SENATE BILL: Empowering Regions in Federal Elections Amendment (FAILED)

[Marokai Backbeat]

I'll lobby in favor of this in Napoleon's stead.

This is a modified proposal that Duke and I have been fighting over for a couple years; which was in itself a modified proposal that Xahar, Franzl, and I were fighting for back in 2009. As regions take an increasingly prominent role in the game, regions should have more say in their own representation.

It is bizarre to me, personally, that while we elect half of the Senate specifically within the boundaries of certain regions, ostensibly to represent those regions' interests, these regions have no power over the means of election or administration of the election; while they're free to do as they wish with their own regional offices. Why not extend the same power of administration to their own Senate representatives as well?

Much has been said over the years over the importance, legitimacy, and just plain interesting-ness of regional Senate seats. And while I fall on the side of defending the existence of regional Senators, the fact remains that if they are truly to be regional Senators, regions should be free to extend their own influence and flair to those individual Senate elections, not only for the principle of the thing, but also for the purposes of making the game more varied and interesting. It makes these boundaries, and the representation of the regions themselves, actually mean something.

While I've objected to the idea of breaking the Presidential election down to the regional boundaries as well; why not? The election would remain, otherwise, the same, and it makes sense to conduct the newly decentralized regional Senate elections on the regional level, in a separate voting booth, accounting for potential means-of-election differences, while maintaining a certain efficiency. I support this Amendment wholeheartedly; and I feel the regions themselves would as well. It accomplishes two things at the same time; it makes our system just plain make more sense, and more consistent with an Atlasia that has seen regions take an ever more prominent role in the game, all the while making the game more varied than it has heretofore been.

Vote for this!

[Marokai Backbeat]

If by "failing over and over again" Napoleon means "twice" then yes.

Not every region has elections that line up with the presidential one.

What was so horrible about the original proposal?

It wasn't horrible, but in retrospect it was rather inefficient. Splitting up the voting booths has the potential to lead to lower turnout in regional Senate elections as individuals have to seek out a voting booth separate from the Presidential election. Regional elections typically have lower turnout, but that wasn't something we wanted to replicate for the senate races too. Under this proposal, the Presidential, regional Senate race, and perhaps the regional government races that also fall in conjunction to the federal elections, can all be held in the same place, effectively regionalizing the races, while maintaining turnout, and also possibly increasing turnout for the regional government races at the same time.

[Marokai Backbeat]

https://uselectionatlas.org/AFEWIKI/index.php/TPP#V._Game_Reform

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[Marokai Backbeat]

Regretfully, this fails. I am a sad boy today.

I'll cheer you up later tonight.