Electoral Reform Amendment/Statute

[Gabu]

I think we're going to have to resort to something less scientific (along the lines of flipping a coin or having someone else make the call) than what we've considered so far to break a tie of this sort.   I am at an absolutely total loss to think of anything that involves the voters and am beginning to think that there isn't one.

[Nym90]

Perhaps ties should be broken by a vote of the Senate?

[Akno21]

Perhaps ties should be broken by a vote of the Senate?

Why don't we let the Sec. of State do it? I know there's no logic behind that, but it gives him something to do.

[Gabu]

Perhaps ties should be broken by a vote of the Senate?

Given the pace that the Senate has been known to move on things, I'm not sure if that would be a good idea.  Plus, I don't like the idea of the Senate voting on its own members.

If it's all we've got, though, we maybe could go with something like that.

[Jake]

Go with the trusty pick-a-number-between-one-and-ten method. Have the president pick a number and tell the SoFA and the Chief Jusitce. Then tell the tied candidates to pick a number.  Best way.

[WMS]

Perhaps ties should be broken by a vote of the Senate?

Given the pace that the Senate has been known to move on things, I'm not sure if that would be a good idea.  Plus, I don't like the idea of the Senate voting on its own members.

If it's all we've got, though, we maybe could go with something like that.

Excellent work, Senator Gabu! And Lewis has been helpful from the peanut gallery, as it were.

Well, I think at least one runoff vote between candidates B and C in the unbreakable tie example ought to be held, just in case someone chooses not to vote or changes their mind. If they still tie, then maybe we go with Jake's idea.

IN ANY EVENT, *ahem*, Peter Bell has a point: this should be a Senate Bill, not a Constitutional Amendment. Furthermore, we should just say in the Constitution that the Senate will decide the manner in which elections are held. This way we can still work on figuring out a voting solution during the Constitutional Convention, and get in in place before the next election. I think we're getting pretty close to a definitive answer on this issue.

[Gabu]

Well, I think at least one runoff vote between candidates B and C in the unbreakable tie example ought to be held, just in case someone chooses not to vote or changes their mind. If they still tie, then maybe we go with Jake's idea.

Yeah, we could do that.  I definitely want it to be as representative as possible of the citizens.

IN ANY EVENT, *ahem*, Peter Bell has a point: this should be a Senate Bill, not a Constitutional Amendment. Furthermore, we should just say in the Constitution that the Senate will decide the manner in which elections are held. This way we can still work on figuring out a voting solution during the Constitutional Convention, and get in in place before the next election. I think we're getting pretty close to a definitive answer on this issue.

Most of it already is.  Note the dividing line; the bulk of what I'm proposing (and the part we're currently debating) is part of a statute that would only need a majority in the Senate.

Some of it still needs to be stripped from the amendment; I'll do that in Electoral Reform Amendment/Statute v1.1, which will be coming after we address all of the issues with the current amendment.

[WMS]

Well, I think at least one runoff vote between candidates B and C in the unbreakable tie example ought to be held, just in case someone chooses not to vote or changes their mind. If they still tie, then maybe we go with Jake's idea.

Yeah, we could do that.  I definitely want it to be as representative as possible of the citizens.

Excellent! Maybe we can nail down this point.

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Most of it already is.  Note the dividing line; the bulk of what I'm proposing (and the part we're currently debating) is part of a statute that would only need a majority in the Senate.

Some of it still needs to be stripped from the amendment; I'll do that in Electoral Reform Amendment/Statute v1.1, which will be coming after we address all of the issues with the current amendment.
[/quote]

Ah, yeah, I *clears throat* saw that right away. We'd better make sure it gets in the new Constitution correctly, then.

So what issues are outstanding? So far we seem to have...

Preferential Voting System
-every voter must mark every preference [note: what do we do with those who still fail to do so?]
--ties in the final round will be handled with a runoff between the top two candidates [note: how do we handle a tie in a runoff?]
---ties in previous rounds will be handled first by preferences, then if still tied with a runoff between the two tied candidates, then if still tied with a random number game [note: what if the candidates tie the random number game? do we just keep playing the random number game until someone wins?]

Yipe! I came up with outstanding issues on every point we agreed on! O_O

[Gabu]

Yipe! I came up with outstanding issues on every point we agreed on! O_O

Hah.  Well, let's see what we can do about those things...

-every voter must mark every preference [note: what do we do with those who still fail to do so?]

How about we allow them to delete their vote and vote again?  We really should make everyone preference every candidate, but it wouldn't be fair to disenfranchise everyone who screwed that up.

