Post by Glüc da Dhi on Jul 25, 2017 18:54:42 GMT -6
Apart from the things I mentioned here, the etats also seems to be dysfunctional for other reasons. I'm a big fan of proportional representation using party lists, but parties seem unable to get their seats filled, and even if they do, l'etats which is supposed to consist of 20 people really only consists of about 4-5 persons holding 4-5 seats. We have a maximum of 6 seats per person so no single person can hold more than 2/3rds of the seats, but with so little interest that rule only results in vacancies, which in turn gives the remaining members more than 2/3rds of the actual seats anyway, making that particular rule useless. The obvious answer is to further decrease the size of l'etats, and I think we should. However there is also another side to this; there are multiple active Cézembreans not represented in l'etats, for example because they are not a member of a certain party.
So how about this:
We don't have etats elections in terms with regularly scheduled senate elections. Instead we elect two halves of l'etats according to the following schedule:
...,S,E1,E2,S,E1,E2,S,E1,S,E2,E1,S,E2,E1,S,E2,...
S = Senator
E1 = first half of l'Etats
E2 = second half of l'Etats
Each separate election coinciding with a general election. (Or if we have a senatorial election in a given term we elect the Sénéchal and the Lord Warden at the same time during the GE, and if we have an Etats election we have the Etats election and the Sénéchal election in the weeks directly after the GE)
Both halves consist of about 5 seats (or more depending on the size of the population) and are elected using STV. Everyone can be a candidate and you can choose to list your party affiliation or run as an independent. If you are elected to one half you obviously cant be elected to the other half. If there arent enough candidates seats remain vacant.
That way its one seat per person. It also allows independents to run, while still including some sense of proportionality (not as proportional as full PR though obviously). 3-4 cosa terms for one MolE term seems pretty long, but even with months of recess it's still at most 3 years, which wouldn't be considered extremely long in any other country. It also means new citizens can join l'Etats even before they decide to join a party. STV is complicated and there are a lot of slightly different methods from which we would have to choose, but with the current size of Cézembre and splitting the election into two its feasible as long as the conducting officer understands how it works. It also means that we might on occasion actually get some competition for etats seats. After all, its a long time for one election which should make it more attractive and if in a year when the seats of few relatively active citizens are up for grabs there are also new citizens interested in a seat it might just happen that there are more candidates than seats. Those who lose will then have to wait for the other half to be elected. I'm not counting on spectacularly hard-fought elections with lots of campaigning, but just having just a little bit at stake for once might be interesting.
Any thoughts?
So how about this:
We don't have etats elections in terms with regularly scheduled senate elections. Instead we elect two halves of l'etats according to the following schedule:
...,S,E1,E2,S,E1,E2,S,E1,S,E2,E1,S,E2,E1,S,E2,...
S = Senator
E1 = first half of l'Etats
E2 = second half of l'Etats
Each separate election coinciding with a general election. (Or if we have a senatorial election in a given term we elect the Sénéchal and the Lord Warden at the same time during the GE, and if we have an Etats election we have the Etats election and the Sénéchal election in the weeks directly after the GE)
Both halves consist of about 5 seats (or more depending on the size of the population) and are elected using STV. Everyone can be a candidate and you can choose to list your party affiliation or run as an independent. If you are elected to one half you obviously cant be elected to the other half. If there arent enough candidates seats remain vacant.
That way its one seat per person. It also allows independents to run, while still including some sense of proportionality (not as proportional as full PR though obviously). 3-4 cosa terms for one MolE term seems pretty long, but even with months of recess it's still at most 3 years, which wouldn't be considered extremely long in any other country. It also means new citizens can join l'Etats even before they decide to join a party. STV is complicated and there are a lot of slightly different methods from which we would have to choose, but with the current size of Cézembre and splitting the election into two its feasible as long as the conducting officer understands how it works. It also means that we might on occasion actually get some competition for etats seats. After all, its a long time for one election which should make it more attractive and if in a year when the seats of few relatively active citizens are up for grabs there are also new citizens interested in a seat it might just happen that there are more candidates than seats. Those who lose will then have to wait for the other half to be elected. I'm not counting on spectacularly hard-fought elections with lots of campaigning, but just having just a little bit at stake for once might be interesting.
Any thoughts?
