I also call for judgement on the following statement and its negation.A player who is in Suspended Animation may be assigned a counting vote as the result of a Bribe.
Rule 382 [Suspended Animation] states that no player may conduct any Nomic business during a period of Suspended Animation. Voting seems to constitute Nomic business, so a player would seem to be ineligible to vote during a period of Suspended Animation. Rule PR449 [Bribes] states that the Bribe takes effect if "the nominated Voter is eligible to vote on the specified Proposal". So whether a Suspended player may be bribed depends on the exact interpretation of 382 (either the player is ineligible to vote, or the player is eligible but unable to vote).
The Judge selected was Owen Massey, who delivered on 15.xii.1997:
[judgement]
A player who is in Suspended Animation may not be assigned a counting vote as the result of a Bribe.[reasons]
"Nomic business", an as yet undefined phrase, may be informally understood as any communication which may change the state of the game in a manner specified by the rules. Thus casting a vote is Nomic business as it may alter the result of a vote on a Proposal; whether it does so or not is immaterial. Posting a comment to the newsgroup is not Nomic business as no rule suggests a change in the game state that would follow from it. A Scribe is conducting Nomic business when writing a newsletter because they are performing the duties of an Office laid down in the rules and they will earn CV points for doing so.Rule 382 [Suspended Animation] states that no player may conduct any Nomic business during a period of Suspended Animation. Sending a message to the Speaker to cast a vote certainly constitutes Nomic business. I interpret 'vote' to mean 'send a message to the Speaker to cast a vote', so a Suspended player is ineligible to vote on any Proposal for which the voting period falls entirely within their period of Suspended Animation. A Bribe takes effect only if "the nominated Voter is eligible to vote on the specified Proposal". Hence the vote of a player in Suspended Animation may not be determined by a Bribe if the voting period for the specified Proposal falls entirely within their period of Suspended Animation.
[other comments]
Rule 382 states explicitly that a Suspended player makes a "legally cast counting vote which is an abstention" on every such Proposal. My presumption is always against rules being internally self-contradictory, so I feel that this abstention does not count as Nomic business. The Speaker is the player responsible for recording this vote, of which the Suspended player is unaware; I deem the Speaker to be performing, and the Suspended player not to be performing, Nomic business.By this token, however, a player is not conducting Nomic business when their counting vote is determined by a Bribe, unless they Bribe themselves. The reason a Suspended player may not be Bribed is merely that they may not cast a vote themselves. Note also that, since the Speaker may only cast a vote on every 25th Proposal, the Speaker may only be Bribed on every 25th Proposal.
The Speaker had called for judgement because a player had entered Suspended Animation after the start of a vote and subsequently received a Bribe; fortunately his vote was irrelevant to the adoption or failure of that particular Proposal but it was necessary to decide how he'd voted in order to award points. Owen Massey's judgement failed to deal with this case, but when prompted, he provided an addendum. (This was given after the first judgement, but since judgements are not binding and technically only the first sentence of the above was the judgement, it didn't matter.)The Speaker is right. In this case, according to my reasoning set out above, the player is eligible to vote on the Proposal, and so their vote will be determined by a Bribe sent just as if they were not Suspended. This also applies in the case where a player leaves Suspended Animation partway through a voting period. It is therefore not possible to avoid a Bribe by entering Suspended Animation for a brief period, only by doing so for the entirety of the voting period, which of course debars you from casting your own vote.
P58 is directly relevant.