========CFJ 3857============
Rephrased CFJ Statement of CFJ 3857: If the person who sent this message (
https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-business/2020-June/043565.html)
is
a player, e cast a vote on Proposal 8442 in that message.
Judgement: DISMISS
An anonymous email account purporting to be a player who already voted on a
proposal retracted their vote and cast a new vote FOR the said proposal. A
link to the message is above. The question in this CFJ is whether, assuming
that anonymous account was indeed a player, their vote counted. I hold that
this is impossible to decide, as their vote MAY have been valid, but their
retraction was invalid, which makes it impossible to tell whether or not
they had already cast a valid ballot on that Agoran decision.
Firstly, the method of casting a vote. I will remind you all that by the
CFJ's statement, we are assuming that this anonymous individual was a
player, and there is therefore no need to question whether e may validly
take game actions that a player may take. For a vote to be valid, it must
satisfy six conditions, which are very different from the one condition of
a by announcement action. Therefore, rule 478's definition of "by
announcement" actions has no effect on the ballot itself. Let's go through
the six conditions and see which are met by the anonymous ballot (I am
quoting rule 683 here, almost in full)
"An entity submits a ballot on an Agoran decision by publishing a
notice satisfying the following conditions:
1. The ballot is submitted during the voting period for the
decision."
This condition was satisfied (there is no argument on this point)
" 2. The entity casting the ballot (the voter) was, at the
initiation of the decision, a player."
It is impossible to tell whether the ballot was cast by a player.
However, the CFJ statement specifically instructs me to accept that it
was, so we can assume that this condition was satisfied. Note, if it
were not for the statement of the CFJ, this would be an undecidable
question and lead to a judgement of DISMISS
" 3. The ballot clearly identifies the matter to be decided."
The ballot clearly identifies proposal 8442. Condition satisfied.
"4. The ballot clearly identifies a valid vote, as determined by
the voting method."
FOR is a valid vote under the applicable AI majority system, condition
satisfied.
"5. The ballot clearly sets forth the voter's intent to place
the identified vote."
Condition satisfied. E said that e wanted to vote that way.
"6. The voter has no other valid ballots on the same decision."
Whether or not the ballot satisfied the sixth condition for a valid
ballot is impossible to decide. This is because the anonymous player
was unsuccessful in retracting eir previous vote if e had cast one. To
quote rule 683 "an entity can by announcement withdraw... a ballot".
For an action to be taken by announcement, rule 478 tells us that the
actor "performs that action by unambiguously and clearly specifying
the action and announcing that e performs it." In this case, the actor
was taking the action of withdrawing a specific player's previous
ballot. For an action to be "unambiguous" and "clear" it must, at the
bare minimum, be possible to resolve, but this retraction is a
gigantic mystery. The recordkeepor simply doesn't know who to withdraw
the vote from, and no other Agoran knows either. I don't hold that
anonymous actions can never be ambiguous and clear, I simply hold that
in the specific case of withdrawing a specific person's ballot on an
Agoran decision, part of that action is obviously and integrally the
actor and their previous vote on the agoran decision (after all, a
vote never cast can't be withdrawn). So this action of withdrawing
fails.
This doesn't quite end this case, however. If the anonymous poster had
never cast a vote on that decision before, this vote was valid. How do
we know whether e did so or not? We can't because the voter
intentionally kept eir identity entirely secret. "Insufficient
information exists to make a judgement with reasonable effort", under
rule 591 (this is DISMISS as opposed to INSUFFICIENT because the case
was ably argued by several H. Agorans, thanks especially to Aris)
For the above reasons, DISMISS is the most appropriate judgement for this CFJ.
--
>From R. Lee
