1184AZ v Peebs

[Pragmatic Conservative]

Greeting Honorable Justices

I am suing the Register General Peebs for illegally moving Pericles from the South to Fremont.

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Pericles moved to the south on September 1st
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=248774.msg6389597#msg6389597

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However he tried to move back to Fremont less than 180 days after his original move thus violating his move clause.

Pericles
Labor
Minnesota

Pericles
deregistered

While Pericles deregistered and attempted to rejoin in a different region in a matter of minutes that shoudn't matter as the Pericles that deregistered is the same person that reregistered and thus should still be held to his previous move clause. We can see in the Federal elections act that person has been referred to non registered individuals thus we can conclude personhood is not the same as either citizenship or being a registered voter.

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I would like to ask the court to order RG Peebs to move Pericles back to the South until his move clause from September 1st 2018 expires.

Thanks
Lincoln AG
1184AZ

[YE]

DFW did the exact same thing. Wonder why by chance you’re excluding him.

[Pragmatic Conservative]

DFW did the exact same thing. Wonder why by chance you’re excluding him.

Such a ruling against Pericles region change would cover him. If this case is taken I’ll mention him in my brief as another example of an illegal region change that occurred recently.

[windjammer]

This has been seen.

[windjammer]

And sorry for the delay by the way, I lost the apartment I should have occupied in a massive fraud and I didn't have internet.

[Bacon King]

The petitioner assumes some concept of "continuity of personhood" exists, that persists through de- and re-registration. However, this conceptualization is inaccurate and this concept is not found in Atlasian law. The current deregistration law makes it clear that Pericles's registration change was legal and therefore that Peebs did not err in recording it.


I. The petitioner claims that the language of the Federal Electoral Act creates a distinction between "person" and "voter". However, the Act uses both terms interchangeably, as noted in the following quotes. The two phrases are synonymous; "personhood" is thus legally the same thing as "being a registered voter".

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II. The Petitioner claims the following law was violated:

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However, such an event did not occur, even if one incorrectly assumes that "personhood" is distinct from registration. Please note specifically that this passage only restricts changes in census registration from one region directly to another.

However, with the act of deregistration there's no direct transition from one region to another; the specific language of the Fixing Deregistration Act makes this clear.

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Deregistration removes a voter from the census rolls entirely. They are thereafter no longer listed as a member of any region. When a voter registers anew, they are rightfully allowed to register into any region of their choice. Pericles did not change his registration from one region to another: rather, his registration was expunged, and only afterwards did he register again. Because of this intermediate step, the legal violation as claimed by the petitioner did not in fact occur.


III. It would be a blatant overreach of the court's authority to do as the petitioner suggests, as it would create a new barrier to registration where none exists; this is the realm of the legislature, not of the Court.

In the previous iteration of Atlasia, prior to the statute reboot, the deregistration law did prohibit rapid de-registration and reregistration. Here is the former law in full:

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Note the fifth section, in bold. The Atlas Senate at the time found it necessary and proper to limit the circumstances through which a formerly de-registered voter could re-enroll. The current law includes no such requirement and therefore, by omission, implies the actions of Pericles are legal. If the Atlas legislative branch wishes to restrict the rights of voters to do something like Pericles has done, they certainly have the authority to. However, they have not done so, and therefore the Court would be in grievous error if it wrongfully limited the right held by Pericles, and all citizens, to free and fair participation in our elections.


Attorney General Bacon King

[windjammer]

The Supreme Court of Atlasia grants certiorari to hear the question of whether Pericles' registration in Fremont (and thus his candidacy for the Fremont senate election) was valid or not.

Schedule

Petitioner has seventy-two hours to file his brief.  It is expected no later than 9:00 AM EDT on  Tuesday, December 18, 2018.

Respondent has an additional seventy-two hours to file her brief.  It is expected no later than 9:00AM EDT on Friday, December 21, 2018.

Amicus Briefs will be accepted until 9:00AM EDT on Saturday, December 22, 2018.

Additional time may be granted to either party, and the right of either party to respond to the filed briefs may be granted upon request.

A period of argument (Q&A) will be scheduled after presentation of the briefs in case any member of the Court has any questions for the parties.

[Pragmatic Conservative]

May I request a extension of 24 hours for my brief. My apologies for the delay.

[windjammer]

May I request a extension of 24 hours for my brief. My apologies for the delay.

Granted

[Pragmatic Conservative]

Greeting Honorable Justices

Restatement of Facts and Original Argument:

On September the 1st Pericles moved from Fremont to the South. This meant that he prohibited from registering in another region for 180 days.

