At its January 18 meeting, THE SC considered two issues.
1. Jon Seattle challenged the use of the Borda count, alleging that it violated the UDHR. He requested that the election be tabulated using a system which would divide the points which would have been assigned to a voters unranked factions (had all factions been ranked) equally between the unranked factions. The SC decided to not uphold the challenge for the following reasons.
A. Timeliness - Jon submitted his request after the polls had opened. By the time the request was submitted, voters had cast ballots believing they would be tabulated in a certain way, the Borda count specified in the constitution. Changing the counting system would have required nothing short of stopping the voting and restating the polling.
B. The SC believes that the RA is owed a degree of deference. They passed a constitutional amendment calling for a Borda count, and we should presume they did it purposefully and aware of the consequences.
C. Jon's proposed remedy is predicated on the conjecture that a voter's not ranking factions constitues an expression of indifference regarding those factions. The history of the provision suggests otherwise. In the debate on the measure, proponents argued that voters should be allowed to exclude factions or candidates in order than they not be compelled to give a non last place rank to a faction or candidate they find unacceptable.
It is true that under an unmodified Borda system, a voter excluding choices ends up with a vote with less total weight than one from a voter who ranks all options. However , the voter makes that choice knowingly and those lost points go to no one rather than a faction/ candidate of which the voter disapproves.
The SC further requests that Jon present to the citizens of the CDS an explanation of the effects a change to the modified Borda count or the solution he proposed would have had on the election results, with the stipulation that said take place after the first meeting of the new RA.
2. The SC heard concerns about the members of the SC participating in political events (faction meetings and debates).
Unless the constitution proscribes otherwise, SC members are free to be active members of a faction, can campaign on behalf of a faction or its candidates, and certainly may vote in an elections. That said, the RA may chooses to impose more restrictive rules on SC members' partisan interests through a constitutional amendment. At present the constitution places no such limitations.