Law on how Talossans become inactive or legally dead

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

WHEREAS this is the penultimate step towards removing Talossan's tradition of compulsory voting, aka "Three Strikes and You're Out";
and WHEREAS amendments to the Organic Law to amend the last vestige of this tradition (in the current text of the OrgLaw, XVIII.10) will follow;

BE IT ENACTED by the King, Cosa and Senäts in Ziu assembled that:

1. a new Section shall be added to El Lexhatx Title B, to go between the current sections 3 and 4, with successive sections to be renumbered accordingly:

1. The Chancery shall keep an Electoral Roll, consisting of all current citizens with the exception of:
a) those who have requested to be removed from the Roll;
b) those who have failed to vote in 3 successive elections, and have not requested the Chancery to restore them to this Roll.

2. The Chancery shall only send information about participating in any elections or referendums it conducts to citizens on the Electoral Roll, and to such other citizens who specifically request this.

3. If the Chancery removes any citizen from the Electoral Roll for any reason, that citizen shall be restored to the Electoral Roll if they so request.

2. El Lexhatx D.8.5.3. shall be amended to read as follows:

8.5.3. The Database shall contain the following information on each of the Kingdom's Citizens who are on the Electoral Roll only: Name, Province, E-Mail address.

[Glüc da Dhi]

Hadnt seen this before. This is absolutely ridiculous...

[Glüc da Dhi]

Even caused me to comment from my phone...

[Magniloqueu Épiqeu da Lhiun]

Why? What purpose does it serve to introduce a HURDLE to voting? What the hell is this?

[Eðo Grischun]

Jan 29, 2020 21:57:40 GMT -6 Magniloqueu Épiqeu da Lhiun said:

Why? What purpose does it serve to introduce a HURDLE to voting? What the hell is this?

Fancy toning that outrage down a tad?

It's not a hurdle to voting at all. Where do you even get that from? A hurdle to voting would be, say, a requirement to register for inclusion on the voters roll (similar to the UK and, I imagine, most countries). A hurdle would have to be some extra step or additional task to be able to vote.

This Proxhet creates a voters roll that you will be on automatically ("consisting of all current citizens"). If this passes, every current citizen will be able to vote as normal in the next election. So, how is it a hurdle to vote?

What this Bill does is remove the last remnants of 3-strikes from electoral law. By failing to vote in three consecutive elections you would be removed from the voters roll instead of losing citizenship. Additionally, it also creates the ability for citizens to opt-out of voting without risk of losing citizenship.

All that is done here is the removal of mandatory voting, not add a hurdle to voting.


(nb: as an effect we would then look, solely, to census returns for pruning "deadwood" from the citizenship roster)

[Magniloqueu Épiqeu da Lhiun]

No, I do not care to tone down my outrage one bit, thank you for the offer. My feelings are mine to feel, and express. If you feel slighted by that, then that is your feeling to feel and express.

Ah, but it does. It strips a citizen, a full-fledged citizen, from their ability (read, essentially: “right”) to vote without having to take an additional and pre-planned step, just for not having voted. A citizen may not even be aware that they are not on a voting roll any longer. Come election time, they will be surprised.

It is neither here nor there. The Government and the Ziu have no Organic right to introduce a difficulty in what is my Organic right to vote. Either you strip my citizenship for not voting, in which case I have no right to vote any longer, or you do not act at all, whether I choose to vote or not – and my right to voting and my ability to exercise that right freely are not affected.

[Eðo Grischun]

Jan 30, 2020 0:43:24 GMT -6 Magniloqueu Épiqeu da Lhiun said:

No, I do not care to tone down my outrage one bit, thank you for the offer. My feelings are mine to feel, and express. If you feel slighted by that, then that is your feeling to feel and express.

Ah, but it does. It strips a citizen, a full-fledged citizen, from their ability (read, essentially: “right”) to vote without having to take an additional and pre-planned step, just for not having voted. A citizen may not even be aware that they are not on a voting roll any longer. Come election time, they will be surprised.

