I submit the following thesis, entitled "On Conditional Votes and Trust Tokens":
TL;DR (aka abstract): Conditional votes work, but with two caveats. First, they operate prospectively and, when cast, their value is determined by looking into the future to the end of the voting period. Hence, they are indeterminate. Second, the default of PRESENT does not work at all, meaning that the validity of a conditional vote is also indeterminate. Also, CFJ 3569 is FALSE because Trust Token endorsement must be direct. This thesis and judgment is written as a reconsideration of CFJ 3569. The statement of the CFJ is "If grok had not deregistered, e would have issued trust tokens to both Aris and G. by eir vote on Proposal 7899." The context of the CFJ is as follows: grok voted :Endorse Aris" on proposal 7899, but Aris's vote was "Endorse the Arbitor". G. was the Arbitor at the end of the voting period. In effect, the CFJ is asking whether grok's endorsement was effective of endorsing G. as well for the purpose of Rule 2452. I originally judged CFJ 3569 to be FALSE, finding that Rule 683's condition requiring that a "valid vote" be clearly indicate meant that conditional votes failed altogether; since a conditional vote does not clearly indicate a single valid vote. A number of arguments were raised in response, leading to a Motion to Reconsider. I will summarize the critical arguments below: >From G.: - The judgment cited precedent that the correctness of a ballot is evaluated at the time of its submission, but did not specify which precedent, most precedent being around informally conditional actions (e.g. "if I own an X, I do Y with it") - Rule 2127 is explicitly intended to define the effect of conditionals and get around the usual definition, by defining what "clearly specified" means in the context of a vote. This could operate either by deferral of the determination of clearly specified, or by operating retroactively. - Even in absence of the above effects, Rule 2127's default of PRESENT would apply to a ballot cast conditionally, so that such a ballot is at least evaluated in the instant to PRESENT. >From myself: - If Rule 2127 had retroactive effect, then it would create the possibility of retroactively changing the outcome of another proposal, by making a vote conditional on a vote on a different proposal; if the latter was a conditional then retroactively changing it could also retroactively change the first vote. From this, paradox could arise. >From Aris: - Present conditionals are well-understood to succeed, under the general built-up framework of interpreting conditional actions, as such a conditional always identifies a vote. - A ballot is a textual entity, containing a conditional that should be evaluated when the ballot is evaluated, i.e. when the decision is resolved. The ballot is merely a notice of something in the future. To begin, I will first point to Rule 217, which states "When interpreting and applying the rules, the text of the rules takes precedence. Where the text is silent, inconsistent, or unclear, it is to be augmented by game custom, common sense, past judgements, and consideration of the best interests of the game." In regards to contiditional votes, it is clear that all of the augmenting factors point to conditional votes functioning in some fashion: game custom certainly establishes that they do, as do the best interests of the game. Past judgments on conditional voting are in line with them functioning at all, and common sense (into which one can likely subsume legal principles of statutory interpretation) imply that Rule 2127 (the rule defining conditional votes) would not exist if it did not have some purpose. So the question then is, what does the text of the rules state? CFJ 3465 is the strongest precedent I am aware of regarding ballot evaluation. In it, I successfully argued to the H. Judge nichdel that the correctness (note: this is distinct from validity) of a ballot was evaluated at the time of its submission. I will reiterate the critical arguments here. Rule 683 states "An entity submits a ballot on an Agoran decision by publishing a notice satisfying the following conditions:" followed by a list of conditions. The term "notice" is, in this context, undefined by the rules. Per usual English interpretation, in this context, "notice" simply means a document. Rule 683 is clear that the mechanism to submit a ballot is to publish the notice. Publishing is defined by Rule 478 as sending a public message. It follows that if, at the time of publication, the notice does not satisfy the conditions set out in Rule 683, no ballot is submitted. The fact that the notice may later satisfy the conditions is immaterial, as the notice is not being published at that point. So can conditional votes generally satisfy the conditions? The condition at issue is "4. The ballot clearly identifies a valid vote, as determined by the voting method." The definition of valid vote was discussed at length in my previous reasons, and I will not discuss them here. Absent confounding factors, then, it would be clear that the published notice must indeed identify a valid vote. I do agree with Aris's arguments that the general rules regarding conditional actions apply here. There is nothing disallowing a notice