--ties in the final round will be handled with a runoff between the top two candidates [note: how do we handle a tie in a runoff?]

I think that in those cases we can do something like having the Senate vote on it or something like that.  Any suggestions or preferences?

---ties in previous rounds will be handled first by preferences, then if still tied with a runoff between the two tied candidates, then if still tied with a random number game [note: what if the candidates tie the random number game? do we just keep playing the random number game until someone wins?]

Uh, I think the random number game was a joke.  Or was it?  I thought it was.

[WMS]

Yipe! I came up with outstanding issues on every point we agreed on! O_O

Hah.  Well, let's see what we can do about those things...

Let's roll.

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How about we allow them to delete their vote and vote again?  We really should make everyone preference every candidate, but it wouldn't be fair to disenfranchise everyone who screwed that up.[/quote]

Nice idea. And given the nifty Personal Message system, it shouldn't be too hard to contact them.

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I think that in those cases we can do something like having the Senate vote on it or something like that.  Any suggestions or preferences?[/quote]

Maybe a Senate vote combined with the approval of the President? I'm trying to avoid situations where the Senate chooses based on partisanship...*snicker* yea, right. See below for another idea...

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Uh, I think the random number game was a joke.  Or was it?  I thought it was.
[/quote]

Well, it takes the place of a coin toss, which HAS been used to determine elections (I remember reading about a mayor's race in Colorado some years back where a tie was settled this way), and seems fairer than anything else I've seen.

[Gabu]

Nice idea. And given the nifty Personal Message system, it shouldn't be too hard to contact them.

Okay, we'll go with that, then.

Maybe a Senate vote combined with the approval of the President? I'm trying to avoid situations where the Senate chooses based on partisanship...*snicker* yea, right. See below for another idea...

Well, it takes the place of a coin toss, which HAS been used to determine elections (I remember reading about a mayor's race in Colorado some years back where a tie was settled this way), and seems fairer than anything else I've seen.

I suppose in the absense of any other idea, we could go with this.  It just seems kinda, you know... unprofessional.

I really wish we could get some other people's opinions on this.  Given that this will need the support of a majority of the Senate, I'd hate to be concocting big things here and have it turn out that only we agree with them.

[WMS]

Maybe a Senate vote combined with the approval of the President? I'm trying to avoid situations where the Senate chooses based on partisanship...*snicker* yea, right. See below for another idea...

Well, it takes the place of a coin toss, which HAS been used to determine elections (I remember reading about a mayor's race in Colorado some years back where a tie was settled this way), and seems fairer than anything else I've seen.

I suppose in the absense of any other idea, we could go with this.  It just seems kinda, you know... unprofessional.

I really wish we could get some other people's opinions on this.  Given that this will need the support of a majority of the Senate, I'd hate to be concocting big things here and have it turn out that only we agree with them.

True, since in reality it would be really rare that we'd ever have ties in a preferential system. But given Atlasia's low voting population, it happens.

Agreed. Come on out people, it's time to comment!

[Jake]

---ties in previous rounds will be handled first by preferences, then if still tied with a runoff between the two tied candidates, then if still tied with a random number game [note: what if the candidates tie the random number game? do we just keep playing the random number game until someone wins?]

Uh, I think the random number game was a joke.  Or was it?  I thought it was.

I was serious about the random number game. The coin toss would be hard to do fairly.

[Gabu]

---ties in previous rounds will be handled first by preferences, then if still tied with a runoff between the two tied candidates, then if still tied with a random number game [note: what if the candidates tie the random number game? do we just keep playing the random number game until someone wins?]

Uh, I think the random number game was a joke.  Or was it?  I thought it was.

I was serious about the random number game. The coin toss would be hard to do fairly.

I suppose.  Well, why not?  I've got nothing better to suggest.  Having an elected official(s) vote on it would probably be less fair than that suggestion.

[Jake]

How about we allow them to delete their vote and vote again?  We really should make everyone preference every candidate, but it wouldn't be fair to disenfranchise everyone who screwed that up.

I will refuse to preference every candidate and will only preference the candidates I feel will be able to serve in a fitting manner. Not everyone approves of every candidate.

Case in point, the last election, I approved of PB, badnarik, Hugh, and Nation.  I didn't feel Harry and Al were fit to be president.  So I didn't preference them.

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I don't think the Senate should handle a tie, use a random fair system to determine a winner.

[Gabu]

I will refuse to preference every candidate and will only preference the candidates I feel will be able to serve in a fitting manner. Not everyone approves of every candidate.

Case in point, the last election, I approved of PB, badnarik, Hugh, and Nation.  I didn't feel Harry and Al were fit to be president.  So I didn't preference them.

