Minor Nitpick Election Bill

Dinoium

Dinoium

Legal nerd
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TNP Nation
Dinoium
It seems there is an unneeded character within the Legal Code, so I propose the following. As a note, you might not see the difference so best to read the annotations.
Section 4.5: General Elections
29. The election of the Delegate, the Vice Delegate, the Attorney General, and the Speaker will begin on the first day of the months of January, May, and September.
30. If no candidate for a given office gains a majority, a runoff vote for that office will begin within one day of the first vote ending and it will last for five days.
31. Candidates will be added to the runoff ballot in descending order of how many votes they received. Candidates who received equal numbers of votes will be added the ballot simultaneously. Once the cumulative number of votes received by the candidates on the runoff ballot reaches a majority of votes cast in the previous round of voting, excluding abstentions, no more candidates will be added to the ballot.
32. If no one gains a majority of votes in the runoff vote, the runoff process will be repeated until a candidate receives a majority.
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Section 4.5: General Elections
29. The election of the Delegate, the Vice Delegate, the Attorney General, and the Speaker will begin on the first day of the months of January, May, and September.
30. If no candidate for a given office gains a majority, a runoff vote for that office will begin within one day of the first vote ending and it will last for five days.
31. Candidates will be added to the runoff ballot in descending order of how many votes they received. Candidates who received equal numbers of votes will be added the ballot simultaneously. Once the cumulative number of votes received by the candidates on the runoff ballot reaches a majority of votes cast in the previous round of voting, excluding abstentions, no more candidates will be added to the ballot.
32. If no one gains a majority of votes in the runoff vote, the runoff process will be repeated until a candidate receives a majority.[/
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Are there any other nitpicky things like that we can take out at the same time? I think a long time ago something like this came up and I asked SillyString about it and she suggested a typographical fixes amendment that just kind of cleaned all that stuff up at once.
 
I feel I have seen some laws in other regions that allow whoever updates the laws to fix minor spelling and formatting issues without there being a need to pass a law for it.
 
Artemis:
I feel I have seen some laws in other regions that allow whoever updates the laws to fix minor spelling and formatting issues without there being a need to pass a law for it.
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Do we have such a law? If not, perhaps one should be drafted and passed.
 
I’d be in favor of allowing the Speaker to make updates and clearly post what was updated in a spoiler.

Minor Updates:
This is where the change would be posted using the In/Out function.
 
We used to have such a law, as I recall, but it was removed due to concerns over minor changes in language that supposedly minor grammar fixes could entail. At this point the Speaker can only change things like numbering - the full list is in the legal code's preamble.
 
But, but nitpicking is our job. Sometimes changing just a comma can change the meaning of a law. Allowing the speaker to make minor edits is not a responsibility we should be delegating.
 
Pallaith:
Are there any other nitpicky things like that we can take out at the same time? I think a long time ago something like this came up and I asked SillyString about it and she suggested a typographical fixes amendment that just kind of cleaned all that stuff up at once.
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For the General Election Section, I don't think I can think of anymore but I'm open to suggestions and I'll check to see if I should fix anything else.
Great Bights Mum:
But, but nitpicking is our job. Sometimes changing just a comma can change the meaning of a law. Allowing the speaker to make minor edits is not a responsibility we should be delegating.
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Yeah I agree. Nitpicking is the RA's job and I think that's good.
 
Great Bights Mum:
But, but nitpicking is our job. Sometimes changing just a comma can change the meaning of a law. Allowing the speaker to make minor edits is not a responsibility we should be delegating.
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I can see changing a comma changing the meaning of a law and it’s applications. But perhaps a formatting clause to allow formatting corrections wouldn’t be a bad idea.
 
Artemis:
But perhaps a formatting clause to allow formatting corrections wouldn’t be a bad idea.
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What would constitute "formatting"? Would making a clause present, but invisible (via sizing it down or setting the color to the background color) constitute "formatting"?
 
This whole thing is honestly absolutely pointless. The last bill that touched the clause in question did not have the error as part of its text. Why can't we just instruct the speaker or administration to correct the error and be done with this, especially when the error in question has absolutely no impact on the implementation of the law?
 
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Seeing as the two characters referenced in this bill were not part of previous legislation passed in this body and were posted in error to the legal code, I have removed the two characters from the LC. This bill is no longer germaine as there is nothing to be edited further in this section.
 
This clause used to be in the preamble to the legal code:
If a minor error is found in this Legal Code, the Speaker will update it on the published instructions of the Court, unless a Regional Assembly member objects within five days.
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It was struck down by the court in 2013 on the grounds that the ability to edit the legal code is the exclusive power of the Regional Assembly. So all corrections of this nature have to be done through legislation.
 
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As the Speaker has already stated, the extraneous characters were erroneously added by a previous Speaker, and they were never amended into the Legal Code by the RA in the first place. The Speaker has thus already removed them since the RA never added them in.
 
The characters were not part of the bill and were erroneously added by a previous speaker when the Legal Code was edited. There is absolutely no reason that the RA needs to pass an entire bill to amend something that was not originally passed by this body.
 
So I know the consensus seemed to be that this wasn't needed, I'm going to let @Dinoium choose whether I archive this or, if he wants to pursue this, to repick this up again.
 
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