OFFICIAL: Preparation for General Elections

[seahobbit]

KRI said:

Personally, I think the current law could be 'cleaned up' but the general principles behind it are ones I support.

I think we can agree on that.

I still like the idea of geographical assignments; people in a certain province should have "something in common" in the real world, and geography (Europeans in Cézembre; Canadians in Atatürk; and so on) is a better criterion than most to accentuate regional identity within Talossa.

I can live with that, but I am not certain that I completely agree with the current regional assignment. Under the current rules, some provinces such as Ataturk and Vuode will always get more citizens than others and thus being closed and continuously creating anomalous assignments. This is what need to be fix, the formula should be that ending up getting a closed province and be reassigned, only as a rare event.

The 20% rule is also a good idea, though its application in practice may be complicated. A small alternative would be, in case a citizen is assigned to a "closed" province, to let them choose which underpopulated province they are assigned to rather than have it just a question of "the next province on the list." Or, as has been suggested, assign him to the most seriously underpopulated province.

My vote would be toward the smallest province, in order to avoid having one or two citizens provinces.

Where I would call for definite reform would be that I think citizens "outside" Talossan territory proper should be assigned a permanent, lifetime provincial assignment. As Acting SoS I have discovered it is hard to run an election when you're never quite sure what province a particular individual might belong to.

I have no particular opinion on that, I would be happy either way, as long as residents of Talossa proper are always assign to the actual province they live in.

Citizens outside Talossan boundaries who physically move into Talossa should, of course, be assigned to the province they live in.

Agreed.

[kri]

Azul, Marc,

> Under the current rules, some provinces such as Ataturk and Vuode will always get more citizens than others and thus being closed and continuously creating anomalous assignments. This is what need to be fix, the formula should be that ending up getting a closed province and be reassigned, only as a rare event.

I'm not sure Atatürk and Vuode are going to be permanently overpopulated; Canada does seem to be a fertile ground for Talossans though. Vuode should benefit from local growth, however, as the only part of Wisconsin assigned to Vuode is the city of Milwaukee proper.

> My vote would be toward the smallest province, in order to avoid having one or two citizens provinces.

I wouldn't necessarily have a problem with this. We may be getting somewhere!

Ben

[Xhorxh Asmour]

<A small alternative would be, in case a citizen is assigned to a "closed" province, to let them choose which underpopulated province they are assigned to rather than have it just a question of "the next province on the list.>

Perhaps this is the best alternative.

[kri]

<A small alternative would be, in case a citizen is assigned to a "closed" province, to let them choose which underpopulated province they are assigned to rather than have it just a question of "the next province on the list.>

> Perhaps this is the best alternative.

My only qualm about this is that the geographic model still seems coolest, and dropping people into the next province preserves a little of the geographic rationale behind the whole thing. Avoiding "ghetto provinces" (provinces that people refuse to join) is an imperative; the PC and Matthias Muth maintained a "constitutional" 99-year dictatorship in Mussolini Province, for instance, and in the 1990s it was a real issue that people didn't want to join that province because it was perceived as "politically dead." So it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Ben

[Lord Q]

KRI said:

Or, as has been suggested, assign him to the most seriously underpopulated province.

Where I would call for definite reform would be that I think citizens "outside" Talossan territory proper should be assigned a permanent, lifetime provincial assignment.

Citizens outside Talossan boundaries who physically move into Talossa should, of course, be assigned to the province they live in.

The first item I think would be the most fair. That way no single province will languish while the others become more robust. In the case of identical provinical citizen numbers, the province with the longest amount of time since its last citizen should receive the citizen.

I definitely agree with #2. From a paperwork standpoint this makes great sense, but the potential problem I see is that the differences between items 2 and 3 could be viewed as discriminatory. Maybe that could just be something that the Cort could work out when the time comes.

[kri]

> > [1] Or, as has been suggested, assign him to the most seriously underpopulated province.

> > [2] Where I would call for definite reform would be that I think citizens "outside" Talossan territory proper should be assigned a permanent, lifetime provincial assignment.

> > [3] Citizens outside Talossan boundaries who physically move into Talossa should, of course, be assigned to the province they live in.

> The first item I think would be the most fair. That way no single province will languish while the others become more robust. In the case of identical provinical citizen numbers, the province with the longest amount of time since its last citizen should receive the citizen.

Hmm... that isn't a bad idea.

> I definitely agree with #2. From a paperwork standpoint this makes great sense, but the potential problem I see is that the differences between items 2 and 3 could be viewed as discriminatory. Maybe that could just be something that the Cort could work out when the time comes.

An option (sort of similar to what we used to do, once upon a time) would be to make citizenship transfers voluntary. That is: If I live in Milwaukee and am assigned to Vuode, but move to New Hampshire and am reassigned to Atatürk, I have the option of leaving my citizenship with Vuode or assigning it to Atatürk. Originally, you could change provinces with the consent of the Ziu. So that's a possibility too.

Ben

[Xhorxh Asmour]

Good idea, Ben!

[inksplash]

Your Majesty, I think it's time for another Cheap Glory!

I should explain -- that was the name given to the moment when Talossa expanded from just Ben's bedroom to (more or less) it's current size.

So, I am suggesting we "annex" more of Milwaukee, so that Ben, Amy, Ian M, and I will once again reside in the GTA (that's Greater Talossan Area, *not* Grand Theft Auto!)

I say this only as a citizen, not as soon-to-be-ex-Prime-Minister.