Reopen Nominations Fix Bill

How would you handle a situation where a person runs for every office on the ballot and wins all of them? We'd be forced to run multiple special elections, which would be a very inefficient way to deal with a choice that person should have made before and not after the election.
What if that person wins all of the offices, and then fails to take the oath for any of them?
To say that it is very unlikely is a cop-out; such situations cheapens and damages the intent of election of offices to begin with and creates more harm than good.
That is why the provision was adopted originally under a prior constitution and has been kept in force ever since.
As far as I can see there is no compelling case to remove the provision and none has been offered. It should be left alone.
 
If the RA elects the same person to multiple offices, they deserve to have special elections thrust upon them. That's the just reward for being dumb.
 
Gracius Maximus:
r3naissanc3r:
Gracius Maximus:
Fixing the (theoretical) distinction between judicial and general elections made by the Court (a finding with which I do not agree and the history of TNP elections support me on that) is not the problem with this bill.
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Not sure how it can be "theoretical", given that the law is crystal clear about it. Anyway.

I'll support the motion to vote, and I believe that's four.
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How did you possibly attribute this horrible statement to me?
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My apologies, that was a multi-quoting mistake. I will edit my original post.
 
Great Bights Mum:
Generally, I support the bill with the exception of the removal of the multiple offices clause. So I have voted against.
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Me too. It is a shame these were not separate proposals.
 
I agree with you Flem and Great Bights Mum, but frankly I just believe the whole Reopen Nominations Bill, only adds ambiguity to our already shady laws; therefore I've voted against it, like you two.
 
Great Bights Mum:
Generally, I support the bill with the exception of the removal of the multiple offices clause. So I have voted against.
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The restriction for running for multiple offices within one election cycle is the reason Douria and GM were disqualified from the second round of balloting, leading to the submission of three requests for review.

That type of disqualification is certainly not what was intended under any of our laws.

I am also in agreement with COE that in a free society, all practices (yes, even annoying ones) ought to be permitted unless there are truly compelling reasons to prohibit them. The miniscule possibility of someone winning multiple offices and triggering an special election in insufficiently damaging to justify a restriction on the right to run for office.
 
The answer is to define the election cycle with greater precision, in the light of the reopen nominations bill. The answer is not to create greater problems by allowing people to run for multiple offices.
 
Except that, as I said above, it will not actually cause any problems. The terror over people winning multiple offices is completely speculative, and looking at TNP's electoral history, there is a clear skepticism of people who run for election opportunistically.
 
Well, I beg to differ with you Sillystring, I agree with Flem. Look at this last election, e Reopen Nominations Bill caused nothing but confusion. If it wasn't for this bill we wouldn't have to go through a next round of voting. And then we had to restart right before the conclusion of it. This bill must be struck down. Our laws are confusing enough can't afford to clutter it with unnecessary election law provisions. I believe if an election was to happen, like mine, where abstain takes majority, it up to the courts to decided was is to happen. If they decide to Reopen nominations, so be it. If the want to give the person with the most votes so be it.
And we also can't have multiple people running for offices. It will be to confusing for TNP and for this very reason alone this bill should be struck down.
 
You know Reopen Nominations will still be law if this legislation fails, right? This is necessary because it fixes the problems that we ran into in the first bumpy rollout of the system.

A vote against this bill is a vote for the events of last election to repeat themselves.
 
I understand that, personally I believe the whole bill should be struck down and I evened proposed legislature to repeal it and replace with something else. But I believe knocking this provision down will be a right foot in this direction to help alleviate some of election ambiguities. So that's why I have decided to advocate against this bill.
 
I voted against because of the removal of the not running for multiple offices rule. No pressing reason was given as to why it needed to be excluded. I feel that it could have been reworded and reincluded without damaging the RON law any further. There is still time to address this law before the next election, unless someone resigns suddenly. I'd encourage RA members to vote against this proposal.
 
mcmasterdonia:
No pressing reason was given as to why it needed to be excluded.
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There should not need to be a pressing reason to promote freedom. The burden, rather, ought to be on the attempt to restrict it. This is but one of the reasons that have been given to remove that clause.

