NC Yankee et al, v. The Southern Government

[Devout Centrist]

Amicus Brief, siding with the petitioner:

Yankee also fundamentally misinterprets Amendment 8 (Permitting a New Economic and Political Partnership). Despite his claims to the contrary, this Amendment is presenting a binary choice.

Amendment 8 had two options:

Option A: Status Quo.
Option B: Obtain sovereignty, only after first making a formal offer for a new economic and political partnership to Atlasia.  

Option B passed with over 75% in support, which authorized secession as a possible option. Yankee complains about the circumstances in which that referendum was held – but at the end of the day, he just disagrees with the choice the Southern people made. The Southern people were aware of the choice. Turnout was high (higher than the most recent regional election). No rules were broken, and Yankee again made no attempt to challenge the conduct of the election as it was happening.

The Friends of West Virginia League do not agree with the respondent. The duly convened Southern legislature passed a total of 10 amendments over the course of a two day session. There was no public comment period and no attempt made by Southern officials to formally inform the Southern public of the implications of their choice. Indeed, no legislative debate on the amendments was held at all. The respondent himself motioned to suspend the rules and initiate a final vote on the amendments within 2 minutes after debate had opened on the bill.

We reject the respondent’s claim that the Southern people were at all aware of the amendment’s intended purpose. I ask that the honorable justices also give due consideration to the fact that 9 other amendments were considered in the same referendum, none of which received any public or legislative debate.

[ilikeverin]

It seems to me that we have two separate but strongly linked questions before the court. The first question is whether the January referendum was a legal vote on secession as established in Article II, Section 2 (that is, what is the nature of the vote?). The second question is whether the January referendum vote is validly described as "a 3/4 vote of the citizens thereof" as described in Article II, Section 2 (that is, was it a valid vote?). Are those questions separable? Is there any sense in which the responses to one question can inform the interpretation of the other?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It seems to me that we have two separate but strongly linked questions before the court. The first question is whether the January referendum was a legal vote on secession as established in Article II, Section 2 (that is, what is the nature of the vote?). The second question is whether the January referendum vote is validly described as "a 3/4 vote of the citizens thereof" as described in Article II, Section 2 (that is, was it a valid vote?). Are those questions separable? Is there any sense in which the responses to one question can inform the interpretation of the other?

For your first question, I would contend that they are separate questions because it is possible for the following four scenarios to occur based on what a region does or might have done in a given situation as it relates to this clause.

1. Invalid Structure/Invalid Threshold
2. Valid Structure/Invalid Threshold
3. Invalid Structure/Valid Threshold
4. Valid Structure/Valid Threshold

As for the second question, I certainly wouldn't close the door to one informing the other. In this case, the contention is that the structure was chosen on the basis that it could mean different things in different contexts, the "multiple choice" critique that I would contend is openly admitted by many Southern Government officials at this point (they are just trying to claim that such is constitutional and I don't think it is, but we have covered that exhaustively I think). The reason for this was to meet the threshold in a particular time or place, realizing that there was a narrow window (see Devout Centrist and my arguments about the nature of the debate and how this was presented and passed), meaning that a less stringently interpreted threshold would facilitate that kind of malfeasance (minimal/no debate, list vote DMing/PMing, no public advocacy on the boards), whereas a stricter standard would serve to protect the equality of all the citizens of the South, not just those in exclusive discord servers and vote drones who just follow orders.

I would also make the point with the contention that "of the citizenry" merely operates to restrict a question to the "citizens of the region in question", that is to say "just the citizens of x region, exclusively" and thus shutting out participation of people of other regions and the nation as a whole. This is not wrong in my opinion, but it leaves out another critical factor, that it also bestows a particular right "to all of the people of the region in question". To put it more succinctly, it is exclusive to just the people of a specific region, but it is simultaneously inclusive of all of the citizenry therein. Disregarding that aspect, creates a dangerous opening for regions, or even perhaps the Federal Government to violate equality before the law by allowing one group to be given preferential access and knowledge (in this case the people within their exclusive discords, DMs and Voice Chats), while excluding everyone else on the general board from that access and knowledge.