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=248774.msg6389597#msg6389597

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However he tried to move back to Fremont less than 180 days after his original move thus violating his move clause.

Pericles
Labor
Minnesota

Pericles
deregistered

While Pericles deregistered and attempted to rejoin in a different region in a matter of minutes that shoudn't matter as the Pericles that deregistered is the same person that reregistered and thus should still be held to his previous move clause. We can see in the Federal elections act that person has been referred to non registered individuals thus we can conclude personhood is not the same as either citizenship or being a registered voter.

The below passage should make clear that a person is separate from a registered voter. If a person may become a registered voter than it means a person isn’t the same thing as a registered voter and the terms can and do exist independently from a legal standpoint. It also should be pointed out that the two terms aren’t mutually exclusive and an individual can be either just a person or a person and voter.

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While the Attorney General claims that voter and citizen are the same I would argue the terms aren't mutually exclusive and thus not interchangeable.

I would argue that our constitution makes clear that person, voter and citizen are separate legal entities.

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This passage demonstrates that a person is not automatically an Atlasian citizen and by extension voter. This passage also makes reference to the concept that a person can be an unregistered individual. Based on this passage we can suggest a citizen and person not interchangeable in Atlasia law.


We can see here a reference to a person as an atlas forum account holder which may or may not be registered to vote. Together with the previous two quoted pieces of text we can conclude that person refers to all Atlas account holders whether or not their registered votes and citizens of Atlasia.

We can thus conclude that as Pericles is a person under law by virtue of having an account on Atlas that the move restriction placed upon him should apply to him whether or not he is registered to vote in Atlasia.
Even if we accept the Attorney General  incorrect argument I would argue that what Pericles did at the very least violates the spirit of the move restriction law based on his actions. The move restriction exists to prevent individuals from blatantly carpetbagging into other regions to maximize their chances of getting elected and trying to register to vote every couple months in whichever region would maximize their voting power. Thus Pericles de registering and re registering in a matter of minutes can be construed as a deliberate attempt to exploit the law to his political advantage. We can see the both the latter and former part as the individual in question launched a senate bid shortly afterwards of re registering in Fremont.

I am officially running as a candidate for the special election for (now former) Senator canis' seat.

We can see from the above that Pericles intentionally tried to violate the move clause in order to run for senate. Further Pericles admitted his actions were problematic.

Thanks
1184AZ

[windjammer]

Thank you 118AZ for your brief.

[windjammer]

Pericles?

[Pericles]

Greeting Honorable Justices

Due to BaconKing's deregistration, he is unable to deliver his brief himself. Therefore I will do the brief myself.

On September 1, 2018, I moved to the South from Fremont. Then, on November 21, 2018, I deregistered. At this point, the legal person of Pericles that had existed until that deregistration no longer existed. As section 1, clause 2, of the Fixing Deregistration Act states "Any registered citizen of Atlasia may choose to deregister in the "New Registration Thread". The citizen is to be removed from the census and be stripped of all rights of citizenship." Since my deregistration removed me from the census, I was not registered in any region. Newly registered individuals have the right to register in any region of their choice, and since I then registered in the game from being deregistered, legally there are no restrictions on what region I may reside in.

If Congress wanted such restrictions to exist, they can at any time legislate such restrictions into law. Prior to the reset, in the Fair Deregistration Act, this was the case and the law stated "Any deregistered person who reregisters remains bound by Article V, Section 2, Clause 6 of the constitution and must reregister in the state and region he/she was registered in before deregisteration unless the appropriate amount of time has passed since his/her last move." As no such law exists in our current statute, it would be improper to create a new law as Congress does not intend for it to be created, as shown by there being no such law in our statute.  It would therefore be an overreach by the Court and undemocratic to create a requirement that Congress does not intend to legislate.

While 1184AZ attempts to make it appear as if such an intent exists when it does not exist in our statute, it is clear in the Federal Electoral Act that the terms "person" and "voter" are used interchangeably and are intended to have the same meaning, as Bacon King demonstrated in part I of his amicus brief. However, 1.2 of the Fixing Deregistration Act, which I mentioned, shows that deregistered individuals are stripped of citizenship and surely would not be bound by the laws of Atlasia, and clarifies that deregistration removes persons from the jurisdiction of Atlasian law. Since there are no legislated restrictions on the re-registration of deregistered individuals, we have to presume that Congress did not intend for there to be such restrictions and that it is not proper to invent such restrictions. The proper course for these restrictions to become law would be for Congress to legislate them into law, rather than having the Court legislate from the bench.