Leekem, defeating this bill will enhance election ambiguities. It will in no way alleviate them.

I urge all RA members to vote for this proposal.
 
There's clearly a difference in philosophy afoot, and the unwillingness to compromise on the one clause that many of the RA have stated an objection to forces us, under the current procedural rules, to reject the entire bill as a consequence.

The current provision has accomplished its intended purpose for years and only the inartful introduction of the RON device into the election code is the source of the dispute.

As was noted above, and as I alluded to earlier in this discussion, the solution is to adapt the definition of the election cycle to accommodate an election for office where nominations are reopened, and to treat that reopened nomination period as a separate election cycle. Then, if a candidate who was defeated for another office wants to declare or accept nomination to the office where nominations have been reopened, then they would not be in violation of the one office limit rule and will be able to run in the new election cycle. (We can't call it a special election unless the original voting was a special election, we will need to think of a term to label those election cycles.

As did the others, I also voted against the bill in its current form because of the proposed removal of the candidacy limit clause, and I agree that the burden of showing a case to modify the clause is on those who are proposing it, and IMHO, they have failed to meet that burden of persuasion.
 
SillyString:
Except that, as I said above, it will not actually cause any problems. The terror over people winning multiple offices is completely speculative, and looking at TNP's electoral history, there is a clear skepticism of people who run for election opportunistically.
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It's not speculative. it is a prediction based on many years of being a part of TNP and knowing how the region ticks. Which is probably why most of the longest standing nations in TNP have voted against the bill, because of this clause.

I guarantee that if a popular contender like Mcm ran for office against a weak field and stood for several positions, he would win all those races.

Rather than fix the law when that happens I would rather get it right in advance.
 
Grosseschnauzer:
The current provision has accomplished its intended purpose for years and only the inartful introduction of the RON device into the election code is the source of the dispute.
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The provision's intended purpose is entirely distinct from the current claims about its intended purpose - as can be seen from the original debate that COE linked.

I would also point out that it has not served what is claimed to be its intended purpose, as there have been cases of people running for multiple offices at once (Hi, Leekem!) when a special election cycle has overlapped with a non-special one. And the world didn't end in a storm of brimstone and hail.

This is also not the first time that this issue has been raised - it has been proposed multiple times, and each time it has been proposed the response from the "longest standing nations in TNP" has been to drop the issue (because oh god, change
!).

Redefining "election cycle" is also a far more complex "fix" than this merits. Just as the original restriction ran into no absurdities until the law was changed around it, any redefinition is subject to the same concern - as is any rewording of the clause to prohibit simultaneous candidacies.

Flem: You can't actually guarantee such a thing, any more than I can guarantee that he wouldn't win if he ran for all of them - and I can argue just as strongly that he wouldn't. TNP voters do not have huge buckets of sympathy for election trolls. Not to mention, with Reopen Nominations being part of the law, if the field was truly that weak the voters would have a chance to find other more desirable candidates.

Moreover, even if he did win... so what? If members of the RA voted someone into multiple offices, knowing that it would bring about at least one special election, how is that the end of the world? It might be an annoyance to end one election and immediately begin another, and it might delay certain functions of the region, but how and why is that a harm that merits a full-on ban, and not something to roll one's eyes at and get back to one's day? What would be so utterly catastrophic about a special election?

Edit: I am reminded of the furor over removing the requirement to report one's WA nation. Again, there was a prediction of DOOOOOOOOOOM and demise from opponents... and what has happened since the bill passed to destroy the government and all life as we know it? Not a goddamn thing.
 