It is neither here nor there. The Government and the Ziu have no Organic right to introduce a difficulty in what is my Organic right to vote. Either you strip my citizenship for not voting, in which case I have no right to vote any longer, or you do not act at all, whether I choose to vote or not – and my right to voting and my ability to exercise that right freely are not affected.

Having to take additional or pre-requisite steps before being able to exercise a right does not remove or revoke a right, though. You have the right to vote in Germany (I assume, yes?). Do you take offence at the fact that before you can exercise that right you need to apply to vote (Antrag) before you can receive a polling card (Wahlschein) entitling you to vote, even though you "have the right"? Loads upon loads of countries with a "right to vote" have pre-registration requirements.

Having a particular right does not always give you carte blanche. Rights can be restricted. Pre-requisites can be put in place. Voter registration is a common enough example. Then, in the US, they have the right to bear arms, yet some states restrict that right with background checks and particular weapons have been banned. Then, in the UK, we have the rights of free assembly and free expression, yet we need to apply for a permit to hold a parade and the local councils can dictate which streets we can and cannot march on. Rights can be restricted. Pre-requisites can be put in place. Nothing in the Organic Law prevents similar practice in Talossa.

The right to vote isn't being messed with by this Bill. It's grossly hyperbolic to assert that your rights would be infringed upon by this proposal. Again, all citizens would automatically be added to the new register at it's inception. We are not even proposing a 'register first' requirement. Whenever someone drops off the register they can be added back by simply requesting to be added back. Now, at that point, if there was a chance that the request could be denied, then you're argument would hold some water. Then a case could be made that someones rights had been infringed. However, the request cannot be denied. It must be honoured. If someone drops off it is guaranteed that they can be added back on. Right to vote intact.

[Sir C. M. Siervicül]

Jan 29, 2020 22:27:59 GMT -6 Eðo Grischun said:

What this Bill does is remove the last remnants of 3-strikes from electoral law. By failing to vote in three consecutive elections you would be removed from the voters roll instead of losing citizenship.

Why? Currently you can preserve your citizenship either by responding to the census OR by voting. People who don't like elections don't have to vote and there's no consequence as long as they respond to the census, and people who don't like the census can ignore it and there's no consequence as long as they vote. As current law accommodates all preferences, what is the pressing need to make one group a winner and one group a loser?

[Açafat del Val]

Which harm are we trying to solve by “removing” mandatory voting?

The three-strikes rule is not even accumulative, but consecutive. If someone truly cannot be bothered to vote in Talossa once every 18 months, even though it is made so incredibly easy and painless, then have they not effectively chosen to renounce their citizenship anyways?

Which great majority of persons are we serving by the bill? Who is so adamantly and diametrically opposed to declaring “present” once every 18 months, yet otherwise contributes and actively engages in Talossan society, that they would rather lose their citizenship than open the database and cast a vote?

I read about the case of a person who has been imprisoned, cannot vote because of it, but wishes to return to Talossa upon their release. Could this person not simply re-apply for citizenship? Could they not seek a sponsor for a naturalization bill of the Ziu? How is it the fault of Talossa that they were imprisoned?

Not to mention the undue and very unnecessary burden that this places on the Chancery. It would be yet another intricate layer and source of liability for an already thankless and tiresome job.

In lieu of this bill I could support exceptions to the three-strikes rule, such as putting a burden of proof on the person (or an ally) to prove beyond reasonable doubt that they have an undue burden and cannot possibly exercise their franchise (e.g., the imprisoned bloke above mentioned).

Unless persuaded differently, though, I cannot justify putting more burdens on the Chancery just to please a painfully tiny minority of citizens for a harm which really does not require redress. In our circumstances of Talossa it is good to have mandatory voting.

[Glüc da Dhi]

Jan 29, 2020 22:27:59 GMT -6 Eðo Grischun said:

All that is done here is the removal of mandatory voting, not add a hurdle to voting.

No, it does not.