which is conditional, at the time of its publication; assuming the conditional is effective per the precedents on conditional actions, such a notice does identify a valid vote once the conditional is resolved. Rule 2127 is, however, a confounding factor. As G. argued, it is clearly intended to get around the usual way that conditionals can act only in the present, and instead creates a form of future-conditional vote. Note that I must at this point reject Aris's argument that a conditional vote is evaluated at the time of the decision's resolution. Rule 2127 is explicit that the conditional is evaluated at the end of the voting period, and there is nothing in the rules or game custom to contend otherwise. As G. noted in eir arguments, Rule 2127 states "If a vote on an Agoran decision <https://agoranomic.org/ruleset/#Rule693> is submitted conditionally (e.g. "FOR if <X> is true, otherwise AGAINST"), then the selected option is evaluated based on the value of the condition(s) at the end of the voting period, and, rules to the contrary notwithstanding, is clearly specified if and only if the value of the condition(s) is/are determinate at the end of the voting period. If the option cannot be clearly identified, a vote of PRESENT is cast." Of note is the fact that it explicitly attempts to take precedence over other rules (including 683) to define that "the selected option... is clearly specified" under the circumstances it provides when a conditional vote is made. Does this apply to condition 4? After reexamining the circumstances, it appears to me that the answer is yes. While the language used is slightly different (option vs vote, clearly indicated vs clearly specified), and while some of those terms are terms of art within the rules, none is explicitly defined, so there is some leeway in interpretation here. Note also that 2127 itself uses "clearly identified" in the following sentence, indicating some looseness in terminology. In my original judgment, I had not considered this line of text in the way that G.'s arguments encouraged, and this represents the critical change in my reasoning. Unfortunately, this still presents some difficulty, because the definition is prospective. The direct consequence of interpreting condition 4 using the definition specified in Rule 2127 is that the correctness of the ballot at the time of its submission is determined by looking into the future. The only potential save could be, as G. argued, the following sentence: "If the option cannot be clearly identified, a vote of PRESENT is cast." This does not directly bear on the outcome of CFJ 3569, but in the interests of completeness and avoiding simply postponing the controversy, I will analyze how to evaluate conditional votes below. Having determined that a conditional vote is indeed valid provided its condition is determinate, the only remaining questions required to resolve this case is whether grok's vote had a determinate condition and whether Aris and G., who both cast valid votes on the decision, were "endorsed by [grok]'s valid vote on the Decision" (Rule 2452). It is clear that grok's vote had a determinate condition, making it valid, and it clearly endorsed Aris (regardless of how such it would actually be evaluated). So grok would have issued Aris a trust token. However, did grok's vote endorse G.? Per Rule 2127, "Casting a vote endorsing another voter is equivalent to conditionally casting a vote whose value is the same as the most common value (if any) among that voter's valid votes on that decision." While this definition technically applies only to the point when the vote would cast, it would be unreasonable to interpret the meaning of "a vote endorsing that voter" as meaning anythong other than "a conditional vote whose value is the same as the most common value (if any) among that voter's valid votes on that decision." There are two reasonable ways to evalute this definition on grok's vote then: either it is an inherent property of the vote, or it is evaluated, like all conditionals, at the end of the voting period. A quirk in the wording of Rule 2127 gives a hint. It defines endorsing votes as an equivalence with a specific class of votes, rather than merely defining what it means to endorse a player. Consequently, any conditional vote whose value is as described in Rule 2127 is an endorsing vote, regardless of whether or not the vote explicitly uses the word "endorse". The terms are interchangeable Substituting this into Rule 2452, that would mean that grok issues a Trust Token to G. if "grok had a valid conditional vote whose value is the same as the most common value (if any) among G's valid votes on the decision". If we evaluate this at the end of the voting period, then a thoroughly absurd result ensues: not only would G. be issued a trust token, but also every other player who cast the same vote. As such, we must interpret the definition as applying to an intrinsic property of the conditional. Thus, we cannot consider Aris's vote when we decide whether grok's vote endorsed, G. and so it did not. grok would not have issued G. a Trust Token, meaning that CFJ 3569 is FALSE. With that resolved, how then should a conditional vote be evaluated? This is unfortunately a thorny issue. As I wrote above, whether or