A vague or otherwise innocent sounding referendum, that can later be interpreted and reinterpreted later on to mean different things, certainly plays into the concern of preferential access and preferential knowledge, so in that sense, I can see how one could inform the other. Therefore the two certainly operate in tandem to expose the people to a dangerous and growing inequity before the law that discord and similar external servers pose to the people. Likewise a stricter standard for what constitutes a valid referendum and a stricter interpretation of the threshold would serve to protect the equity of "the whole citizenry of the regions", not just a dynamic in which beyond keeping out the other region's voters, the region doesn't have to respect or concern itself with the protection of the whole citizenry.

[ilikeverin]

Thank you! To be clear, my questions were directed to both sides.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     To the petitioner, if the intention were that the bar should be merely 3/4ths of those voting, how would you word it to make that clearer?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

     To the petitioner, if the intention were that the bar should be merely 3/4ths of those voting, how would you word it to make that clearer?

As the honorable Justice will recall from our mutual situation at the time. The game, and ourselves, were under assault by a group of radicals bent on destroying the game and one of the biggest contentions that they had at the time was that things were too verbose, too legalistic and unnecessarily complex. These critiques had a good bit of legitimacy and truth to them, and the impulse at the time was, even while rejecting their more aggressive and radical desires, to appease sentiments of more centrist minded reformers concerned about this same complaint and thus preclude them from siding with the the radical proponents of game dissolution.

This is one such example, where the impulse to cut word counts was applied and as stated above, I would make the case that it went too far in this instance and created unnecessary confusion that could have been addressed or resolved by the mere inclusion of a couple extra words, to provide extra clarity, with only minimal lengthening of the clause at hand.

There are multiple ways in which this could have been worded to do just that and we obviously are not in a context with which such could be effectively evaluated to the point of perfection, this is not a Senate debate thread or a constitutional convention thread.

That said, here is one example that I think would have clearly established a requirement that was just among those voting in a given election, without adding too much in the way of wording.

"No Region shall secede from this Republic, but by a vote/referendum of 3/4ths of the voting citizens thereof".

You can pick your preference between vote or referendum to avoid repeating the base word vote twice (even if one of them is a verb and the other a noun), and then to kick it up to the higher standard you would add the word eligible:

"No Region shall secede from this Republic, but by a referendum of 3/4ths of the voting citizens thereof".


"No Region shall secede from this Republic, but by a referendum of 3/4ths of the eligible voting citizens thereof".

There are numerous other approaches no doubt, but this is the first one that came to mind in this context.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

To add a bit more to the thought above.

Instead of the option and alternatives listed and referenced above, what we have is "No region shall secede from this Republic but by a 3/4 vote of the citizens thereof"

They accuse me of a syntax error here, I think they have instead made the error.

They contend that the presence of "citizens thereof" merely defines the electorate, in that it restricts the electorate to just that of the region in question. That is correct, it does define the electorate, who is only the electorate of the vote, and who all is the electorate of the vote.

The word vote in this context describes an event and in isolation would self define the electorate to mean the equivalent of "those voting", or "citizens who vote" which ironically means they might be right if "citizens thereof" was replaced "of the region", or not there at all, though I won't follow that tangent at present.

"Vote", "referendum", "plebiscite", and "election" could just as easily substitute for the word vote in this clause. We could debate the merits and appropriateness of say "election" versus the others in this context, but they are effectively the same for as much as we are concerned.

With the addition of the clarifying phrase, "citizens thereof", "vote" cedes the definition of the electorate to the subsequent clarifying phrase. At that point, 3/4ths no longer operates on the word vote. We are not shutting the vote/election down at 6 AM on Sunday, which would be 75% of the election/vote duration. It operates on the electorate, not the event itself. What is the electorate? "Citizens of the region", "citizens thereof", which has to be defined as all the citizens of the region to avoid an equality before the law/equal protections issue.

Once again, they are trying to have their cake and eat it too.

