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| Charter Amendment (Electoral Reform) Act 2014 / Electoral Procedures Act 2014; An Act to reform the electoral provisions of the Democratic Socialist Assembly to remedy issues in its implementation. | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: 8 Jun 2014, 08:17 (453 Views) | |
| South Jarvis | 8 Jun 2014, 08:17 Post #1 |
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Foreword These Acts move the electoral provisions of the Charter into a separate Act, so that procedures are ‘more readily amended if something goes awry’. It also incorporates the changes from my two Electoral Reform Amendments. See that topic for more information about specifics. My reference implementation of a compliant voting system can be found here. I see this topic as a consultative phase, rather than official scrutiny, and as such, edits might be made to the content of the acts. Charter Amendment (Electoral Reform) Act 2014 Category: Charter Amendment Author: South Jarvis An Act to amend the Charter to allow the reform of the electoral provisions of the Democratic Socialist Assembly. WHEREAS the Democratic Socialist Assembly (‘the DSA’) supports the core value of democracy, as stated in the Preamble to the Charter of the DSA (‘the Charter’): AND WHEREAS Article III, Section I of the Charter aims to protect this core value by creating standards for the democratic election of Cabinet Members: AND WHEREAS the implementation of elections in the Charter is problematic: AND WHEREAS it is expedient that these issues be rectified: BE IT THEREFORE ENACTED by the Members of the Congress of the Democratic Socialist Assembly, as required by the Charter, as follows: Chapter I: Preliminary 1. Short Title This Act may be cited as the Charter Amendment (Electoral Reform) Act 2014. 2. Effective Date This act shall come into force upon its passage. Chapter II: Alteration of Charter Article III, Section I of the Charter is repealed. Electoral Procedures Act 2014 Category: Procedures Author: South Jarvis An Act to reform the electoral provisions of the Democratic Socialist Assembly to remedy issues in its implementation. WHEREAS the Democratic Socialist Assembly (‘the DSA’) supports the core value of democracy, as stated in the Preamble to the Charter of the DSA (‘the Charter’): AND WHEREAS Article III, Section I of the Charter aims to protect this core value by creating standards for the democratic election of Cabinet Members: AND WHEREAS the implementation of elections in the Charter is problematic: AND WHEREAS it is expedient that these issues be rectified: BE IT THEREFORE ENACTED by the Members of the Congress of the Democratic Socialist Assembly, as required by the Charter, as follows: Chapter I: Preliminary 1. Short Title This Act may be cited as the Electoral Procedures Act 2014. 2. Effective Date This act shall come into force upon its passage. Chapter II: Voting Procedures 1. At all votes but elections, voters shall have the right to cast a vote in the form FOR, AGAINST, or ABSTAIN. 2. If an there is an election for a position with one or two candidates, there shall only be one poll for this position, and the voters may either vote for a single candidate or abstain. 3. Elections with more than two candidate shall be conducted by poll instant-runoff voting, as given in Chapter IV of this Act. 4. All votes that are specifically reserved for Charter Members, including elections and referendums, shall be conducted in the Congressional Elections and Votes subforum on the main DSA forum (http://s1.zetaboards.com/DemocraticSocialist/forum/1706758/) unless the vote is to be conducted through instant-runoff voting as per Clause 3 of this Chapter, and technical limitations of the Forum prevent this from being implemented, in which case the vote is to be conducted in accordance with Chapter V of this Act. Chapter III: Cabinet Elections 1. The Cabinet Election process shall begin at 0:00 GMT on the sixtieth (60th) day of each Cabinet’s term, and it shall last for fourteen (14) days. 2. Nominations for government positions shall begin at 00:00 GMT on the sixtieth (60th) day of each Cabinet’s term and close at 00:00 GMT on the sixty-seventh (67th) day, thereby lasting seven (7) days. After a Member of Congress is nominated, the Secretary General shall contact that nation in regard to accepting the nomination. Nations shall have the right to accept or decline any nomination. The final candidates shall then be posted prior to the start of voting. 3. Voting shall begin at 00:00 GMT on the sixty-eighth (68th) day of each Cabinet’s term and close at 00:00 GMT on the seventy-fifth (75th) day, thereby lasting seven (7) full days. Votes shall then be tallied and the elected officers announced before 23:59 GMT on the seventy-fifth (75th) day. The elected Cabinet assume their positions at 0:00 GMT that night. 4. If a Charter member is elected to more than one office, they will be required to declare what office they wish to take up at the start of the new term. That Charter member shall then be eliminated from the vote counts for the other offices and votes he/she did not choose, and those elections shall be recounted. 