1. Voting is currently not mandatory, because people can fill in the census.

2. If your claim is that voting is sort of mandatory, because if you don't fill in the census you have to vote to keep your citizenship, then this bills does nothing to change that. If you don't fill in the census or vote, you still lose your citizenship.

3. If the intent is to change the orglaw so that voting no longer counts towards citizenship and only the census does then A) very sloppy timing passing this first and B) it only makes it significantly more difficult to keep your citizenship.

In no way does this bill achieve what it apparently sets out to achieve.

[Sir C. M. Siervicül]

Jan 30, 2020 7:27:01 GMT -6 Glüc da Dhi said:

3. If the intent is to change the orglaw so that voting no longer counts towards citizenship and only the census does then A) very sloppy timing passing this first and B) it only makes it significantly more difficult to keep your citizenship.

Exactly. And assuming for the sake of argument that we do want citizenship to depend only on responding to the census, why not just do that? Why create the electoral roll at all? Just have the citizenship list serve as the electoral roll, as at present. That way it would still be more difficult to keep your citizenship, but we would not be gratuitously making it harder to vote on top of that. This bill would have the effect of creating a new class of non-minors who are citizens but who are not presently entitled to vote, for no apparent reason (or at least, the effect of the bill does not logically follow from the stated reasons for the bill).

[Glüc da Dhi]

What it does do is it make it harder for citizens who have only filled in the census for a certain period to return to voting. Those who have fallen behind stay behind.

What it also does is force the chancery to make a large overhaul of how the database sends out election emails.

Furthermore it forces the chancery to keep yet another list of citizens
Apart from
-The list of citizens
-The lists of citizens separating them based on how they would like party leaders to contact them
-The Opt-In list for citizens whishing to be contacted by everyone
-The Opt-Out list for citizens wishing to be contacted by the government

we now also get
- The list of citizens who want to receive the ballot.

This is after the chancery has already made reform after reform in the past couple of years and with nobody even bothering to ask the chancery whether the implementation is feasible.

Of course the result will be that there is going to be no more than a handful of citizens who are not on the electoral roll, doing all this work for very little result (and arguably, not a positive result at all)

Finally, what it also does is directly contradict multiple other sections of the lexhatx and creating even more legal mess.

[Glüc da Dhi]

This is yet another major reform that was rushed through clarked with very limited discussion,

without even the slightest attempt to investigate the implementation,

without the slightest attempt to check the rest of the lexhatx to see if it fits,

decided as part of a coalition deal before any debate took place,

without even attempting to properly explain the purpose.

It is ridiculous. It needs to stop.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

Who's going to make it stop? There's nobody. Stuff is getting done with such haste and without any serious opposition to challenge it. Even little things are getting forgotten. The whole revamping of the honors system, for example, left blank spots in the law where it deleted provisions and added italics and bold to el Lexhatx for the first time. What's the legal import of bolding a term? Is it more or less than italicizing and bolding? Look at basically the whole of Title L, too. It's like it's designed to be opaque in purpose. It's crazy. For that matter, this bill is supposed to work with the revisions to the OrgLaw, but it seems like it takes effect immediately. Why?!

[E.S. Bornatfiglheu]

As leader of the Conscientious Opposition^TM I am afraid that I am unable to get behind this bill that the Coalition has put forward here.

Though I cannot say I find it patently ridiculous, I feel that it misses the mark and misunderstands Talossa.  Yes, lots of macronations have voter registration for their citizens, but Talossa isn't a macronation.  It's much smaller and the group dynamics are fundamentally different.  Which is why I'm more than a little shocked to see my Peculiarist colleague advancing such ideas.  This "voter roll/citizen roll" system smacks of creating a haves/have nots.  Or a tiered system.  Intentionally or not, that is the optics of the situation.

Further, it really does add "yet another thing" to the list at the SoS needs to keep track of.

If the Coalition Government is so gung ho about abolishing the three-strikes/mandatory voting system... then just do it.  Divorce citizenship from franchise without creating a dual roll system.  It's cleaner and much, much simpler.