Office of Secretary pikachu

[Clyde1998]

Endorsed.

[Clyde1998]

First, I urge my fellow citizens from the Northeast (and the rest of Atlasia) to vote for the Cris-Pryor amendment. While we've made significant progress on the ConCon through petition, this should hopefully speed the process up. I'd also like to again encourage any active Northeastern citizens to run for the Assembly this weekend. While I know that many Northeasterners have roles federal government, I still think that there are enough who do not in order to fill five Assembly seats...

Finally, I will be travelling on Wednesday and Thursday, and I'll likely not be able be very active, so consider this a LOA for then.

A meer eight votes so far in the assembly election...

[Clyde1998]

On the independence referendum, I'm not sure that I can schedule a binding election outside of the constitutionally prescribed voting periods.  There is nothing that allows constitutional amendments (which I assume this would be) to be voted on except during the period starting the penultimate Friday of the month - and which month depends on when the proposed amendment was passed.  I'm not sure that any vote held over a random early-in-the-month weekend would be valid under the Northeast constitution.

The date was deliberately scheduled so that it wouldn't clash with anything - for example, other constitutional referendums or elections. This is mainly due to the importance of the vote and to prevent other votes being affected by this referendum.

The constitution says:

Except in December, the appropriate election administrator shall open the polling booth for all proposed Amendments approved by the Legislative Assembly before 12:00:00am EST of the second Friday of a month

The proposed date is the second Friday in October, as we've agreed to leave time to have a debate about it before voting  - instead of rushing into the vote, because people may not know what they're voting for.

The most immediate dates would be the 11th and 25th September.

[Clyde1998]

On the independence referendum, I'm not sure that I can schedule a binding election outside of the constitutionally prescribed voting periods.  There is nothing that allows constitutional amendments (which I assume this would be) to be voted on except during the period starting the penultimate Friday of the month - and which month depends on when the proposed amendment was passed.  I'm not sure that any vote held over a random early-in-the-month weekend would be valid under the Northeast constitution.

The date was deliberately scheduled so that it wouldn't clash with anything - for example, other constitutional referendums or elections. This is mainly due to the importance of the vote and to prevent other votes being affected by this referendum.

The constitution says:

Except in December, the appropriate election administrator shall open the polling booth for all proposed Amendments approved by the Legislative Assembly before 12:00:00am EST of the second Friday of a month

The proposed date is the second Friday in October, as we've agreed to leave time to have a debate about it before voting  - instead of rushing into the vote, because people may not know what they're voting for.

The most immediate dates would be the 11th and 25th September.

You're misreading the constitution.  Unless it was significantly changed by the Patchwork Amendment (which I doubt), what it says about constitutional amendments is that anything approved by the Assembly before the second Friday of the month gets put on that month's ballot starting the penultimate Friday of the month.  Anything approved after gets put on the next month's ballot at the penultimate Friday of the next month.  Not the second week.

Is there any way for it to be held on an exclusive date - given the importance of the vote?

The consensus of the Assembly (plus the Governor) seemed to be that we should hold the vote on a separate date to avoid the issues in this referendum affecting the results of other referenda or elections. There are things in there saying that referenda could be held on the nearest Fridays -

At the worse case - could we move the referendum to the September ballot (whenever it is), without amending the referendum bill?

[Clyde1998]

There seems to be several problems with this referendum, firstly the fact that the bill was passed or even discussed as a constitutional amendment-I'd even question whether regions have a right to simply amend the constitution and then be seen as separate. The rest of the bill is merky-for example

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This is one of the bad aspects, you can't tie the hands of an elected legislature like this. It goes against the foundations of our system even if it's from a referendum result. You can't have a bill that orders assembly members to vote in a certain way.

Governor Pikachu, veto this bill and send it back to the Assembly so that they can at least improve it

There is nothing in the constitution preventing a region from becoming independent.

The two-week period following the referendum will take place before the next election - so we're only tying our own hands by passing this bill. I'm of the belief that the Assembly and Northeast Government will act based on the referendum result.

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I've already submitted a modified bill - to, hopefully, fix the issues that Pikachu talked about previously.

[Clyde1998]

Mr. Governor, this act passed 3-2, which is not enough to override your veto. As a Unionist Northeasterner, I ask you to veto Independence Referendum Act.

I feel we should let the voters decide the future of the region.

[Clyde1998]

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x pikachu

Potential legal issues aside, I do believe that it's best that we get this issue solved sooner rather than later. As a strong advocate of a unified Atlasia, I think that when we get to the ConCon, it's better that we do not have a potential secessionist threat to worry about and mess with plans. The campaign is a little shorter than I'd like it to be, but I think this is still long enough for the campaigns to get their messages out.

Thanks. The campaign will be shorter than I would have liked, as well, but I didn't want a clash with the next NE elections.

[Clyde1998]

Initially, I was going to post this on the unionist thread as another screed on why going independent would be a bad idea, but I think this presents enough of an issue that it's worth speaking of it here:

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I really think that we haven't had any particularly interesting regional Assembly elections in about two years does speak to a need to figure out a way to make these things more interesting. While some would suggest that independence would do trick, I think the problem lies mostly in using PR-STV as our electoral system (this can be seen with the constant boringness of at-large Senate elections). Districts could be a potential alternative, but for the Northeast, we're geographically small, and making single member districts will also likely give us puny electorates, especially with current turnout issues. My solution would be to amend the CE amendment to make the amount of candidates needed for a number of Assembly seats to be higher, but I think this problem is something that should be discussed.

Also, if you're interested in running for Assembly, I highly encourage you to do so.

I'm running in both Governor and Assembly elections - as, apparently, people are allowed to be on the ballot for both elections simultaneously.

EDIT - Evergreen says she's declared as well.

[Clyde1998]

I think my point of Assembly elections normally not being that interesting (most of the time) still stands. 7 candidates for 5 seats is better, but still the most candidates in over 2 years. I do think downsizing to three is something worth considering.

We passed a law that reduces the size of the Assembly to three if there are five or less candidates; and increases it to five when there are six or more.

[Clyde1998]

Thought I'd post here, do any fine members of the Northeast know when new office holders get sworn in?

Within seven days of the election.