The Self-Nomination Act

Following the recent confusion regarding Rae's self-declaration of candidacy and the Election Commission's decision to deny their candidacy based on the wording of the self-nomination while acknowledging the need to clarify the self-nomination process, I propose the following adjustment to the legal code.

The Self-Nomination Act:

Section 4.4 of the Legal Code is amended to read as follows:

Section 4.2: Election Law Definitions:

7. "Candidates" are those citizens who, during the period of the election designated for candidacy declarations, declare or nominate themselves, or accept a nomination by another citizen as a candidate for an office to be chosen at that election.

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7. "Candidates" are those citizens who, during the period of the election designated for candidacy declarations, declare or nominate themselves, or accept a nomination by another citizen as a candidate for an office to be chosen at that election.

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I feel this relatively minor change to the Legal Code would allow a person to use either type of language ("I declare my candidacy" or "I nominate myself") to become a formal candidate would alleviate the confusion created during the recent candidacy declaration period for the Special Election. As the law currently allows a candidate to withdraw their candidacy at any time, I feel this change is minor enough to not create undue issues with self-declarations of joke or unserious candidacies.

This can just as easily be corrected through a EC rule change then needing to add to the Legal code.

Dreadton:

This can just as easily be corrected through a EC rule change then needing to add to the Legal code.

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I thought about that. It likely could go either way, but with how minor of a change it would be in the Legal Code and as that is where the legal definition of who is / is not a candidate resides, I opted to propose it this way.

And so if one jokingly nominates everyone, they're added to the candidates list?

Sil Dorsett:

And so if one jokingly nominates everyone, they're added to the candidates list?

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No, this edit is purely for self nominations as worded. The language that requires acceptance of nominations from other citizens remains unchanged.

Alternatively people could just do the correct thing and declare their candidacy.

Comfed:

Alternatively people could just do the correct thing and declare their candidacy.

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My point and the point of the proposed legislation is that the intent of saying "I nominate myself" is to declare oneself as a candidate in almost all circumstances. The added step of accepting ones nomination feels unnecessary and this minor change should hopefully minimize confusion in the future for such self-declarations.

Namwenia:

My point and the point of the proposed legislation is that the intent of saying "I nominate myself" is to declare oneself as a candidate in almost all circumstances. The added step of accepting ones nomination feels unnecessary and this minor change should hopefully minimize confusion in the future for such self-declarations.

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You can just... declare your candidacy? As far as I'm concerned this is a one-off incident and isn't remotely an issue.

Namwenia:

No, this edit is purely for self nominations as worded. The language that requires acceptance of nominations from other citizens remains unchanged.

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Except the wording of your bill does not indicate a single self-nomination. It merely says "nominate themselves," and the act of nominating everyone includes self-nominating in the process.

Either way, the EC will be coming up with a rule for this. In the future, the EC will note in the opening post of candidacy declarations (the one that The Voting Booth puts out there) that self-nomination is either not a declaration of candidacy or that it is, and the wording will be very clear on which it is.

Against. What you are doing is literally adding a second meaning to the word nomination in the same clause. The original, intended usage of nomination is meant to refer to the action of "suggesting someone run for a position". Self nomination, as we currently read, is that the person suggest that they might want themselves to run for a position. If nominating themselves is added to the law, then now it becomes that the person wants to run for the position in the case of self-nomination. So I wouldn't agree to this.

If the EC is going to be adjusting the rules to ensure clarity in the future, this is unlikely to be necessary.

I'll withdraw at this point.