Elected Legislature Plan

This plan is an attempt to represent the will of the voters in the two previous polls on electing a legislature.

1. There will be an elected legislative body called the General Council.
2. The size of the General Council will be set in law, not the constitution: the default size will be 7.
3. The General Council will be elected by Single Non-Transferrable Vote. Explanation below.

SNTV:

Perhaps the simplest system to implement, and with tactical voting it is proportional.

1. Each voter votes for one and only one candidate.
2. When electing N representatives, the top N candidates by vote count are elected.

Example:

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, and K are running for office. 3 will be elected.

The results stand as:


A, B, and C win as they were the top 3 vote-getters. 28 people got the person they voted for in office, and 28 did not. This represents a possible disorganized result.

[size=-1]Edit: spoilered more complex example[/size]

What would the difference be between this and the elected Security Council (an RA committee elected by the RA/voters) under the last Constitution?

The old security council was elected by block voting.

I also envision a different set of powers for this General Council, but that is a subject for a different discussion.

Block voting? I don't think so. Everyone got to cast the same number of votes as there were seats, and that number was based on a minimum of 5 seats, and increasing by 1 seat for each additional 10 RA members once it was past 50.
The Speaker chaired it, and the relevant members of the Executive (PM, Minister of Defense, head of intelligence were ex-officio non-voting members.)

Block voting would imply political parties, and while a couple of people tried that approach it did not work at election time. The funny part is that it had a fresh rotation after every election, there was never an occasion where all the same people were elected twice in a role.

When I say block voting I mean the method of election, specifically Plurality at-large voting. This is the method you just described.

This plan is much more complex than the original form. Firmly against.

Govindia:

This plan is much more complex than the original form. Firmly against.

Click to expand...

What?

What original form?

How is it complex?

I'm not much of a fan of the idea of an elected legislature as it is entirely possible based on what I have seen of TNP so far that these elected member will probably go inactive like the former Justice panel.

I think we should open to greater number of peoples by allowing every registered TNP citizens to vote on laws and elections. Instead, we also tighten the requirement to join and maintain RA membership which will be a requirement to run for election and propose law change.

The proposed constitution allows citizens to vote on legislation in referenda.

1. Any amendment to the constitution must go through a referendum.
2. A sufficient number of citizens signing a petition triggers a referendum on a law.

I'm not entirely clear on the nature of the RA in your counter-proposal, Felasia.

For what its worth, I finally found the draft constitution that I presented at the Constitutional Convention of 2005 at z11; it was based on the NPC era Constitution with some modifications, many of which were in fact incorporated into the constitution adopted at that convention. (This includes creating a Court, an Attorney General, and a Speaker, among other things.)
The reason for posting the link is because it contains a draft proposal to have "registered voters" directly enact all legislation, and it gives you an idea of how the pieces could be fitted to use that approach rather than a regional assembly or other legislative body. The analogy I used then, which is still valid, is that it would be like the shareholders of a corporation voting on those things that shareholders may or must vote on within a corporation.

Draft constitution proposal summer 2005 at TNP's constitutional convention

If there's trouble reading the thread, because its not possible to register at that forum these days, then I'll be willing to copy paste the draft in here somewhere, there are concepts and language I think worked, and worked better than the current Constitution, even after all of the amendments that have been passed since 2007.

An overly complicated system. I could see it if we had several hundred people that were in the RA, but unless there is an unruly number of voters in the RA, it would be impractical.

Romanoffia: are you addressing me or Grosseschnauzer?

I think he was addressing you, Eluvatar, since all I've done is offer something to look at as an indication of how a registered voter legislative system could look, and I've not made any attempt to draft anything based on the current system or your proposal. Roman should recognized that draft as he was at the Constitutional Convention.

It's kind of like what TWP used to have with Senate and Town Council.

My suggestion is that we would have a two-tier assembly. The Lower Assembly would be for a registered citizen who have nation in TNP and registered on the forum. Registered citizen would be allow to vote and debate on proposed legislative and election, but they are not allow run for elected position or propose change to old law and creation of new law.

The Higher Assembly would be for Regional Assembly member which will have more regulation to join the body then the lower assembly. For example, you would have to remain active on the forum for at least 2 months before you are allow to join this body, but you will be allow to run for elected position or propose change to old law and creation of new law here.

Essentially a bicameral system. Way back in the dinosaur days I made a suggestion that we should look into a system in which we have two legislative bodies like Felelisia describes.

The basic idea was to have a lower house for the general citizenry (all 'citizen' nations of TNP) and an upper house to which nations are 'elevated' should they meet certain endorsement levels and/or influence levels and presided over by the Delegate or whomever the delegate appoints in his stead. Approval of legislation is accomplished by all those who vote by simple majority and that legislation being carried in both houses, The Delegate having the authority to veto anything that has less than a 2/3rds majority of all votes cast in each house. A minimum or null quorum can be applied. Also, a 'qui tacet consentire videtur' (essentially a 'he who is silent is taken to agree' clause) should one house or the delegate choose not to participate. This last feature would be used as a coercive measure by default.

It's essentially the Senate/Plebian council system used in the RL ancient Roman Republic. When legislation is introduced in a regulated fashion the quorum is all those who choose to participate when the Senate and Plebian houses are called upon to legislate and vote within a given time period. This type of system would, IMHO, encourage people to be more vigilant and increase their participation especially if whacky legislation passes that directly affects people. The idea is that the more irate citizens get the more likely they are to participate which means if the government gets out of hand the citizens have no choice but to either participate or quit bitching about what's going on (or not as the case may be).

I think such a system could be more in step with the mechanics of how the 'world' works in the context of NS.

a sure sign of decline is an expanding bureaucracy in a declining population. The active group in TNP is now so small we could all sit round a pub table and decide who is going to be on the various councils and stuff without any elections at all, let alone this bicameral-single-transferable-at-large-block-pluralty-take-away-the-number-you-first-thought-of-and-divide-by-the-number-of-people-in-the-room system.

Please, guys, SIMPLICITY, SIMPLICITY, SIMPLICITY.

This one single voting system is nearly as long as my entire constitution. and abiout as exciting as porridge.

Remember, If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won't.
- Hyman Rickover

flemingovia:

a sure sign of decline is an expanding bureaucracy in a declining population. The active group in TNP is now so small we could all sit round a pub table and decide who is going to be on the various councils and stuff without any elections at all, let alone this bicameral-single-transferable-at-large-block-pluralty-take-away-the-number-you-first-thought-of-and-divide-by-the-number-of-people-in-the-room system.

Please, guys, SIMPLICITY, SIMPLICITY, SIMPLICITY.

This one single voting system is nearly as long as my entire constitution. and abiout as exciting as porridge.

Remember, If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won't.
- Hyman Rickover

Click to expand...

We need a program in place to increase participation so that even a simple system can operate.