certification of an election result violates the Constitution. The plaintiff, on the basis of his early participation in Atlasian government, apparently has judged Napoleon to be "not fun" and thus illegitimate. His disregard of the enduring laws of Atlasia and those who abide by them and his mandating, above all, of particular interpretations of his own ancient, inscrutable aphorisms is not worthy of the respect of any democratic institution, let alone a court of law. The game does not belong to the plaintiff, nor should it reflect exactly his desires; its direction and meaning have been entrusted to the 143 other citizens at the present and the hundreds before them through law and democracy.
Fourth, that the turnout statistics cited by the plaintiff do not indicate the national decline that he purports to show. Turnout for the election in question was significantly lower than the previous presidential election (66.0% vs 74.3%), despite the Tweed/bgwah candidacy. His narrative of decline is not, moreover, supported by any other objective evidence. The Court cannot take the plaintiff on his word that the Atlasia preceding his presidential candidacy was sick or in decline - it is his opinion and not fact or evidence.
Fifth, that the extensive body of election regulation signed into law (e.g.
The Proportional Representation Act,
the Consolidated Electoral System Reform Act,
Art. II, §2, Cl. 2 of the Constitution, etc.) represent a wholly constitutional and systematic attempt to bring about fair and free democratic elections and that the plaintiff's argument circumvents and contradicts those laws because the Atlasian electorate handed down an unfavorable verdict to the plaintiff in the election in question. The Department of Federal Elections is responsible for upholding and enforcing election law, and that is what was done in the June 2012 federal election. To rule in favor of the plaintiff here would be to discard those laws and make obsolete the entire election process. It is neither the place of the Department of Federal Elections nor of the Supreme Court to act as an electoral tribunal, rendering decisions on candidates' future actions' compliance with vague Constitutional language so as to arbitrarily select public officials, as the plaintiff would evidently prefer.
Sixth, that the Court, in previous election disputes, has declined to employ the interpretive strategy employed by the plaintiff in his brief and deferred instead to existing election regulation. When confronted with cases in which the integrity of the vote was called into question (e.g.
Atlasia v. Dallasfan65,
Atlasia v. Giovanni) the Court chose not to reach a decision through interpretation of the Preamble or the Public Interest provision, but through analysis and interpretation of laws governing the existing and established electoral process. There is no judicial precedent for the course of action the plaintiff proposes.
That the plaintiff believes Napoleon to have been "pounded with advertisements since he was a small child" and to be a bourgeois ideologue is not evidence enough to overturn a democratic election. Here the plaintiff's argument is laid bare: he wishes the court to revoke the certification of Napoleon as president-elect on the basis of his ideology and his demeanor - is this not the proper role of the voters, rather than the Court? His case that the President-elect is a threat to the general welfare of Atlasia relies upon speculation, faulty interpretation of law and the sheer force of bombast. Bombast alone may suffice to win a presidential election, but in the plaintiff's case this past weekend, it was far from enough. The people did not elect him President; now he seeks to be selected instead. If the plaintiff wins the day here, his extraordinary personality and his bizarre perspective on Atlasian law will have, too; but Atlasia's confidence in the stability and endurance of its legal, legitimate, liberal democracy will have forever been lost.
Therefore the Court must uphold the certification of the June 2012 Federal Election and find it to be in accord with the Atlasian Constitution and all other Atlasian law.
Respectfully submitted on behalf of the Department of Federal Elections,
HOMELYCOOKING
Secretary of Federal Elections
Registrar General of Atlasia