Come to think of it, do we need to require all voters to do this anymore?  I think that we scrapped the thing that would make it a requirement, so I don't think that will be a problem.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The importance of party support needs to be strengthened somehow.  Given the natiure of early Atlasian votes such as those quoted by Nym90 below:

It's interesting that in the first election last February, these were all considered valid votes:

I vote for the GOP ticket!

I vote for the GOP ticket.

Is this how one votes? Just post? Obviously I vote GOP.

Perhaps we could add something to allow for a party-line ticket and instead of having being just a single P/VP slate, it would be a complete list of preferences.  Of course people could still come up with individualized ballots, but it would give a discernable advantage to being an orgaized party, if it was simpler to vote a party list of preferences than an individual ballot.

[Jake]

The importance of party support needs to be strengthened somehow.  Given the natiure of early Atlasian votes such as those quoted by Nym90 below:

It's interesting that in the first election last February, these were all considered valid votes:

I vote for the GOP ticket!

I vote for the GOP ticket.

Is this how one votes? Just post? Obviously I vote GOP.

Perhaps we could add something to allow for a party-line ticket and instead of having being just a single P/VP slate, it would be a complete list of preferences.  Of course people could still come up with individualized ballots, but it would give a discernable advantage to being an orgaized party, if it was simpler to vote a party list of preferences than an individual ballot.

That certainly won't gain much support from third partiers that are already trying to make the big parties change their names.

[minionofmidas]

The importance of party support needs to be strengthened somehow.  Given the natiure of early Atlasian votes such as those quoted by Nym90 below:

It's interesting that in the first election last February, these were all considered valid votes:

I vote for the GOP ticket!

I vote for the GOP ticket.

Is this how one votes? Just post? Obviously I vote GOP.

Perhaps we could add something to allow for a party-line ticket and instead of having being just a single P/VP slate, it would be a complete list of preferences.  Of course people could still come up with individualized ballots, but it would give a discernable advantage to being an orgaized party, if it was simpler to vote a party list of preferences than an individual ballot.

These ballots were unproblematic back then because there only was a Democratic ticket and a Republican ticket, and no Senate.

[Gabu]

The importance of party support needs to be strengthened somehow.  Given the natiure of early Atlasian votes such as those quoted by Nym90 below:

It's interesting that in the first election last February, these were all considered valid votes:

I vote for the GOP ticket!

I vote for the GOP ticket.

Is this how one votes? Just post? Obviously I vote GOP.

Perhaps we could add something to allow for a party-line ticket and instead of having being just a single P/VP slate, it would be a complete list of preferences.  Of course people could still come up with individualized ballots, but it would give a discernable advantage to being an orgaized party, if it was simpler to vote a party list of preferences than an individual ballot.

Someone else could come up with something like this if they wanted to.  I personally would like to see parties become less important.  We should be voting for a person, not a party.  The party isn't going to be the one holding the office.

[WMS]

The importance of party support needs to be strengthened somehow.  Given the natiure of early Atlasian votes such as those quoted by Nym90 below:

It's interesting that in the first election last February, these were all considered valid votes:

I vote for the GOP ticket!

I vote for the GOP ticket.

Is this how one votes? Just post? Obviously I vote GOP.

Perhaps we could add something to allow for a party-line ticket and instead of having being just a single P/VP slate, it would be a complete list of preferences.  Of course people could still come up with individualized ballots, but it would give a discernable advantage to being an orgaized party, if it was simpler to vote a party list of preferences than an individual ballot.

Someone else could come up with something like this if they wanted to.  I personally would like to see parties become less important.  We should be voting for a person, not a party.  The party isn't going to be the one holding the office.

On a diagonal from Gabu: I would prefer a strong multi-party system to a strong two-party system, although I do sympathize with his desire to have more voting by person than by party. On the other hand, I can just see all the "D" and "R" straight-party votes cast by newbies already...ugh (I dislike straight-party votes IRL).

[Gabu]

The importance of party support needs to be strengthened somehow.  Given the natiure of early Atlasian votes such as those quoted by Nym90 below:

It's interesting that in the first election last February, these were all considered valid votes:

I vote for the GOP ticket!

I vote for the GOP ticket.

Is this how one votes? Just post? Obviously I vote GOP.

Perhaps we could add something to allow for a party-line ticket and instead of having being just a single P/VP slate, it would be a complete list of preferences.  Of course people could still come up with individualized ballots, but it would give a discernable advantage to being an orgaized party, if it was simpler to vote a party list of preferences than an individual ballot.