Here is where the law is clear, 'Persons may only change their State of registration from one region to another region once every 180 days". I did not change my region from one region to another region. The previous legal person of Pericles changed their registration from registered in the South to deregistered, at which point an unregistered individual who happened to be the same person in real life as that previous person registered in Fremont. This is not currently legislated for or restricted under our current law. There is not an appropriate basis to create such a restriction, as I have stated the way for such a restriction to be created was if Congress legislated it into law. Otherwise we must presume that it is the intent of Congress for there to be no restrictions on which region unregistered individuals may move to.

I find several elements of 1184AZ's brief have no bearing on the legal discussion here. It would go too far if the Court were to try and judge the 'spirit' of the law and guess what the authors of it intended. If the authors of the law intended to restrict region moves they could have legislated these restrictions into law. 1184AZ's use of loaded words such as 'blatant carpetbagging’, attempt to guess my intent in my actions and to cast negative connotations on them that have no bearing on the legal argument and do nothing to educate the Court about whether my actions were in fact legal. This is the only question the Court is judging here. When I stated that these actions were 'problematic', I believe this was meant in terms of public perception not legal validity. Even if I had hypothetically replied in  a way that cast myself as being legally at fault, which I did not do, this would not be enough for the Court to decide to invalidate my registration in Fremont, as it is not clearly evident in our statutes that this is a breach of the law. As 1184AZ's arguments have no bearing on the legal matter at hand, the only effect is to unfairly prejudice the Court to invalidate my registration in Fremont and to rule against Registrar Peebs. Therefore, I urge the Court to remove all of 1184AZ's brief past his discussion of the Atlasian Constitution from their consideration.

Furthermore, I would like to clarify for the Court what I believe the appropriate course of action would be in the unlikely event that they judged to invalidate my registration in Fremont. This would not invalidate the votes cast for me in the Fremont Senate race, or invalidate my election as Senator. As 1184AZ himself brought up, Article III, Section 2, clause 2 of the constitution of the Republic of Atlasia reads as follows "No person shall be a Senator who has not attained 200 or more posts, nor whose account is fewer than 1440 hours old, nor who is not a citizen of the Region they are chosen to represent." The key words here are "shall be". This means that a person simply is ineligible to serve in the Senate. Therefore, this would render the Fremont Class I Senate seat vacant and Lumine would not be the legitimate Senator of Fremont in any sense as a result, instead there would then be a special election for the seat. The Constitution does not indicate an intent to invalidate the election of individuals who would be ineligible to serve in the Senate, and unless the Constitution were amended to make this a reality it would be improper for the Court to in effect amend the Atlasian Constitution when that is not the role of the Court. 

In conclusion, 1184AZ attempts to create legal realities that are not part of our statute and his attempts to guess the intent of writers of laws go too far and are insufficient to be the basis of a legal judgement. Since there is no legal reality restricting the ability of unregistered individuals to register in the region of their choosing, and that there is no definitive intent in our legislation for there to be such restrictions. The Court would be overstepping its bounds if they ruled that my registration in Fremont was invalid, and the Court would in effect be amending legislation and creating laws where none exist and this is not the role of the Court, it is the role of Congress and the President. Therefore, the proper course of action is for the Court to rule that Registrar General Peebs acted properly and legally in allowing the registration of Pericles in Fremont.

Finally, I would like to express as a sidenote my trust in the Court that they will make the right and fair decision, and to thank them for hearing me out.

Thanks
Pericles

[windjammer]

Thank you Pericles

[windjammer]

Supreme Court of Atlasia

Nyman, DC

118AZ vs Peebs

Opinion of the Court.

After consideration of the submitted briefs and the facts of the case, the Court has come to a unanimous decision.
The Court sides with  Peebs. It is the opinion of the Court that the legislature never took into account the possibility of voters deregistering and then reregistering as a loophole for this clause :

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Pericles deregistered and then reregistered. Two main interpretations about his actions exist :
-   Pericles de facto changed his regional affiliation by deregistering and then reregistering, thus his actions were illegal.
-   The RG’s interpretation : both actions of deregistering and reregistered shall not be considered as switching its regional affiliation, thus Pericles didn’t break the law.
This is not the role of the Supreme Court to determine which interpretation is the most appropriate this is the role of the elected officeholder, thus the Supreme Court sides with Peebs.
The Supreme Court would like to thank 118AZ, Peebs, Bacon King and Pericles for their full cooperation.

[Mr. Reactionary]