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Post by Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on Apr 13, 2016 16:36:50 GMT -6
Yes, in my imagining.
Epic, every person could still represent themselves if we deliberately had no party fee and wrote into the law that each person could either vote for a party or vote to represent themselves. Best of both worlds?
I'm just spitballing, but I really want to get our citizen participation back up to where it used to be.
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Post by Eðo Grischun on Apr 13, 2016 16:40:01 GMT -6
Yes, I think we should elect to a joint assembly. Even combined, we're too small for more than one body of legislators or for any hierarchies. And I don't think that the units should have an opt-out veto. Provincial protection could come from one dedicated tribune with veto power per province. They can kill bills as a whole. This would mean that any corrupt or foolish legislation harmful to the interests of one of the two provinces would need to convince not only a majority of the joint assembly, but also the dedicated tribunes. So, for a bill to pass and take effect in M-M, the Vuode tribune needs to agree? and vice-versa. Surely, this usurps the power vested in the assembly?
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Post by Magniloqueu Épiqeu da Lhiun on Apr 13, 2016 16:42:53 GMT -6
The only reason I see for our citizen participation having fallen is because we conducted our elections ourselves. And I had predicted (I think, or maybe precogitated) that our voter turn-out would be even worse if we attempted to conduct our own elections.
I do not think that voters would be too lazy to write in the name of a party, instead of their own party. Seriously. It would be much more complicated to register their own provincial one-man-party, etc. blabla. My proposal is *actually* the best of both worlds. Your proposal just changes the definition/requirements of a party — which is not inherently bad, but indeed more complicated than the solution I put forward.
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Ian Plätschisch
Senator for Maritiimi-Maxhestic
Posts: 4,001
Talossan Since: 3-21-2015
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Post by Ian Plätschisch on Apr 13, 2016 17:35:48 GMT -6
Here's how I imagine it;
Each province has one tribune. A tribune can prevent a law from taking effect in their own province, but not in the other province. Tribunes are elected every cycle by IRV.
Epic's proposal as far as voting options (themselves, someone else, or a party) is similar to what I advocated for when we first negotiated the provincial elections law, and so I support it.
Would each province get equal representation regardless of votes cast? I think we should weight the number of seats each province gets based on population.
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Post by Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on Apr 13, 2016 19:46:48 GMT -6
Okay, so it seems there's two disagreements to be worked out on my proposal.
First, party voting or writing-in. I agree that it was primarily the switch away from the Chancery running the election that caused the drop-off in voting turnout, but that change is also inherent in direct democracy. You can't do it any other way... if direct participation -- either by taking a seat or personally assigning it -- is the order of the day, then you're going to have only 50% of the normal electorate giving their say to their government.
I'm deeply unhappy with that, since even people without the political knowledge or active interest in assigning personal representation should have a say in their government, but this is a point of ideology, and I know others might not share it.
I think voting should be as easy as possible, and opportunities for voter participation should be as easy as possible. That's why I suggest just letting the Chancery run it with party options but always including a SELF option on the ballot for those who want to directly speak their seat. Voters pick a party or else pick SELF (and then either represent themselves or choose a proxy). No need to have party registration for people who are going to do SELF, either. That would be silly.
Yes, voters might look up and write in a name, Epic. But I predict that they will not. We'll either get a few additional people writing in their own names or trying to write in a party name, and then those votes are wasted, or we get the exact same 50% turnout as now. Need I remind this Assembly that literally 0 people chose a proxy this past election?
As easy as possible for voters, that's my belief.
The second disagreement seems to be the role of the tribunes. Now, my suggestion about allowing them each a veto is to give each province a way to stop unfavorable legislation without a very complicated system where some laws apply to one province, some to the other, and so on. Basically it will very very shortly become impossible to actually govern the two with a single assembly if they have divergent systems of law. As soon as that option began to see some use, then the united assembly would essentially be unable to effectively work and would need to break up into two. If we're going to have one political system for the two provinces, then we need to only ever have one body of law.
Ian, I hadn't thought about weighting the vote. It seems to me that if we include the tribunes, we don't need to get complicated with assigning each M-Mer 1.2 votes while each Vuodean gets 1 vote in the joint assembly. The tribunes' job will be to watch out for their provincial interests.
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Post by Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on Apr 13, 2016 19:49:17 GMT -6
Let me also say that I'm delighted in the policy debate and this bold new vision and my cheerful compatriots in the law here in this Assembly!
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Ian Plätschisch
Senator for Maritiimi-Maxhestic
Posts: 4,001
Talossan Since: 3-21-2015
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Post by Ian Plätschisch on Apr 13, 2016 20:08:55 GMT -6
I think voting should be as easy as possible, and opportunities for voter participation should be as easy as possible. That's why I suggest just letting the Chancery run it with party options but always including a SELF option on the ballot for those who want to directly speak their seat. Voters pick a party or else pick SELF (and then either represent themselves or choose a proxy). That would be dandy, but does the Chancery have the capability to alert voters of their three options (party, proxy, or self)?
