[FAILED] Better Voting Schedules Bill

Comfed

Comfed

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Clause 20 of Section 4.4 of the Legal Code is amended to read as follows:
Section 4.4: Overall Election Law
20. Citizens will be provided five days to declare their candidacy. Voting will begin after the closing of the candidacy declaration period and last for five days.
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Section 4.4: Overall Election Law
20. Citizens will be provided three five days to declare their candidacy. Voting will begin two days after the candidacy declaration period has closed and last for five days.
The change is that instead of the two-day gap between three days of candidacy declarations and voting, the candidacy declarations period will last five days to cover this gap. The two-day period where nobody can declare their candidacy but also voting isn’t happening so it’s functionally fine to allow candidacy declarations doesn’t make sense to me.
 
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I'm all for the concept of this bill, but I don't like the use of "Immediately". There's some work that needs to be done to set up the voting thread once the field is set. If someone joins the race at the last minute, then we have to spend time changing the ballot template and then we have to get new time codes to make sure the start and stop times are properly set.

Use "promptly", or set a short time limit, like perhaps an hour.
 
Sil Dorsett:
I'm all for the concept of this bill, but I don't like the use of "Immediately". There's some work that needs to be done to set up the voting thread once the field is set. If someone joins the race at the last minute, then we have to spend time changing the ballot template and then we have to get new time codes to make sure the start and stop times are properly set.

Use "promptly", or set a short time limit, like perhaps an hour.
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I’ve changed it to an hour-long time limit.
 
That gap to me has always been to give anyone who may have been toward the end of the candidacy declarations to actually post a campaign and have an equal shot at the office compared to someone who was right out the gate with their declaration.

If someone did that under your proposal, they'd have to campaign as soon as voting also began, which, unless they are a known candidate, would be at a huge disadvantage and would miss the first set of voters.
 
bootsie:
That gap to me has always been to give anyone who may have been toward the end of the candidacy declarations to actually post a campaign and have an equal shot at the office compared to someone who was right out the gate with their declaration.

If someone did that under your proposal, they'd have to campaign as soon as voting also began, which, unless they are a known candidate, would be at a huge disadvantage and would miss the first set of voters.
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Well, under the current rules they could still do that, but they would have two extra days to declare their candidacy, if that makes sense.
 
Which is the worse disadvantage, though?

In the current system, whoever misses the three day cutoff but wants in has to run a RON campaign. They're still down on campaign time anyways, and now they're not even visible on the ballot.
With the proposed system, if they miss the three day cutoff, but get in before the five day cutoff, they have the same campaign time disadvantage as before, but now they're on the ballot.
 
Sil Dorsett:
Which is the worse disadvantage, though?

In the current system, whoever misses the three day cutoff but wants in has to run a RON campaign. They're still down on campaign time anyways, and now they're not even visible on the ballot.
With the proposed system, if they miss the three day cutoff, but get in before the five day cutoff, they have the same campaign time disadvantage as before, but now they're on the ballot.
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Easily the first - RON campaigns rarely succeed considering a majority of voters have to pick it, and especially so if there are plenty of candidates already, whereas in the second the candidate only has the disadvantage of less awareness.
 
I think the idea behind this was to differentiate the election phases so that there was a dedicated campaign period after the field was set, and to avoid sudden last minute momentum from a flashy last minute candidate. The last time this law was changed I think we agreed to give more time to that first phase and shorten that second one. But it should be obvious that the campaigning essentially starts when the declarations open and, if we're being real, probably in the days before that moment as well. If people aren't campaigning smart, that's on them, the law simply needs to lay out the ground rules and benefit the voters, the people deciding who their leaders will be. As long as the candidates have a fair shake, we don't have to entertain every little hypothetical.

I think it's fine to fully equate the campaign and declaration periods. I'm getting the sense people felt there wasn't enough time this cycle, and maybe they're right. Perhaps the culture is la enough that we have to make it even easier for people to possibly jump in when we're experiencing times like these. I don't think it hurts at all to leave declarations open for the full campaign period. That leaves us with the period between declarations closing and voting beginning. I think we shouldn't be that specific, and an hour could easily be too little time if something unexpected happens. We say that voting begins two days after the end of declarations, but it's not like we're super exact - as long as it happens on the day it's supposed to, I don't think we're always right on the dot. I would be inclined to leave the specific period blank and rely on the fact that it gets done when it gets done, but I have a feeling people will get jumpy or nervous about that, so I will instead propose "no more than 12 hours" as the time period. This allows voting to begin sooner if that's feasible, maybe even more or less immediately if the EC is on the ball, and should adequately cover the time differences that different people running the election may have.
 
Don't like that either. It doesn't account for time zones. Let's say candidacy declarations ended at 11:55 PM GMT. The commission would have 5 minutes to open the voting thread, if GMT was considered the gold standard, and that's an if. As pedantic as I'm being with the wording of this, I know there are those who are worse than me that would cry foul over time zones.
 
What’s wrong with my wording then? It creates flexibility not only for time zones but for whatever work the EC needs to do to get voting started.
 
Why not just use the following:
20. Citizens will be provided five days to declare their candidacy. Voting will begin on the day that the within 24 hours after the candidacy declaration period has closed and last for five days.
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Or just whatever Pallaith has said. I am fine with that
 
It shouldn’t take a day, and that would actually make our election period longer, hence why I think 12 hours is the right amount.
 
