Article 3. GOVERNMENT STRUCTURE cont'd
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Section 3.13. Elections
Election of one-half of all Representatives and one-third of all Senators shall occur simultaneously in all the Territories every 2 years, on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Election of President shall occur simultaneously in all the Territories every 4 years, on the same day that Representatives are elected. Places of holding elections shall be prescribed in each Territory by the Legislature thereof.
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Election of President, Representatives, and Senators shall be conducted in such a manner that:
All citizens of the United Territories age 18 years or older, except for those ever convicted of a felony, are entitled to vote. Voting shall be optional. No person ever convicted of a felony shall be permitted to vote or become a candidate for any elected office. Felony convictions will be indicated on the person’s government database record.
All votes shall be cast on Election Day by citizens physically present at official polling places. No absentee ballot, early voting, remote voting, or electronic voting shall be available.
Voters may choose to vote in only some, or none, of the contests on the ballot.
Voters shall vote only at one of the designated polling places in the precinct corresponding to their residential address.
Sufficient numbers of voting booths and polling places shall be provided to ensure that voting in every geographical area is completed by 11:59 PM local time on Election Day.
Military personnel, including any stationed outside the Territories, shall be able to vote at a polling place where they are stationed.
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All polling places shall accommodate voters with physical limitations. Poll workers at each polling place shall record the total number of voters admitted to the voting booths, and this number shall be used instead of a census for apportionment purposes.
Section 3.14. Voting Process
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Prevention of duplicate voting: Poll workers shall look for an ink stain on the prospective voter’s hands. If he does not already have an ink stain, then his finger or iris shall be scanned to verify his identity in the secure government database record. If his record shows current citizenship, a residential address in that precinct, age of at least 18 years, and no felony convictions, then his attendance shall be noted in the official record, and an indelible ink stain shall be applied to his finger or other clearly visible part of his skin.
The same worker(s) who applied the stain shall then give voting materials, including written instructions, to the voter and admit him to the voting queue. Any person who leaves the voting queue or polling place after receiving the stain, regardless of having actually voted or not, shall not be permitted to return to the voting queue.
Secret ballot: The voting process shall not reveal any voter’s choice of candidate or proposal position while voting is proceeding. All votes will be cast using physical tokens of uniform size, placed by the voter into labeled slots in a panel to indicate his choices. As a voter places a token into a slot, the token shall be visible only to that voter as it travels to a separate collection bin designated specifically for that candidate or position. All observers outside the voting booth will be prevented, by means of visual barriers, from seeing the placement, movement, and destination of the tokens.
Prevention of multiple votes and conflicting votes: Each slot can be used a maximum of only once per voter. Each slot chosen by the voter will become mechanically blocked immediately after one token is inserted through that slot, and remain blocked until the next voter enters the voting booth. All slots for a given contest in which only one candidate or proposal can prevail will become mechanically blocked immediately after one token is inserted for one of the choices, and remain blocked until the next voter enters the voting booth.
Contests in which more than one candidate can prevail: Immediately after the final token for that contest is inserted through one of the remaining open slots, all slots for that contest will be mechanically blocked until the next voter enters the voting booth.
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Write-in candidates: One slot per candidate seat will be labeled for Write-In tokens. A voter shall have access to a special pen located in the voting booth to handwrite, onto a token, the name of any candidate who is not already listed on one of the labeled slots. The voter shall then insert that token into the Write-In slot, which operates in the same way as the other slots, becoming mechanically blocked immediately after one token is inserted through it.
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Before the visual barriers are placed, the equipment shall be tested under continuous public video broadcast in the days before Election Day, to verify that each labeled slot truly delivers tokens to its corresponding labeled bin. The video broadcast will also show the unchanging quantity and position of voting booths in each polling place for that particular election.
As the visual barriers are placed for the start of Election Day, this public video surveillance will continue monitoring the validated equipment and poll workers, but not voters, during the entire Election Day and beyond, to deter tampering.
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Any mistakes made by a voter cannot be corrected. Any unused tokens shall be placed by the voter into a separate bin for unused tokens. Voters shall exit the booth within a specified period of time after entering it. Slots in the voting apparatus shall become unblocked in preparation for the next voter only after the current voter has exited the voting booth. Any person attempting to re-enter the booth, or attempting to modify, defeat, or damage the voting apparatus shall be subject to criminal charges.
Citizens who have finished voting shall be invited at random, as space allows, to remain at the polling place and observe the voting process for any portion of the remainder of Election Day. Along with poll workers monitoring the proceedings, these citizen observers shall be free to alert election officials to any discrepancies or perceived mischief at the polling place.
After all voting has concluded, visual barriers shall be removed, and the tokens shall be viewed, photographed, and counted visually by clearly verifiable means. If, for any booth, the number of write-in tokens approaches the number of tokens placed for the competing candidates, those write-in tokens shall be individually read, sorted by name, and counted.
This work shall be performed by trained teams of election officials certified and sworn to uphold the impartiality of the process. Citizen observers shall also witness the process directly at the polling place.
Counting shall not be conducted by electronic signal or other invisible means. All count totals shall be verified and documented with a 2nd count by a 2nd independent team. If the 2nd count differs from the first, and the unofficial results indicate a tie, a recount team of three or more officials, none of whom were involved in the first two counts, shall perform a final recount.
The bins containing tokens shall remain guarded and monitored by the continuous live public video broadcast during the counting and recording of votes, and for 3 days afterward, in case an order is issued to re-evaluate the results. After those 3 days have passed, the tokens and equipment shall be removed and stored.
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Within 2 days after Election Day, each Territory’s appointed election officials shall produce a list of all the persons voted for, and of the number of votes for each; and shall certify, sign, record, publicly release, and transmit the list to the Common Government of the United Territories, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, read aloud the certified list from each Territory.
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In the contest for President, the person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President-Elect, if such number is a plurality of the whole number of votes counted. If there is more than one who have that number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose, by public ballot, one of them for President. In choosing the President, the Representation from each Territory shall have one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the Territories, and a majority of all the Territories shall be necessary to a choice.