SillyString:
Flem: You can't actually guarantee such a thing, any more than I can guarantee that he wouldn't win if he ran for all of them - and I can argue just as strongly that he wouldn't.
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True. Nothing is guaranteed save death and taxes. But I have reasonable confidence in my prediction. I know that you find it difficult to listen to the voice of experience, but you might find it useful from time to time.
 
flemingovia:
I know that you find it difficult to listen to the voice of experience, but you might find it useful from time to time.
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"Experience" is not an argument for blind obeisance, and not agreeing is not the same as not listening. We disagree.
 
SillyString:
Edit: I am reminded of the furor over removing the requirement to report one's WA nation. Again, there was a prediction of DOOOOOOOOOOM and demise from opponents... and what has happened since the bill passed to destroy the government and all life as we know it? Not a goddamn thing.
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Not yet.

Anyway. cut it out with bashing the supposed inflexibility of the old-timers. We've given lots of things a try. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. I don't want to give this one a try because the provision as it stands is a limitation on political power. As a veteran of many elections, I know the last thing TNP needs is one more tool with which those in power can manipulate the electorate.
 
SillyString:
mcmasterdonia:
No pressing reason was given as to why it needed to be excluded.
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There should not need to be a pressing reason to promote freedom. The burden, rather, ought to be on the attempt to restrict it. This is but one of the reasons that have been given to remove that clause.

Leekem, defeating this bill will enhance election ambiguities. It will in no way alleviate them.

I urge all RA members to vote for this proposal.
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The idea that the intention of this proposal is to promote freedom is laughable at best. I have not seen any mention of personal freedom in the advocy for the removal of that clause. Rather I have seen the argument that the situation is unlikely to occur or that the RA members would deserve the negative side effects of electing someone to two offices and indeed that the law should not restrict annoyances.

Defeating the bill at this time will have zero negative effect, given that it can be immediately reintroduced without the removal of the multiple offices clause (or with a slight amendment which is my preference).
 
Redefining "election cycle" is also a far more complex "fix" than this merits. Just as the original restriction ran into no absurdities until the law was changed around it, any redefinition is subject to the same concern - as is any rewording of the clause to prohibit simultaneous candidacies.
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The limitation has never been applied to simultaneous or overlapping election cycles involving a regular and a special election that involve different offices.

But redefining "election cycles" is almost a necessity giving the odds that a special election involving offices elected at the alternated regular election and close the ambiguity in the current language. It wasn't as likely an issue until the RON device was introduced, and this introduced ambiguity is one of the consequences of a rush to vote and an unwillingness to compromise or allow a through vetting of legislation in order to anticipate and eliminate consequences that can be identified if a more through debate and discussion takes place first.
The RA in the past may have taken longer to pass a bill, but the need for remedial legislation to fix problems from a rush to legislate was not as great.
 
mcmasterdonia:
The idea that the intention of this proposal is to promote freedom is laughable at best. I have not seen any mention of personal freedom in the advocy for the removal of that clause.
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Then you haven't been looking for it.

Try here and here and here for examples in this thread alone - and if that's not sufficient, I can dig out my posts from previous iterations of this discussion, which have argued the exact same thing outside of the context of fixing RON.

In a free society, the default position on all behavior must be that it is permitted unless there is a compelling reason to forbid it. I have stated for months that I do not find the remote possibility of a special election hiccup anywhere near sufficiently compelling to justify restrictions on peoples' ability to freely run for office. The fact that removing this clause also fixes issues with RON implementation without running into risks of future conflicts - as any rewording or redefinition would do - is merely a bonus.

The limitation has never been applied to simultaneous or overlapping election cycles involving a regular and a special election that involve different offices.
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Correct, and that's a clear indication that something is wonky with the law, and with the justifications behind it. If it is truly so catastrophic for someone to win multiple positions within a single election cycle and trigger an immediate special election, it should be exactly as catastrophic for someone to win multiple positions within separate but concurrent election cycles and thereby trigger another immediate special election.

There is no argument that can compellingly paint the one scenario as distinct from the other, and the fact that the law only addresses one but not the other points out a glaring problem. Either both should be permitted, or both should be prohibited... and we haven't had any catastrophes resulting from the permitted case.
 
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