Pallaith:
What’s wrong with my wording then? It creates flexibility not only for time zones but for whatever work the EC needs to do to get voting started.
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Your wording was fine. It's Pathoal's interpretation of what you intended that I didn't like.
 
Praetor:
I don't believe having a specific timeframe is warranted.
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This was my original position, but how would you do it differently? If you don’t have a time specified, it is implied that it opens after the nomination period, but how long would it be able to be delayed? I suppose as long as necessary?
 
What about my earlier suggestion of "promptly"? It would imply that the voting period should start right after the candidacy period ends, but assumes that the election supervisors may need a little bit of time to make sure the opening post is correct.
 
I would like to take this particular bill to add 2 new clauses to Section 4.4 of the Legal Code, not sure if @Pathoal would accept this being in the same bill.

21. Between the closing of the candidate declaration period and the end of the voting period, should there be less candidates on the ballot for a position, as compared to the number of candidates elected by the ballot, a further two days will be provided for candidacy declarations.
22. For any race where the preceding clause was activated, a new round of voting will be held with the same rules as that of a ballot where a majority voted to reopen nominations.
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I consider this to be a catch-all clause aimed at improving the election procedure, and reducing unnecessary wait time should there be not enough candidates for a position. My phrasing may not be fantastic, so I would prefer if someone have a look at it together.
 
Fregerson:
I would like to take this particular bill to add 2 new clauses to Section 4.4 of the Legal Code, not sure if @Pathoal would accept this being in the same bill.



I consider this to be a catch-all clause aimed at improving the election procedure, and reducing unnecessary wait time should there be not enough candidates for a position. My phrasing may not be fantastic, so I would prefer if someone have a look at it together.
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Okay you're turning this into a very different sort of bill now. I generally like it when we try to make multiple changes to the same area of the legal code in one bill, but this prompts a very different set of questions and goals. You're trying to avoid the situation that led to our weird Speaker election in September I take it. That was started right after that election with the bill Gorundu was working on. So it seems that discussion would be the place to discuss this - either we should to pick up on it here or bring Comfed's proposal to that thread for simplicity's sake.
 
I think Sil's suggestion would be fine.

Having a specific time frame runs into issues if that fails (eg. the EC agrees that a certain ECer is going to do it at a certain time compliant with the law) does we have a more serious court case than we need to have (even if it's one minute late?)? Alternatively, I think the Court would be able to decide what a reasonable time frame is and judge situations on a case by case basis.
 
I prefer the word promptly, actually. Within a reasonable time frame is a bit soft for lack of a better word.
 
Pathoal:
I motion for a vote.
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Shit, how did I miss this one? Forgive me. I can't shorten the Formal Debate unless you ask for it, however, so I will leave it at 5 days, ending at (time=1643384400), followed by a voting period of 5 days after that.
 
Pathoal:
I don’t think it’s that important, but how about “reasonably prompt”?
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Why are you so set on the word reasonable? Saying promptly is fine, we can stomach reasonable delays with that word. I suppose irritating people could always challenge delays as not being prompt, but they can also challenge delays as not being reasonable too. We have to accept that delays may exist regardless of the words used, and accept that our officials aren’t robots who can click buttons at precisely the time we would prefer.
 
Pallaith:
Why are you so set on the word reasonable? Saying promptly is fine, we can stomach reasonable delays with that word. I suppose irritating people could always challenge delays as not being prompt, but they can also challenge delays as not being reasonable too. We have to accept that delays may exist regardless of the words used, and accept that our officials aren’t robots who can click buttons at precisely the time we would prefer.
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I understand that delays will exist. That is why I have changed the wording to describe the delays so many times. I'm not married to the word reasonable, but I don't see what's wrong with it compared to "prompt".
 
Pathoal:
I understand that delays will exist. That is why I have changed the wording to describe the delays so many times. I'm not married to the word reasonable, but I don't see what's wrong with it compared to "prompt".
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“Reasonable” is open to interpretation more than “promptly.” You want to avoid such situations as much as possible. Avoiding that even more would be…simply saying voting will begin after the nominations close without and conditions.
 
Pallaith:
“Reasonable” is open to interpretation more than “promptly.” You want to avoid such situations as much as possible. Avoiding that even more would be…simply saying voting will begin after the nominations close without and conditions.
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Okay, I agree that is better.
 
Fregerson:
I would like to clarify why people have been against the bill...do these people mind explaining the rationale?
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I agree. Given how overwhelming the opposition is, I’m surprised literally none of it came up during this debate. It’s a relatively straightforward and simple change. The debate hinges on a couple of words, but none of it was really about the fundamental idea of the proposal. Do people just prefer a short nominating period? Do they believe dedicated campaigning is sacrosanct? Do they disagree with the wording not having specific timing? Is this just a meme at this point? Are we experiencing a lemming situation like in the WA? I’d really like to know.
 
I did not vote at all as I felt completely at a loss to understand the change, why/if it was needed and that confusion led me to keep my own silence on the subject. I suppose I should have "abstained" but I did not. I found nothing either right or wrong with the subject. In short, this 'lemming" dug a whole and became a groundhog.
 
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