5. If a cabinet position is vacated for any reason, the President shall either take up the role or hold a special election for the position. While the special election is taking place, the President must choose an interim minister within 2 days of the position being vacated. 6. The procedures for a special election are the same as regular cabinet election procedures, but nominations and voting shall only last four (4) days each to ensure that a new minister is elected quickly. The total special election process should last eight (8) days, and the newly minister will join the cabinet as soon as the voting ends at 0:00 GMT of the eighth day. Chapter IV: Instant-Runoff Voting 1. In an instant-runoff election, there will be different numbers of polls depending on the number of candidates running for a position. 2. For one position, there will be the same number polls as the number of candidates, and the each poll shall be titled first choice, second choice, and so on. 3. Each voter may choose which nation they would like to vote for as their first choice, in the first choice poll, up through the total number of choice polls for a given position. 4. At the end of the voting period, the votes in first-choice poll are tallied. If one candidate has received a majority of the first-choice votes, he or she is elected. 5. If no candidate holds a majority of votes, the candidate holding the fewest votes is eliminated. If there is a tie for the candidate holding the fewest votes, the candidate with the fewest votes in the previous round is eliminated. If there is a tie for the candidate with the fewest votes in the previous round, the candidate with the fewest first preference votes is eliminated. If there is a tie for the candidate with the fewest preference votes, all candidates tied for the fewest first preference votes are eliminated. 6. Ballots whose first choice was assigned to the eliminated candidate or candidates are reassigned to their second-choice vote and added to that candidate’s total number of votes. If this results in one candidate having a majority of votes, that candidates is elected. 7. This procedure is repeated until one candidate has achieved a majority. 8. Ballots which have exhausted all of their candidates are discarded in future rounds. Chapter V: Offsite Elections 1. Should technical limitations prevent a poll being conducted on the Forum, the Secretary-General shall organize for the poll to be conducted on a separate, capable system, or appoint an Electoral Coordinator to do so. 2. The system used for the poll must meet the following criteria: (a) the system must authenticate voters using their NationStates or Forum logins and ensure that they are eligible to vote in the poll, (b) the system must prevent any voter from voting more times than they are eligible to do so, (c) the system must be anonymous, in that it must not allow for votes recorded by it to be tied to individual voters, and (d) unless it is existing, well-established proprietary software, the system's source code must be open to scrutiny. 3. Following the election, the Secretary-General (or, if applicable, the Electoral Coordinator) must make public the details of all ballots in a suitable comprehensible format. Changelog 2014-07-23T17:50+0930 - Minor edit. 2014-07-14T21:37+0930 - Modify tie-breaking method. New method complies with method used by the Australian Electoral Commission. 2014-06-13T20:42+0930 - Amendment repeals rather than replaces Section, as important details are regulated elsewhere in the Charter already. Fixed spelling of ‘Asembly’. 2014-06-10T18:44+0930 - Act separated into an Act and and Amendment. Edited by South Jarvis, 24 Jul 2014, 08:21.
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Administrator Emeritus Secretary-General of the Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fifteenth and Sixteenth Cabinets MInister of Internal Affairs of the Labour and Socialist International scientia omnia vincit | |
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| Riasy | 9 Jun 2014, 02:02 Post #2 |
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"Representative"
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Edited by Riasy, 9 Jun 2014, 02:05.
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| South Jarvis | 9 Jun 2014, 06:00 Post #3 |
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The issue that I have with amending the Charter and then passing legislation separately is that the Charter will, for a short period, be left without electoral procedures. If the Charter amendment passes, but the Act does not (this is unlikely, though certainly possible), then this period could be much longer. If need be, I could separate this proposal into two proposals (one Charter Amendment and one Act), amending Chapter (I)(2) so that the Act will only become effective once the relevant Charter Amendment has been passed, and submit the Act to be passed first.
Is there any clause in the Charter which prevents Legislative Acts from amending the Charter? On a related note, is there even a distinction between Acts and Amendments (other than the type of majority required to pass each)?
I haven't had a thorough look into approval voting, but it seems to me to suffer a similar problem to FPTP, in that if your preference(s) are exhausted, your vote is wasted; and sorting candidates into ‘equally prefer’ and ‘equally dislike’ seems rather restrictive and difficult.