[Devout Centrist]

It seems to me that we have two separate but strongly linked questions before the court. The first question is whether the January referendum was a legal vote on secession as established in Article II, Section 2 (that is, what is the nature of the vote?). The second question is whether the January referendum vote is validly described as "a 3/4 vote of the citizens thereof" as described in Article II, Section 2 (that is, was it a valid vote?). Are those questions separable? Is there any sense in which the responses to one question can inform the interpretation of the other?

Amicus filing on the petitioner's behalf:

The Friends of West Vrginia League contends that there are two separate question at play -

1. Was the referendum held in January 2023 a constitutionally valid exercise of Article II, Section 2?

2. If the referendum held in January 2023 was constitutionally valid, did it meet the requirements outlined in Article II, Section 2 for a legal secession?

If the answer to the first question is yes, we argue the honorable justices should consider the second question. If the answer to the first question is no, then we argue the honorable justics should hold that the referendum was not a constitutionally valid exercise of Article II, Section 2.

    To the petitioner, if the intention were that the bar should be merely 3/4ths of those voting, how would you word it to make that clearer?

The Friends of West Virginia League offers the following wording as a part of our amicus filing:

No region shall secede from this Republic but by a 3/4ths vote of participating citizens, nor shall any Region, state, or other entity declare itself outside the jurisdiction of this Constitution so long as it remains party to this Union.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Thank you for your time.

[reagente]

With the addition of the clarifying phrase, "citizens thereof", "vote" cedes the definition of the electorate to the subsequent clarifying phrase. At that point, 3/4ths no longer operates on the word vote.

That doesn't follow. Refer to this:

[Devout Centrist]

Amicus Brief

Honorable Justices:

The Friends of West Virginia League submits its final amicus brief on behalf of the petitioner. We hope to keep this last filing short and plain so as to avoid restating the facts of the case and the petitioner's perspective.

Due process and equal protection under the law are cherished principles of our great nation's legal tradition. These legal concepts have existed in our nation's jurisprudence since the time of the First Constitution, and they form the bedrock for ensuring all Atlasian citizens receive fair and just treatment under common law.

It is imperative that any ruling on this dispute recognize these cornerstone principles as inviolable to the existence and security of our constitutional republic. The actions of the Southern Governor and its legislature go against these two constitutional rights that are guaranteed to citizens of this nation.

We argue that the secession amendment, as worded, did not meet the constitutional standard of due process for depriving Southern citizens of their liberties under the Fifth Constitution. Specifically, the amendment on the question of secession was bundled with 9 other ballot initatives, none of which had their language clearly displayed on the referendum thread. There was no legislative debate held on the amendment. There was no public debate held on the amendment. The language of the amendment was vague and did not explicitly reference legal secession. Under the circumstances, Southern citizens could not have understood that an 'aye' vote would be interpreted as the legal pretext for secession from the Union.

Indeed, in the days following the passage of the amendment via referendum, there was a public debate on what, exactly, its ratification would mean for the South. I refer the honorable justices to the following thread dated January 24th, 2023:

Is the South seceding? And does the federal executive/legislative branches support it?

Southern resident TimTurner (a member of the Southern legislature who voted for the amendment) suggested that Southern secession should be categorically off the table:

While this is uncharted territory and I cannot predict anything with complete certainty, I think I can confidently say Yankee and Cao both have huge incentives to make it be known at least privately that independence is off the table, and that greater autonomy is clearly something that the South's regional leadership can at least credibly claim a mandate of some kind for. But that does not mean that it will inevitably happen. Terra incognita, everyone!

At the time of the thread's posting, the petitioner expressed concern regarding the legal status of the South following the referendum and the lack of public debate surrounding the ratification process:

2. Under no circumstance will I favor secession or Southern independence. I feel like this vote should have been more clearly noted and not buried near the bottom of a list of rather mundane referendums.

The Friends of West Virginia League contends that the passage of this amendment, without public or legislative debate, cannot meet the due process standard of Article 1, Section 5 of the Fifth Constitution. Specifically:

No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

Honorable justice, we ask you: does a motion to suspend the rules and vote on the final passage of 10 amendments within two minutes of debate opening meet the standard for due process? Does a lack of any legislative debate meet the standard for due process? Does a two day window for any public debate to be held *at all* meet the standard for due process? If it be so, then we may consider ourselves a nation of rules and decrees but not a nation of law.

