On Wed, Feb 5, 2025 at 1:02 PM ais523 via agora-business < agora-busin...@agoranomic.org> wrote:
> On Wed, 2025-02-05 at 17:44 +0000, Katherina Walshe-Grey via agora- > business wrote: > > On Wed, 2025-02-05 at 02:16 -0600, secretsnail9 via agora-official > > wrote: > > > 9211~ qenya, Mischief 1.7 De-Convoluting Mooting v1.1 > > > 9212* Mischief 3.0 Incentives > > > 9213~ Murphy 1.0 Twice the pride > > > > FOR, FOR, FOR. > > CFJ: qenya has submitted a valid ballot on each of the referenda on > proposals 9211, 9212, and 9213. > > Evidence: the above-quoted message. > > Arguments: > > There are various requirements to submit a ballot, but the most > relevant ones here are "The ballot clearly identifies the matter to be > decided." and "The ballot clearly sets forth the voter's intent to > place the identified vote." (both in rule 683). The intent here seems > to be for the first FOR to refer to the referendum on proposal 9211, > the second to the referendum on proposal 9212, and the third to the > referendum on proposal 9213. > > However, in order for there to be three ballots cast, the message has > to be interpreted as three voting notices, each of which identifies a > different referendum. In this case, it's only the surrounding context > that implies the specific referendum – in fact, all three notices are > identical, and it's only their position in the message that suggests a > particular decision is referred to. In other words, the context that > the notices require to identify a decision is not part of the notices > themselves. (It isn't like a regular interspersed-votes voting message, > in which the relevant line of the Promotor's message is quoted > immediately before each voting notice and can plausibly be considered > to be part of it.) > > Does the fact that the notices can't be interpreted without the context > of the entire message invalidate the ballots? Or are they valid ballots > regardless? Gratuitous: Where are we to draw the line? If there were a bunch of lines, interspersed with numbered footnotes (like [1], [2]), and the actual votes were in the footnotes, would that not count? I'm sure I could manufacture other edge cases as well. But the point is that trying to draw a distinction along purely formal lines is silly. There is a test we use in numerous other contexts: clarity. Is it clear what the votes are, from the message text alone, without need to consult some other messages or astral signs or obscure code? Of course it is. Thus, these ballots should be allowed. True, clarity is a tricky thing to discern, but it is probably also the single issue with which our courts have the most experience. -Aris >