Someone else could come up with something like this if they wanted to.  I personally would like to see parties become less important.  We should be voting for a person, not a party.  The party isn't going to be the one holding the office.

On a diagonal from Gabu: I would prefer a strong multi-party system to a strong two-party system, although I do sympathize with his desire to have more voting by person than by party. On the other hand, I can just see all the "D" and "R" straight-party votes cast by newbies already...ugh (I dislike straight-party votes IRL).

I'm not advocating that we abolish parties or something.  It's just that I don't particularly the thought of having more stuff like this:

I'm here and I'm voting for the republicans...whoever they are.

Is it really healthy for our country to allow voters to vote when they don't even have a clue who the people are who they're even voting for?  I think that it should at least be a requirement that you should know who the candidates are.

This isn't a jab at StevenNick, I'm just using his post as an excellent example of what I'm talking about.

[WMS]

The importance of party support needs to be strengthened somehow.  Given the natiure of early Atlasian votes such as those quoted by Nym90 below:

It's interesting that in the first election last February, these were all considered valid votes:

I vote for the GOP ticket!

I vote for the GOP ticket.

Is this how one votes? Just post? Obviously I vote GOP.

Perhaps we could add something to allow for a party-line ticket and instead of having being just a single P/VP slate, it would be a complete list of preferences.  Of course people could still come up with individualized ballots, but it would give a discernable advantage to being an orgaized party, if it was simpler to vote a party list of preferences than an individual ballot.

Someone else could come up with something like this if they wanted to.  I personally would like to see parties become less important.  We should be voting for a person, not a party.  The party isn't going to be the one holding the office.

On a diagonal from Gabu: I would prefer a strong multi-party system to a strong two-party system, although I do sympathize with his desire to have more voting by person than by party. On the other hand, I can just see all the "D" and "R" straight-party votes cast by newbies already...ugh (I dislike straight-party votes IRL).

I'm not advocating that we abolish parties or something.  It's just that I don't particularly the thought of having more stuff like this:

I'm here and I'm voting for the republicans...whoever they are.

Is it really healthy for our country to allow voters to vote when they don't even have a clue who the people are who they're even voting for?  I think that it should at least be a requirement that you should know who the candidates are.

This isn't a jab at StevenNick, I'm just using his post as an excellent example of what I'm talking about.

I agree with you, actually, and I would venture to say that the last election definitely showed that this is a problem...

[Akno21]

The importance of party support needs to be strengthened somehow.  Given the natiure of early Atlasian votes such as those quoted by Nym90 below:

It's interesting that in the first election last February, these were all considered valid votes:

I vote for the GOP ticket!

I vote for the GOP ticket.

Is this how one votes? Just post? Obviously I vote GOP.

Perhaps we could add something to allow for a party-line ticket and instead of having being just a single P/VP slate, it would be a complete list of preferences.  Of course people could still come up with individualized ballots, but it would give a discernable advantage to being an orgaized party, if it was simpler to vote a party list of preferences than an individual ballot.

Someone else could come up with something like this if they wanted to.  I personally would like to see parties become less important.  We should be voting for a person, not a party.  The party isn't going to be the one holding the office.

On a diagonal from Gabu: I would prefer a strong multi-party system to a strong two-party system, although I do sympathize with his desire to have more voting by person than by party. On the other hand, I can just see all the "D" and "R" straight-party votes cast by newbies already...ugh (I dislike straight-party votes IRL).

I'm not advocating that we abolish parties or something.  It's just that I don't particularly the thought of having more stuff like this:

I'm here and I'm voting for the republicans...whoever they are.

Is it really healthy for our country to allow voters to vote when they don't even have a clue who the people are who they're even voting for?  I think that it should at least be a requirement that you should know who the candidates are.

This isn't a jab at StevenNick, I'm just using his post as an excellent example of what I'm talking about.

I agree with you, actually, and I would venture to say that the last election definitely showed that this is a problem...

True, although less blatently. You had some people do the "right thing" such as Defarge and Julien, for example.

[Gabu]

I agree with you, actually, and I would venture to say that the last election definitely showed that this is a problem...

Yes, that is sort of what I was talking about, although it's not quite as bad as voting "GOP" without even having a clue who the candidate is.  I'm not sure how one would remedy the problem in the last election; most solutions I can think of would get into very dangerous "father knows best" territory.  You could do King's suggestion of not allowing candidates to run as a member of a party, but they'll still have the backing of their respective parties, so it wouldn't change much.

I think that now is not really the time to address this topic, as it's controversial and could threaten to torpedo this whole thing if people didn't like it.