District 4- questionable result

[Jake]

And once again we have a partisan SOFA who urges a member of his party to challenge his ruling and we have the members of his party backing up a clearly fradulent vote. The rules say you can't edit you post. Once again, editing any part of you vote is against the rules. Follow the rules, or don't have them. Don't just decide one day to drop the bar in the middle of the election. This is just like Fritz interpreting the rule he made to help his party. Fritz has always been non-partisan in the past, but he's been slipping down the slope of partisan bias.

[Jake]

As Fritz appears to be under the weather, occupied, or otherwise unable to be here to post this topic, I'll do it in his stead.  Given that I'm just copying and pasting what he probably would say anyway, I'm assuming he won't mind.

In Dave We Trust[/b]

OFFICIAL MIDTERM SENATE ELECTIONS VOTING BOOTH
 

VOTES ONLY IN THIS THREAD.  NO CAMPAIGNING OR OTHER COMMENTS.

Voting is now open for the next 72 hours, until midnight Eastern Standard Time on Sunday evening/Monday morning.

To be eligible to vote, you must have registered to vote at least 10 days prior to this election (before November 30, 2004).

Preferential voting is in effect for these elections.  If your first preference does not receive enough votes, your vote will be counted for your second preference.  Candidates are eliminated until one candidate has a majority of votes.  You are not required to rank all of the candidates.

Write-in votes are permitted.
 
Check your vote carefully before posting!  Votes that have been edited after posting are invalid.
 
Senatorial Elections

 
District 1

Full
 
Declared candidates:
Supersoulty (AF-PA)
TheBulldog (D-NY)

States in this District: New York, Pennsylvania


Interim
 
Declared candidates:
True Democrat (D-PA)
AndrewBerger (UP-NY)

States in this District: DC, Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania

 
District 2

Declared candidates:
Siege40 (UL-ME)
Badnarikin04 (L-NH)

States in this District: Connecticut, DC, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont


District 3

Declared candidates:
TexasGurl (RF-WI)*
Al (I-WV)
 
States in this District: Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin


District 4

Declared candidates:
Harry (D-MS)
Hermit (UP-TX)

States in this District: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas

 
District 5

Declared candidates:
StevenNick (R-WA)
Gabu (D-WA)

States in this District: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wyoming

*Note: Texasgurl's words were "i will finish my term but i will not activly run for re-election."  I have no clue if this means that she's not running for re-election or if she's just not actively running for re-election.  Because of this ambiguity, I've left her on the ballot.

This is the ballot. Now look very closely at the part in bold, 24 pt letters. Now read. Did you comprehend that. All voters but two, Defarge and Democratic Hawk followed that rule, and Defarge clearly understood it. Read the ballot, follow the rules,  if you don't your vote doesn't count. There is no gray area.

[Jake]

I still stand by my assertion. Votes that are edited won't be counted. I agree with that. But if the post is edited but not the vote, I'm not sure that counts as editing your vote. Democratic Hawk didn't change who he voted for, hence he didn't change his vote.

We don't know if he edited the vote. Do we have proof that he didn't edit the vote? Screenshots, anything. if so email it to evryone so we can look at it. The info we have is the part of DemoHawk's post that says "edited by DemocraticHawk". Other than that there is no proof.

[Jake]

I don't know if anyone has screen shots, but we do have a lot of witnesses. If you can come up with witnesses who will testify that he did change his vote, that's fine.

Before you bring up a dissent to their reliability, eyewitness accounts are usually considered pretty reliable in real world cases, especially if provided by people of otherwise unassailable character, and even moreso if quite a few people will attest to it.

He edited his post Nym, how in the hell are we supposed to tell who he voted for. That's why we have this rule, not to try to restrict voting, but to be able to prove their vote. He has NO way of proving he voted for Harry because he edited his post.

[Jake]

Doesn't matter now. DemoHawk deleted his vote.

ColinW's quoted him at around 2:30 Saturday and his quote said 10:47 AM Saturday.

According to that it should be beetween Julien's and OWL's, but it isn't.

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=13709.90 Scroll down to colin's post.

and two posts down King copies DemoHawk's quote line

« Last Edit: Today at 11:38:14 AM by Democratic 'Hawk' »

So this debate is over.

[Jake]

Well, the votes are counted as they stood at the closing of polls.

If Democratic Hawk himself doesn't want this matter pursued, I would respect his decision. But simply because the post, which was there when the polls closed, is gone, doesn't mean anything.

Fritz, I'm sure, will agree, as he goes on the basis of what was in the thread at the time the polls closed.

How do we know it was there?

[Jake]

The vote was there when the polls closed, and it was not counted.  If the post was deleted, that indicates to me that the voter intended to have his vote invalidated, and that therefore my original ruling should stand.  (Too bad, I was looking forward to the court having to rule on this.) 

Makes sense. Instead of the courts deciding it, why doesn't the senate pass voting laws.

[Jake]

We need airtight rules saying you may not edit or delete your POST in any election, or it will not count.  That way we won't ever have this problem.