The Musical Chairs Amendment

[Róibeard Laira]

The Musical Chairs Amendment

WHEREAS The Cosa has 200 seats, and the number of votes in a general election is not always divisible by 200, and

WHEREAS This means each political party's share of Cosa seats can come out to a fractional number, and

WHEREAS The method specified in the Organic Law for allocating fractional seats is confusing, and

WHEREAS We don't even seem to be following it;

THEREFORE Article VIII, section 2 shall be amended to read,

"Based on the final vote tally, the Secretary of State shall calculate the apportionment of seats among the parties. Each party shall initially receive a percentage of the seats equal to its percentage of the popular vote. This may result in one or more parties receiving a whole number of seats plus a fractional seat.

Each party shall receive a whole number of seats in the final seating of the Cosa. To allocate fractional seats, parties may caucus together and combine their fractional seats to create a whole seat to be filled by mutual consent of the party leaders of all parties contributing to the seat. The Secretary of State may set a deadline for parties to complete the caucus process. This deadline may be no earlier than 48 hours after the final vote tally is certified.

In the event that fractional seats remain after the caucus process, the Secretary of State shall randomly select which party or parties will receive whole seats. This random process shall ensure that each party that has a fractional seat will receive either zero of one seat in place of their fractional seat, that the probability of each party receiving one seat is equal to the value of their fractional seat, and that the total number of seats in the Cosa is 200.

The Secretary of State shall employ whatever mathematical formulae and calculations he or she wishes in implementing the random process, although use of percentile dice is encouraged to celebrate our national pastime. The Uppermost Cort shall be the final judge in case of mathematical disputes.

Uréu q'estadra så: Roibeard Cresti Laira (MC - GRUMP)

[Daniel Filan]

Why not let the King appoint empty seats? Let him show a bit of his inner tyrant.

[Sir C. M. Siervicül]

This looks good. My one comment is that "final vote tally" and "final tally" are similar but used differently, which is confusing.

[Xhorxh Asmour]

Nov 10, 2008 23:26:52 GMT -6 Daniel Filan said:

Why not let the King appoint empty seats? Let him show a bit of his inner tyrant.

Sounds no good to me. That should be determined by law.

[Owen Edwards]

Good thinking Roib.

[Deleted]

Seems like a fine idea. BTW, "ammended" should be "amended."

[Róibeard Laira]

Nov 11, 2008 11:45:11 GMT -6 Sir C. M. Siervicül said:

This looks good. My one comment is that "final vote tally" and "final tally" are similar but used differently, which is confusing.

Good point, I've changed it to read:

"Each party shall receive a whole number of seats in the final seating of the Cosa."

Nov 12, 2008 11:04:45 GMT -6 @danielo said:

Seems like a fine idea. BTW, "ammended" should be "amended."

Thanks.

Btw, am I allowed to modify my post in place, which is what I did? It doesn't preserve an audit trail of the changes.

[Dréu Gavárþic'h]

Usually we write at the bottom of our edited posts:

EDIT: yourreasonhere

But in the Hopper I don't think that's necessary.

[Sir C. M. Siervicül]

Nov 12, 2008 14:46:15 GMT -6 Róibeard Laira said:

Btw, am I allowed to modify my post in place, which is what I did? It doesn't preserve an audit trail of the changes.

What Dreu said. It's SOP to modify the original post as the bill changes, but I do wish people would also add a note explaining the changes they made, or, ideally, use struck text and italics to show edits to drafts.

[Owen Edwards]

I think elsewhere in the site it doesn't matter as much (though it's not bad practise), but in the Hopper/Ziu/Cort it might be "safer" to do so.