Thank you.

[ilikeverin]

In light of the urgency of this case, the Court has elected to release the outcome of the case with a full written opinion (and additional opinions) to follow, hopefully over the weekend.

The Court finds for the petitioner. The Court holds 4-1 that the January referendum does not constitute a valid vote on secession as enshrined in Article II, Section 2. The Court holds 3-2 that the requirement of "3/4 vote of the citizens thereof" envisioned in Article II, Section 2 requires a 3/4 vote of all the citizens of a region, not just those voting. Regardless of the rationale, the Supreme Court is unanimous in the outcome, and the Southern Government is hereby enjoined from implementing any legal claim to secession and any act purporting to do so.

I will be writing the majority opinion. I anticipate at least two opinions concurring in part, dissenting in part, and concurring in the judgment.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I thank the court for its time and speedy attention to this matter.

[ilikeverin]

Supreme Court of Atlasia
Nyman, DC
NC Yankee v. the South

Opinion of the Court

Regional government has been a part of Atlasia since its creation, which means that regional politics have been a part of Atlasia since the beginning as well. Distinguished Atlasian careers have had humble beginnings in regional offices. Issues of the day have often had their first hearing in the regional legislatures. Rivalries between the regions, or between the regions and the federal government, have sometimes led to petty squabbles or even armed conflict. Today, one such dispute has led a region, the Southern Region, to purport to use a procedure established in the Atlasian Constitution to secede from Atlasia. To determine whether this was a valid exercise of power, we must first come to understand the Constitution’s words about whether and how a region may secede from the Union, before we then turn to whether the Southern Region followed the established procedures. We hold that it did not, and thereby enjoin the Southern Region from purporting any legal basis for secession.

I

A

Article II, Section 2 of the Atlasian constitution contains a provision allowing for regions to separate themselves from the government of Atlasia:

No region shall secede from this Republic but by a 3/4 vote of the citizens thereof, nor shall any Region, state, or other entity declare itself outside the jurisdiction of this Constitution so long as it remains party to this Union.

The constitutional provision gives a clear, high standard. A region must hold a vote, and the vote must be strictly confined to secession. Secession is fundamentally tied to the idea of having a “Region…declare itself outside the jurisdiction of this Constitution”. A vote that falls short of a declaration of independence is insufficient to meet this standard.

B

It should also be noted that this vote takes the region out of the jurisdiction of the Atlasian Constitution and the Atlasian nation, but does not remove the region from the game entirely. Certainly the new nation would need to develop a new relationship with the rest of Atlasia, but it does not lead to the creation of an entirely new game, unrelated to the Atlasian continuity; such activities would need to be conducted independently of the Atlasian context and in conjunction with the present community.

C

Nor does there seem to be any alternative to this process being immediate; again, the vote is tied to the idea of being “outside the jurisdiction of the Constitution”. In other contexts, this process of founding a new nation immediately after a vote could be disastrous and almost anarchic, but Atlasian constitutional history does not recoil at the idea of a new nation being founded without a Constitution. After all, Atlasia itself was founded without a Constitution, and the debate about whether it should have one was one of the first political conflicts in the early nation.  According to the Constitution, the secession vote ends the debate and the region secedes; what it does next is up to the newly independent state.

D

Finally, the finality and gravity of vote established in Article II, Section 2 is supported by its very high bar to ratification: “a 3/4 vote of the citizens thereof”. Certainly, the meaning of this provision is clouded by its rather foggy and arcane verbiage, and on the face of it it can be read in two ways: as requiring a “3/4 vote” by all the citizens of a region, or as requiring a “3/4 vote” of the citizens who cast ballots in the referendum. Either outcome is plausible and would require a dedicated team of semanticists and syntacticians to parse which is “more likely”.

