Challenge to Mandatory Voting Act

[ancient forge]

I hereby sue for voiding the Mandatory Voting Act.

It will take 100 Euro from all citizens for not voting; whether they're active, inactive, legal persons etc.

1. With legal persons being unable to vote, my company will be unfairly disadvantaged. This violates §4.2.2 of the constitution.

2. Further I sue the Federation for Corruption according to §5.1 of Crimal Law:
   Our government would with this law start accepting money for refraining to vote in a general election. This is against the specific letter of the law.
   This looks like a cheap cash grab by the government, fully knowing that inactive persons are very unlikely to vote, dito for legal persons.

3. To emphasize: I don't mind the intent of the law, which hopefully is to tax active players abstaining from voting. But it at least needs to take care of hardships: Be they company legal persons, people on vacation, inactive etc.
   Especially implications regarding property ownership by using §4.4.1 for a now open fine seems ill-warranted.

4. Pro forma I ask for a temporary injunction against the law, just in case this takes longer than the voting itself for our next general election.

[outer harness]

We have an amendment to this law in progress that will have it not apply to legal persons or inactive players

[tiny dew]

I see this law modification already has 2 yes votes, nullifying points 1 and 4. As far as point 2 goes:
I do not think this constitutes corruption under 5.1. The law reads as the person doing the voting accepting benefits to refrain from voting in a general election. The government collecting a fine for someone not voting is not the same.

The government is trying to cause people to vote to begin with, not necessarily to vote in any particular manner

[ancient forge]

Instead of slapping someone with a fine, it might be more prudent to reach that goal via incentivizing voting with a "voting reward". Voter turnout has been low in the past and it's hard to imagine a fine changing that. Also solves the issue of who to "actually" slap with the fine.

Done like this, we are forced to vote for a candidate, even if we dislike the options. The game afaik doesn't allow us an "empty" vote to show disdain or protest. Random votes or protest votes are the only options now. That's not democracy.

Done like this, it looks more like a tax in disguise. People usually are hit at least once with the fine on their way to abandoned. If you need money - increase taxes.

Even the people we vote for vote rarely enough. But only general elections are targeted. It would be equitable, if declining to vote in any vote would result in a fine, not just in general elections. I don't see the reason why general elections are singled out.

[ancient forge]

But back to the problem at hand:

1./4. Exceptions for legal persons I see fixing those specific complaints.

2. The way this law (or elections in Eco in general) is made, as I have pointed out, doesn't allow us to file an empty vote.

So we have to vote for someone.

This law punishes two types of behaviours in general elections:

• Offering benefits in return for voting in a particular manner
• Offering benefits in return for refraining to vote
  It also punishes accepting those benefits.

We can probably agree that not voting doesn't offer me any benefits. But how is "I don't get slapped with a fine" not a benefit to me? "I don't want to get slapped, here's an empty vote" is not an option. So I have to chose a candidate, even if there is only one person or if I dislike every option.

My vote of "none of these people!" gets changed into "Ok, you!", because my government is trying to compel me into avoiding a fine.

[ancient forge]

Also, on a more technical part. This is the current revision in question:

With Federal Elections looking like this:

And being these:

To take an example:

10 people wouldn't have been fined.
The others either accept the fine or vote for PandaDono, if we had the same election again.

For the sake of argument, let's assume this law actually reaches its goal: everyone will try to vote.
41 of the 81 currently active vote for one person, this would mean the election reaches 51%, as per Federal Election process, thus is instantly over and we have a winner?!

Whoever didn't vote fast enough gets fined? So some remainder of the minority probably, after instant finish? To be fair, I'm not sure multi-candidate votes work this way or if they even have an instant finish.

[umbral olive]

I agree with Weylin the law is not fair. If someone is gone for the weekend (more than 24 hours) that person would be penalized for not playing the game every day.

[meager cosmos]

As we learned in week 1 with PM election, elections will not auto-conclude. The auto conclude function only works for yes/no votings. Even if there is just one candidate in the election.

[dawn fable]

From my understanding (which is albeit somewhat limited), this law when enacted would be unconstitutional as the Federation would be going against an earlier ruling/agreement in regards to ones wealth, especially of those in the low income bracket and generally would discriminate against them.
This would either cause the constitution (or part thereof) to fail and have ramifications throughout the world unless the law is repealed/declared void.

[barren merlin]

fines are just extra taxes for the poor #changemymind

[fossil carbon]

I only see one valid point: It should only affect people that actually were online during any point of the voting time or a similar tight timeframe that is technically possible.

Excluding inactive could work as well, if that is not possible.

[dawn fable]

"UBI is touchable", "UBI is sacred" yet low incomed citizens will now face a tax on same monies if they excerise their right to not vote for any party. Good job.

[fossil carbon]

A fine is not a tax.