[DISCUSSION] Amendments to 2012/L1 for the Senate.

[Üc R. Tärfâ]

I know that we must wait for the Referendum, but I think that if we sort out the necessary modifications to our Electoral Law (provided that we want to conduct Senatorial elections according to our own rules) before, we'll need only to approve those amendments when the time will come.

For reference, here's the current Law.

I think there are 2 obstacles that prevent us to adopt the Capitán procedures straightforwardly:

• Org. 4.2 requires «Elections for the filling of places in the Senäts shall be conducted simultaneously with general elections to the Cosa.» which I think the obvious interpretation is that the "window of opportunity" for the voting-period of the Senatorial election should be simultaneous or at least start while voting for the Cosâ it's underway. Modifications in § IV.3 and the adding of § IV.4.a deal with this.The reason for § IV.1.a it lies in the supposition that also 44RZ4 will pass the referendum.
  
• Org. 4.10 states: «If a Senator vacates his or her seat before the end of the term, the executive of the province shall appoint a Senator to sit until the next General Election or the next provincial election in that province, whichever is sooner, at which time the people of the province shall elect a Senator to serve the remainder of the term. If the provincial executive fails to appoint a Senator within a fortnight of the vacancy, the King or his Cunstavál shall appoint the Senator. ». As this section isn't affected by the referendum, originally "provincial election" cannot include Senatorial ones as they couldn't be held by Provinces, but as the Referendum will modify it giving the possibility for Provinces to held Senatorial Election, the original "provincial election" limitation may loose its meaning as a by-election could be considered as a "provincial by-election" as the OrgLaw says «next provincial election in that province [...] at which time the people of the province shall elect a Senator». I think. Proposed § IV.5 and IV.5.a deals with this and with the «to serve the remainder of the term» (reason for the 3 months limitation).

Here's the draft.