However, it is the opinion of the Court that the phrasing, “of the citizens thereof”, implies that the 3/4 preponderance of secessionists must be present in the entire population of citizens of the region in question. For such a weighty subject, it seems plausible to demand a very high bar for secession, and certainly all members of a region (not just the voting ones) are “citizens” by any standard. A 3/4 vote of all the citizens of the region is a high bar, but is not impossible to reach.

In contrast, respondents largely resort to arguments based on the spoken comments in the Third Constitutional Convention from 2015. The esteemed delegates from the Third Constitutional Convention do deserve praise for their useful and impressive debate as to the proper nature of the Constitution, despite the unfortunate presence of delegates who were inept enough to find themselves on the Supreme Court in the long run (the author of this opinion included). Still, those comments cannot be considered to be binding precedent upon all subsequent generations of users of the Constitution (and its successors). They represent just a fraction of the thoughts and opinions of the delegates involved in the debate: the public comments. We cannot turn to the public comments to make sense of their muddled writing.

II

Having satisfied ourselves as to the requirements for a secession vote, we now turn to whether the referendum of January 2023 served as a valid secession vote for the purposes of Article II, Section 2. We hold that it does not.

A

First and foremost, the wording of the referendum was ambiguous as to whether the vote actually called for secession. The text of the referendum that the Southern Region is claiming as authorization for secession was as follows:

The South shall become sovereign after having made a formal offer to Atlasia for a new economic and political partnership.

A critical word here is “sovereign”, which may in some cases mean something similar to “independent” (and, presumably, outside the jurisdiction of the Constitution) and in some cases may mean something similar to “autonomous” (and presumably, inside the jurisdiction of the Constitution). Similarly, a “new economic and political partnership” may involve a partnership inside or outside the framework of the Constitution.

Although this may seem to be troubling, there is no inherent difficulty with words being ambiguous. Words do not have a pre-ordained meaning that is impervious to change and may be idiosyncratically interpreted by the listener. Both petitioner and respondent acknowledge the ambiguity of the term “sovereign” here, for instance. The important question is whether the reasonable observer would see this claim of sovereignty being claimed by the South as something that served as a vote on secession as laid out in Section II, Article 2.

B

Petitioner and amici made several claims about the referendum being designed in a way to promote this ambiguity. Indeed, many sleepless nights on the part of the residents of the South and the Supreme Court justices may have been prevented by the Southern Region using a less ambiguous phrasing. Similarly, petitioner and amici point out that the referendum was pushed through with little discussion and slipped into the end of a long string of proposals and referenda in a way that may have confused the average voter.

But the question of whether the referendum was a constitutional referendum on secession does not and cannot rely on that speculation. The question of ill intent on the part of Southern Region leadership is not justiciable in the present scenario. Legislative chicanery is a distasteful part of the political process, to be sure, but it is fundamentally and inherently political. There are times and places and contexts in which this legerdemain rises to the point of meriting legislative scrutiny, but this is not one of them. Where the petitioner sees “insufficient debate”, the respondents presumably see “decisive action”, and we as a Court cannot distinguish between the two in a judicially motivated fashion.

C

Given this ambiguity, the best way to determine how the Southern Region and the “citizens thereof” interpreted the referendum is to examine the actions of the players involved. Did everyone act as if the January referendum were a secession vote? It does not appear so.

1

For one, the Southern Region freely ignored the ambiguity of the “3/4 vote of the citizens thereof” and declared it passed regardless of the Constitutional provision in question. As stated in I-D within this opinion, we find that the Constitution requires a high bar to passage. At the time of the January referendum, there were 46 citizens in the Southern Region, and, as such, 35 votes for secession were necessary to validly secede from Atlasia. Only 26 voters voted to secede and the referendum still “passed” in the view of the Southern Region. As such, either (i) the region seemed to be treating the Southern Economic and Political Partnership amendment as being something other than secession vote or (ii) the region did not meet the constitutional muster of the proportion necessary for a secession vote and the Southern Region’s affirmation of the vote was invalid.

2

However, regardless of the standard that the Southern Economic and Political Partnership amendment vote should be held to, the vote still does not meet the requirements for a secession vote because, regardless of the ambiguity, nobody seemed to treat it as an instance of the secession vote authorized by Article II, Section 2.