I can't tell if you are agreeing with my proposed plan or not. Letting tribunes veto a bill for a certain province would still create divergent law codes, or are you advocating that a tribunal veto would block the legislation for both provinces? I don't particularly like the idea of a tribune elected by one province being able to stop legislation from taking effect in another.
I don't see the problem with having two slightly different law codes for each province. As long as electoral procedures were consistent, how would a couple of differences bring ruin to a united assembly? If the law code was formatted with sections devoted to statutes which only applied to MM (or only applied to Vuode), it could remain as a single code.
Hmm. Sounds good to me, and it eliminates the complications of trying to weight representation.
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Post by Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on Apr 13, 2016 20:23:22 GMT -6
That would be dandy, but does the Chancery have the capability to alert voters of their three options (party, proxy, or self)? Yes, they can definitely include a SELF option on each ballot, which voters can select if they want to personally take charge of or personally assign their seat. I can't tell if you are agreeing with my proposed plan or not. Letting tribunes veto a bill for a certain province would still create divergent law codes, or are you advocating that a tribunal veto would block the legislation for both provinces? I don't particularly like the idea of a tribune elected by one province being able to stop legislation from taking effect in another. I don't see the problem with having two slightly different law codes for each province. As long as electoral procedures were consistent, how would a couple of differences bring ruin to a united assembly? If the law code was formatted with sections devoted to statutes which only applied to MM (or only applied to Vuode), it could remain as a single code. Yes, I think a tribune of either province should be able to block legislation, full stop. Consider if there was a bill to allow for local incorporation by adding a provision for it to Section B of a future legal code, for example, and it was blocked in one province and not in another, under your proposal. Then we'd need to have parallel and redundant legal codes for at least Section B, or else have notations in the legal code to mark out the sections that only apply to one province. And of course if this happens again with a different law, then we'd need more parallel sections or else at least three colors to code out our law. It gets even worse when you come to those small alterations we often do. Example: Imagine the national parallel, where some laws applied in all the countries and others applied only in different sections, and how confusing it would be. I just don't think it would work, practically speaking. If we're going to be one province in our government and law, then we need to have one government and one law. Otherwise we might as well remain separate.
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Ian Plätschisch
Senator for Maritiimi-Maxhestic
Posts: 4,001
Talossan Since: 3-21-2015
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Post by Ian Plätschisch on Apr 13, 2016 20:58:31 GMT -6
Yes, they can definitely include a SELF option on each ballot, which voters can select if they want to personally take charge of or personally assign their seat. So, you propose that anyone who wants to give themselves a seat, or appoint a proxy, would vote for themselves as a write-in candidate. Then, based on the list the chancery provides of people who voted for themselves in the provincial election, the Assembly allows these people to either give themselves a seat or give it to someone else. Would the chancery be able to inform voters of this procedure? Good point. I guess I would be amenable to that.
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Post by Eðo Grischun on Apr 13, 2016 21:47:34 GMT -6
I agree with AD.
However, just to note, the blue/red/yellow example is exactly how the UK operates within the EU. IE: EU enacts a law and the UK gets to pick and choose which bits of that law to adopt.
But, yeah, it gets messy.
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Post by Magniloqueu Épiqeu da Lhiun on Apr 14, 2016 2:13:21 GMT -6
That is why people in the EU are so annoyed by the UK. They get special treatment, and still bitch about Brussels.
Anyway, I think I can roll with the SELF-option, which is basically what I was advocating for.
About tribunes: maybe we can limit what they can block? Like, absolutely important changes (such as Constitutional Amendments, etc.) would not be under their vetoing power, etc. I think it also prudent that a supermajority of the joint assembly be able to override a tribune veto.
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Post by Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on Apr 14, 2016 5:08:36 GMT -6
I'm not sure we want to allow any unfair bills, big or small, Epic. When I think of mischief and malfeasance possible, I worry. So I think tribunes should be able to block all bills -- but I do love the idea of an override. I also agree that a supermajority is probably a good threshold for an override.
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Ian Plätschisch
Senator for Maritiimi-Maxhestic
Posts: 4,001
Talossan Since: 3-21-2015
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Post by Ian Plätschisch on Apr 14, 2016 5:19:59 GMT -6
What do we do about the Cunstavals? Hopefully the RCOR makes a suggestion which reduces their powers (at least I hope so), but as it stands now we are not granting the Cunstavals a say, which is inorganic. And if we did allow Cunstaval vetoes, it would still create divergent law codes.
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Post by Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on Apr 14, 2016 5:25:42 GMT -6
Oh, right. Good point.
Well, here in M-M we have the minimal veto: cunstavais may veto a bill, but it can be overturned by a second vote of the Assembly. I'd suggest we implement the same thing in the joint assembly.
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Ian Plätschisch
Senator for Maritiimi-Maxhestic
Posts: 4,001
Talossan Since: 3-21-2015
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Post by Ian Plätschisch on Apr 14, 2016 5:57:17 GMT -6
So, a Cunstaval veto would also take effect in both provinces? That's the only way to make it work
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