not the vote is valid is effectively determined prospectively, by looking into the future. Before digging deeper, however, I will draw attention to one key point: the question of a ballot's correctness (i.e. whether it meets the requirements of Rule 683) is independent from the question of how it is evaluated in an Agoran decision. Thus, I see two remaining questions: first, is a conditional vote with an indeterminate condition correctly submitted, or does it fail to clearly identify a valid vote? and second, how does one evaluate a conditional vote? To address the first question, I quote again Rule 2127: "If a vote on an Agoran decision <https://agoranomic.org/ruleset/#Rule693> is submitted conditionally (e.g. "FOR if <X> is true, otherwise AGAINST"), then the selected option is evaluated based on the value of the condition(s) at the end of the voting period, and, rules to the contrary notwithstanding, is clearly specified if and only if the value of the condition(s) is/are determinate at the end of the voting period. If the option cannot be clearly identified, a vote of PRESENT is cast." The first sentence provides very clear conditions about when the option is clearly specified. What does the second sentence do in this context? Does it indicate that, when the condition is indeterminate, the selected option is clearly specified as PRESENT? I think that this cannot be the case, because to do so would completely obviate the definition of "clearly specified" in the first place. Why would the rule state that an option is not clearly specified if the conditional is indeterminate, only to change its mind in the next sentence? This does not actually matter, however, because the first sentence contains a precedence claim and the second sentence does not. Per Rule 2240, this means that the first sentence takes precedence and, consequently, the second sentence does not modify it. If the condition is indeterminate at the end of the voting period, the vote is not clearly specified. Per the reasoning above, this means that the conditional ballot is not submitted. What, then, is the meaning of the second sentence? The most reasonable interpretation, in context, is that it is trying to say that if the condition is indeterminate, then at the end of the voting period, we resolve it to PRESENT rather than attempting to evaluate it. If this is the correct interpreration, it is meaningless, because by the above we can never get to that point. There is an alternative interpretation: the second sentence is not providing for a way to evalauate the original conditional ballot but instead provided for an altogether new, unconditional ballot of PRESENT to be cast. Unfortunately, this interpretation also fails to have any meaningful effect. The vote counting procedure is defined in Rule 955 in terms of valid ballots, and Rule 683 provides a clear definition: "A valid ballot is a ballot, correctly submitted, that has not been withdrawn. During the voting period of an Agoran decision, a player CAN by announcement withdraw (syn. retract) a ballot that e submitted on that decision." As Rule 683 has a lower ID number than Rule 2127, by Rule 1030, Rule 683 takes precedence. There is thus no possibility of Rule 2127's "vote of PRESENT" actually being a valid ballot. So in conclusion, the answer is that a conditional vote is valid if and only if the condition ends up being determinate. If it is not, the entire vote fails; PRESENT is not an alternative. Finally, the question comes of evaluating a conditional vote. Happily, I see no reason why, for a valid vote, Rule 2127 should be anything other than what it straightforwardly says. Provided that the conditional is valid (i.e. determinate at the end of the voting period), it is evaluated as one would expect, at the end of the voting period. Prior to then, however, just like with the validity of the vote in the first place, the actual value of the vote is indeterminate. What are the practical implications of this? First, it is important to distinguish between prospective and retroactive effects here. The validity of a conditional vote is not retroactively changed at the end of the voting period, when we finally are able to decide if it is determinate or not. Rather, the validity *in the first place* is dependent on the future. In some cases, this can create effectively-retroactive effects. For instance, a subsequent, otherwise valid ballot cast by the same voter, without withdrawing the first one, would enter the same indeterminate state of validity, since it is valid if and only if the first ballot is invalid. This may present situations where the game may be difficult to play, but the concept of indeterminacy provides a shield in some cases. Rule 1023 means that the validity of the vote is indeterminate before the voting period ends, since it cannot be determined from information reasonably available. Rule 2127 itself provides that if a conditional vote is indeterminate, it doesn't work. So, taking from the example in my arguments, if a vote on one proposal is conditional on a vote on another proposal ending later, then it necessarily fails because the condition will be indeterminate. Likewise, Rule 2162 protects against indeterminately-valued switches. In conclusion, rules are hard. -Alexis