After the Southern Economic and Political Partnership amendment was judged to have passed, the Southern Region did not immediately declare its independence. It did not act as if it were now an independent state. Instead, the residents and leadership of the Southern Region instead acted as if they were Atlasian citizens seeking autonomy within the existing Atlasian framework.

They campaigned for Atlasian office. They made requests of Senators. They participated in the government affairs of this nation. To be sure, this shifted in many ways to requests for additional autonomy on threat of secession, but such ploys are a normal part of the political milieu of this nation. Nobody, including officeholders in the Southern Region, behaved as if the January vote led to secession. Certainly they maintained the idea that the vote served as a sort of “pre-authorization” even though such an idea is absent from the Constitution. But they did not advance these ideas seriously until May, which implies that no secession vote (as described in Section I of this opinion) had taken place.

3

The actions of the Southern Legislature in fact directly contradict the idea that the January vote of the Southern Region was a secession vote. Consider, for example, the Statement on Sovereignty:

a) the Southern legislature supports passage of the SR 114-7: Regional Rights Amendment, b) the Southern legislature endorses this proposal as an offer for a New Economic and Political Partnership, c) the Southern legislature recognizes that the South would obtain sovereignty from this proposal

Here, the Southern legislature explicitly endorses something other than independence as a way to fulfill the terms of the Southern Economic and Political Partnership amendment. This suggests that the Southern legislature did not see the January referendum as an exercise of the right to secession found in Article II, Section 2, as the legislature saw there being other paths to fulfill the Southern Economic and Political Partnership amendment’s terms. The Constitution does not authorize this sort of vote.

Similarly, the Sovereignty Contingency Procedures Amendment also provides directly contradictory evidence:

Should any legislation or action with regards to secession be enacted, the South will be a fully independent nation and exclusively subject to this constitution. All mentions of the Federal Government, the Republic of Atlasia, and Atlasia shall hereby be stricken, and the South will be a separate entity.

Again, the amendment puts secession in the future: “should…any action with regard to secession be enacted, the South will be a fully independent nation”. This is precisely the sort of action that an Article II, Section 2 vote would endorse: the South would declare itself a fully independent nation. However, the phrasing of the Sovereignty Contingency Procedures Amendment implies that the January vote was not a secession vote or else the subsequent vote would have been superfluous.

III

As such, it is ordered that we enjoin the Southern Region from implementing any legal claim to secession and any act purporting to do so on the basis of its January referendum and subsequent developments.

ilikeverin delivered the opinion of the Court which was joined in full by Gass3268. Sestak and PiT will join the opinion as to all but Parts I-D and II-C-1 and will file an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. Windjammer will file an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, with at least some of the opinion concurring with the present opinion in Parts I-D and II-C-1.

[windjammer]

Opinion of Chief Justice Windjammer

The secession attempt made by some Southern citizens was perfectly legal and constitutional. It is my belief that the referendum was quite clear about its intents: seceding from the union if the senate wouldn't pass the Regional amendment. It is on that point I disagree with all my esteemed colleagues, the path the Southern Legislature decided to pursue was perfectly legal.

However, in the end, they failed to meet the requirement to secede from the Union. Indeed, it requires the consent of 3/4 of its citizens. This is on this part where I side with Justice ilikeverin. Whatever intentions could be attributed to the founding fathers, the word "citizen" has a clear meaning in the constitution:

All persons born or naturalized in the Republic of Atlasia, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the Republic of Atlasia and of the Region in which they reside, and shall in all cases be afforded equal protection under the law.

It clearly refers to the people being lawfully registered in the region. I'm usually supportive of trying to interpret the founding fathers intention when this is about vague and very old words (for example, how to define the "legislative power" etc etc). But in that case, ruling on the foundings fathers' intentions would be disregarding the clear meaning of what a citizen is. This isn't the role of the Supreme Court to rectify the founding fathers' errors, but to rule on what has been written.

Thus, I concur with Justice ilikeverin on that argument and I concur with him as well on the outcome: the South hasn't seceded from the union as they failed to meet the 3/4 citizen requirement.