I'll take that into consideration. Edited by South Jarvis, 9 Jun 2014, 06:26.
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Administrator Emeritus Secretary-General of the Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fifteenth and Sixteenth Cabinets MInister of Internal Affairs of the Labour and Socialist International scientia omnia vincit | |
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| Riasy | 10 Jun 2014, 00:09 Post #4 |
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"Representative"
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The difference between the Laws and the Amendments to the Charter lies in the share of votes that is necessary for their passing. Laws are passing when they get more than 50% of votes, and Amendments are passing when they get more than 2/3 of votes. (Article II, Section I, Subsection I, Clauses II and III of the Charter). The Secretary General determines all elements of the electoral process that aren’t regulated by the Charter and Laws. (Article II, Section II, Subsection VI, Clause II of the Charter). Elections can be conducted successfully even if they will happen in the period between the passing of the Amendment and the passing of the new electoral Law. It will be legal to pass this Law before the passing of the Amendment in case this Law will include the condition that it will be activated only after the passing of the respective Amendment. But personally I still dislike this idea because in case the Amendment will not pass we will get absolutely useless Law in our books. Amendments have much greater chance to not pass, thus in my opinion it would be better to first pass the Amendment and then pass the Law.
I'm talking mainly about the elections with two candidates. But in the Instant-runoff voting system also exist very small possibility that two leading candidates will have absolutely equal number of votes in every "round". |
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| South Jarvis | 10 Jun 2014, 09:02 Post #5 |
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That does appear to be a satisfactory resolution, however the Charter amendment would have to include some basic provisions to ensure any vote is conducted fairly (this would include the limiting of the terms of Cabinet members, as you mentioned previously). While the average-preference-level system should solve the vast majority of ties (certainly in instant-runoff elections), it is true that ties could occur. There are ways around some issues, however adding these to the Act would, in my view, add considerable bloat to the Act for little or no benefit. In some ties, in particular, in a tie for an election with two candidates, there is no way to resolve the tie other than to toss a coin, or hold another election. |
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Administrator Emeritus Secretary-General of the Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fifteenth and Sixteenth Cabinets MInister of Internal Affairs of the Labour and Socialist International scientia omnia vincit | |
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| Riasy | 13 Jun 2014, 03:37 Post #6 |
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I have checked the Charter, and now I think there is no problem in transferring from the Charter into Law the part that regulates the Cabinet elections (Chapter III in your draft). Without the content of the Article III, Section I of the Charter the following Charter Clauses still will regulate some elements of the process of elections: Article II, Section I, Subsection I, Clause II Article II, Section I, Subsection III, Clause I Article II, Section I, Subsection III, Clause II Article II, Section I, Subsection III, Clause III Article II, Section II, Subsection I, Clause IV Article II, Section II, Subsection IV, Clause VI Article II, Section II, Subsection VI, Clause II |
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| South Jarvis | 13 Jun 2014, 11:11 Post #7 |
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Excellent news! It appears that those clauses contain all the important points I was planning on retaining! For reference:
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Administrator Emeritus Secretary-General of the Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fifteenth and Sixteenth Cabinets MInister of Internal Affairs of the Labour and Socialist International scientia omnia vincit | |
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| Riasy | 23 Jun 2014, 22:21 Post #8 |
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It seems that no one else is going to contribute anything to your draft, so maybe now is the time for creating the amendment that will remove these Clauses from the Charter? |
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| Lemur Isles | 28 Jun 2014, 03:35 Post #9 |
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Charter Member
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I like the principle of your idea, South Jarvis, especially the part about removing/heavily amending parts of Article III. In fact, here's my amendment proposal: Amended Article III However, when it comes to your proposed legislation, I'm not totally convinced (this part really). Spoiler: click to toggle The thing is, I want to see a functional site with such a tool up and running before I could give my blessing to such a measure. (I know you were working on it on your website earlier, if that is up and running, I must have missed your announcement).The other thing is, it might just be simpler to have two rounds of voting, with only four days per round. |
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| South Jarvis | 6 Jul 2014, 07:04 Post #10 |
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I implemented a tech demo a while ago. It should still be working. |
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Administrator Emeritus Secretary-General of the Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fifteenth and Sixteenth Cabinets MInister of Internal Affairs of the Labour and Socialist International scientia omnia vincit | |
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