Part III — The public power that serves it

18. The Vote Conviction Does Not Take

Hano's case derives confinement and a ballot entitlement together. Hano cannot travel freely under the custody rules, but remains part of the electorate.

Here, conviction and custody take neither franchise nor candidacy. Political rights have their own basis, and punishment status does not supply an exception. The basic ballot entitlement follows from personhood and recorded general adulthood. Hano has both. Adulthood itself attaches in law at the common age; a registrar records evidence and cannot grant or withhold the status.

The full political framework also requires ordinary residence and one chosen political home at each applicable tier. Citizenship, property, a conventional address, immigration classification, employment, wealth, document perfection or a waiting period cannot replace that baseline. Registration records membership rather than creating it. The basic ballot conclusion alone establishes neither residence nor a valid public result.

An enterprise receives no ballot, candidacy, human standing, or extra political weight. It may petition, testify and publish attributed views, but its treasury cannot fund candidates or parties or purchase independent electoral advocacy. Public, private, cooperative, mutual and nonprofit enterprise forms face the same prohibition. Their members keep individual political rights. The rules for unions and voluntary civic associations cannot be settled merely by calling them enterprises.

What conviction leaves intact

The conviction mechanism withdraws free movement while preserving the person's other rights. Hano remains a person, is owed the floor including expression, and retains the ballot conclusion. Neither a void nor a recognition loss follows for Hano in this case. No recorded act of expression follows from custody, and the ballot entitlement is not evidence that Hano cast a vote.

The retained franchise matters because people subject to confinement remain entitled to participate in choosing the government responsible for it. Voting is not their only way to object: speech, challenge and remedy remain separate rights. Conviction does not convert political membership into a reward for conduct the State approves.

A void does not remove the vote

Bela is voided and still holds the ballot conclusion. The finding prevents a new adverse signature from qualifying; it is not a withdrawal of citizenship, residence or adulthood. Nor does it establish that Bela is incapable of political judgment.

Hano and Bela test different routes to the same boundary. A custody conclusion and a void each coexist with the franchise. Neither verdict supplies a reason to subtract political weight.

The home custody does not move

Confinement creates no new political home and removes no old one. A prison, detention site, institution, shelter, eviction destination, military posting or other compelled placement cannot replace the last voluntary uncontested home. The public result must carry positive evidence of that continuity; the custody entry alone proves no home.

A voluntary move establishes the new political home and ends the old in the same transition. During a dispute, the last uncontested voluntary home remains. A first-time resident with no earlier home has a provisional route through accessible evidence, an attested cross-jurisdiction omission record and independent review. Silence or a bare assertion of no earlier home cannot supply it.

An effective submission already accepted for a decision remains the person's only one through a move. The new home cannot issue another. A positive provisional status can preserve an expiring opportunity while review continues, without creating a second ballot, extending continuity or prolonging an incumbent's authority.

A nonresident receives no local, regional or common ballot or candidacy at those tiers. Universal standing, protection, petition and the former resident's right to return remain. Return creates no diaspora ballot, and citizenship creates no extra electoral weight.

Candidacy shares the adult-resident baseline. A separately established present incompatibility can exclude someone from a particular office only if it is individualised, relevant, proportionate, time-limited and reviewable. It cannot affect the person's vote. A later move cannot silently end or extend a current office.

These legal conditions do not discover residence or age. Removing necessary personhood evidence or withholding the age record can prevent the basic franchise conclusion even where the entitlement exists in law. Esa's case makes that distinction visible: no ballot derives until the adulthood evidence is supplied. Challenge, independent determination, continuity and provisional opportunity address disputed evidence; none observes a birthday or delivers a ballot by itself.

What protects the entitlement

One test adds a rule granting the ballot to adults who are not prisoners. The rule is accepted. Hano nevertheless retains the ballot because the broader entitlement also remains. An additional grant has not repealed the existing one. Replacing the broader rule would be a different change; losing Hano's entitlement would fail the prisoner ballot check.

This result concerns these two rules. Elsewhere, a new entry can defeat a condition that depended on its absence. The example does not establish that every addition leaves all previous conclusions intact.

An attempted entry simply declaring a ballot entitlement is refused; the evidence required by the rule must support it. Even an entry purporting to permit direct declarations does not bypass that condition. When a test submits a person entry together with a forged entitlement, neither is accepted. The method follows this case through its exact inputs. These checks concern entitlement. A cast ballot, tally or reported institutional decision needs separate evidence.

These safeguards answer different attacks. Refusing a direct declaration does not authenticate the evidence submitted instead. Testing the entitlement under conviction does not prevent someone from editing its rule. The amendment system governs proposed changes; a rule the computer accepts is not thereby a lawful amendment.

The floor has a separate protection against the tested rule that confines someone for lacking a floor condition. That refusal does not prevent every possible attack on the floor or protect the ballot rule from replacement. Each guarantee needs the checks appropriate to how it can be changed.

A right still needs a ballot

A public result must bind the exact decision, configuration, roster, separate completeness assurance, unique submissions, legal rule, result, challenge and correction route, independent certification and current source. That is what allows a certified result to support public authority.

The model does not authenticate the roster, discover an omitted resident, operate a changing tally, resolve competing submissions or collect Hano's vote. It checks the supplied premises and the bounded authority they support. A ballot entitlement with no accessible ballot is an undelivered right, just as an entitlement to food is not a meal.

The child with nobody

Nell's birth entry supplies no evidence of general adulthood, so no ballot conclusion follows. The record cannot distinguish being below the threshold from missing evidence that it has been reached. It establishes neither a punishment nor Nell's actual age.

Nell's right to be heard does not wait for adulthood: the prohibition on a minimum speaking age follows from personhood alone. Participation cannot be reduced to the franchise. The next chapter examines what institutions may record about a person, including the evidence on which political rights depend.