[Sestak]

Justice Sestak, joined by Justice PiT, concurring in part, dissenting in part, and concurring in the judgement:

I agree with the majority's postition that the referendum did not validly pose the question of succession as required by the constitution. I write separately because I believe the majority errs in its reading of the three-fourths vote requirement in Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution.

First, the majority chooses to dismiss the statements of several delegates to the 2016 Constitutional Convention who clearly imply that the language given was not believed to mandate a threshold as a portion of the population. It does so on the grounds that the opinions presented were only a partial view of the convention delegates and therefore cannot be considered. While it is true that we cannot consider such statements binding, we most certainly should consider them a substantial clue in interpreting this section. In particular, in this case we are dealing with an interpretation question regarding the specific mechanisms of government; regardless of one's overall view of constitutionalism, this is the type of case in which the time-of-writing interpretation of the provision is at its highest relevance. Again, the statements of the given delegates are by no means a guarantee that every member of the convention read the given provision in that direction, Given that no opposing interpretation was ever presented at the time, however, they must at minimum provide a substantial clue.

Second, the majority describes the constitution's language as "muddled" and "archaic", making its parsing ambiguous. It states that 'Either outcome is plausible and would require a dedicated team of semanticists and syntacticians to parse which is “more likely”.' Whether or not this is true, it does not remotely represent the reality of how Atlasia is played. Fundamentally, whenever presented with a case - whether through poor legislating or some other mishap - where a major portion of the game's functioning is unaddressed or addressed vaguely, we have and will always default to the conventional interpretation of the past. This has been seen many times throughout Atlasia's history; perhaps the most striking example in recent history is the three-year span for which the federal government operated the Census despite having no post-reset legislative authorization for such operation. This deference to convention is an absolute necessity to avoid the game being in constant peril from the chance of a few individuals being careless.

In this case, the convention is clear: referenda in Atlasia have - unless explicitly specified otherwise -  essentially always hinged only on the total votes counted, not on the proportion of eligible voters. The default assumption here should be that a secession referendum should be no different. Strike two for the petitioners.

Finally, we examine the text of the Constitution itself; if its langauge can be found to directly indicate a 3/4 electorate requirement, this could potentially overrule the previous concerns. However, on this count the majority is correct: the text is muddled. In particular, it does not give any indication the clues we have may be incorrect. There is at least one provision that may actually favor the petitioner; Article III, Section 1, Clause 9 makes reference to the Senate "[passing a] bill again by a two-thirds vote",  a section that has generally been read to require two-thirds of all senators voting. This, however, immediately follows two clauses where the requirement "the concurrence of two-thirds of the members of the Senate" is stated; the most plausible way to read "two-thirds vote" in this case is merely as a shorthand for the same type of vote described earlier in the section. Article II, Section 2, is independent of all of these clauses and does not have any such contextual clues of its own. In addition, the conventions of a vote in a legislature and a vote at referendum are two very different cases. The only referendum requirement which does operate by the majority's proposed eligible voter threshold is in Article IX, which uses the much more particular phrasing "whenever three fifths of the eligible voters...of each of the several Regions...". The phrasing here does not reach even a small portion of this specificity, and we cannot read it as requiring what our previous analysis has indicated it should not.

The petitioner's own argument on the modifer "of the citizens thereof" also falls flat. It requires us to perform a sleight-of-hand to rewrite "a 3/4 vote of the citziens thereof" to "a vote of 3/4 of the citizens thereof"; these meanings are not the same. The 'of the citizens thereof' is merely a clarification on the nature of the vote itself, not on the nature of the three-fourths requirement: it tells us what the electorate of the vote is. This is a necessary disambiguation to specify that an actual referendum is required, rather than a three-fourths vote of the legislative power.

In sum, both the past statements at the Convention and the general practice in Atlasian history indicate that the provision should be read only to require a three-fourths proportion among ballots cast, not three-fourths of the eligible voters. The text does not provide any compelling evidence to the contrary. Because of this, I respectfully dissent from Parts I-D and II-C-1 of the majority opinion.