SENATE BILL: Empowering Regions in Federal Elections Amendment (sent to regions)

[Marokai Backbeat]

This is a slightly amended version of the version Jbrase proposed a couple months or so back. Designed in such a way as to incorporate Senator Napoleon's concerns on the previous Amendment. If his idea is the only way this overall proposal passed, then sure! Why not! The goal of allowing regions more control over their Senators is worth the stretch.

[Marokai Backbeat]

again, certification of results implies the calculation of preferential votes and declaring a winner.  if each region does this, there will need to be a way to decide what happens when different candidates win different regions.

I continue to not really comprehend what you're saying in yet another thread, here. The vote totals can just be added up nationally, counting from each regional thread. Sure, it would certainly be more efficient if we just changed the system entirely into some sort of electoral-college-y system, since counting presidential votes on the regional level is a retarded make-work half-step, but it was the only way two people would support the damn thing last time, so it was the only way this overall plan was going anywhere.

[Marokai Backbeat]

This will not change anything. People who are inactive and are coming here just to vote will still do the same, whether it's regionally-maintained or federally-maintained booth.

This bill is, IMO, a waste of time.

This Amendment goes far beyond just that one change. Though, at this point, this very obviously isn't going to pass whether it's written to cater to Napoleon or written to cater to everybody else.

I offer an amendment to remove "and certification of election results" from section 1.

Friendly. No problem with that.

I don't get why regions can't set up their voting threads on Thursday and having all voting start at midnight on Friday.

I don't understand why everyone can't having voting booths up. I had a perfect record when I ran the Pacific. But even the federal booths are late sometimes.

Mistakes happen.

What about the time the voting booth was mysteriously deleted? Just imagine only one voting booth being deleted. Maybe the Governor didn't like the result, or just wanted to cause chaos for fun. What would happen then? That regions gets to re-vote a week after everyone else?

That's an odd problem to lay against this one proposal. Would that actually happened? I seriously doubt it.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Ill support the caucus sh**t if you vote to send this to the people, Kal. I'm all about the give and take side of legislating.

If this is the case, then I will get down on my hands and knees and beg Kalwejt to death to vote for this.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Is there any way to write an Amendment that gives regions the ability to administer their regional Senate election and/or alter their voting system to elect a regional Senator that could possibly get your vote?

[Marokai Backbeat]

And that doesn't mean Teddy cannot still verify them nationally just because they are all not in one thread.

This bill takes away the certification powers of the SOFA for Presidential and Class A Senate elections, though, so it actually would mean he couldn't verify them.

I understand you have a knack for identifying preposterous possible loophole interpretations in anything, but this is one I'm just not seeing, sorry. I even accepted Napoleon's amendment to remove the region's ability to certify election results, to keep it in the hands of the SoFE.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I don't like this proposal either way, BUT, what if:

-Regional Senate elections were moved to April/August/December AND all regions held their other regional elections (like Governor) in these months

-At-large Senate elections were moved to February/June/October, in one big federal election booth with the Presidential election

Thus you would have at-large senate and Presidential elections together in a SoFE-administered booth, and regional Senate elections paired together with other regional elections.

That would certainly take adjusting to from some people, I'm sure, , but that's actually not a bad idea and would accomplish what either side wants, here.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I like it.

How would the transition work?

The transition is what I'm not sure how to work out, exactly. We can't just have some Senators have their terms cut in half once and another set of Senators have their terms extended for two months.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Yes, this would require three regions moving their elections to a different month. And yeah it would require a two month (or six month?! ) terms for Senators.

If it were easy, Game Reform wouldn't be worth doing in the first place.

Something important to remember. If these problems were simple, we would've solved them by now. If these ideas were tiny, what would be the point? Want want to change things? Then we really have to change things.

After giving it further thought I think this is a great idea, and my concerns are just a hazard of having to go through with it. There will be a weird lopsided Senate term issue in the transition period, but such a thing is unavoidable.

It addresses the concerns of both sides, accomplishing the goal of both sides. It gives regions more power over their Senate elections, without compromising activity in Presidential elections, but also without fracturing the Presidential election into five unnecessary pieces. And frankly, I don't think it ever made sense to not have the at-large elections (at-large Senators and the President) at the same time anyway. Consider this correcting that error!

Would you like to make it into a formal Amendment, Bgwah? I'll also accept you as a co-sponsor if you like.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Ugh motion to table

This is an amendment. People have to pass it. Since the Senate isn't concerned with that, we must not be concerned with this amendment.

Lets just move on already.

Are you serious? You're doing this again?


Nay.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Yes, this would require three regions moving their elections to a different month. And yeah it would require a two month (or six month?! ) terms for Senators.

If it were easy, Game Reform wouldn't be worth doing in the first place.

Something important to remember. If these problems were simple, we would've solved them by now. If these ideas were tiny, what would be the point? Want want to change things? Then we really have to change things.

After giving it further thought I think this is a great idea, and my concerns are just a hazard of having to go through with it. There will be a weird lopsided Senate term issue in the transition period, but such a thing is unavoidable.

It addresses the concerns of both sides, accomplishing the goal of both sides. It gives regions more power over their Senate elections, without compromising activity in Presidential elections, but also without fracturing the Presidential election into five unnecessary pieces. And frankly, I don't think it ever made sense to not have the at-large elections (at-large Senators and the President) at the same time anyway. Consider this correcting that error!

Would you like to make it into a formal Amendment, Bgwah? I'll also accept you as a co-sponsor if you like.

Well like I said, I'm not a fan of it either way... It just depends on how much you want me to campaign against it. Do you want me to vote nay but otherwise let the cards fall where they may, or have me heavily campaign against it?

I don't really understand what you find so objectionable. Especially under your version.

[Marokai Backbeat]

We can't just table everything that there's not an overwhelming consensus on.

Nay.

Amendments require a 2/3 consensus, so we are just wasting our time.

You know what else wastes time? Constantly flinging out dumbass motions to table, not one of which against me has passed so far.

At least other Senators in this discussion are interested in seeing how it will turn out. Perhaps you're complete uninterested in debating at all, but I want to at least try. This is important to me and a lot of other people, and I want to try and find a way to make it work.

The fact that some of you get so insanely up in arms about debating these issues blows my mind. You would think I was proposing a declaration of war or something.

There was no reason to try and make this more complicated than it had to be.

Bgwah's proposal makes this the least complicated it's been since the inception of this idea!! This nonsense comes up every single time we have a major game reform proposal. "TOO COMPLICATED I DUN UNDERSTAND." You're many things, Napoleon, but you're not stupid.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Because I'm fine with the status quo and see no reason to change it... The idea I proposed, I find much less objectionable than the original idea.

And I had another random thought. It would be possible to just switch which class is regional and which is at-large... So we would at-large elections in February and regional in April. This would basically mean 10 at-large seats for a two month period.

There would obviously be a few possible head aches with that method as well.

It's not a bad idea, since I'm not inherently opposed to the notion of just having an entirely at-large Senate for a couple months, but I think your first idea was more reasonable. Under the first revision, it just means that some senators get elected faster than they should and some stay in office longer than they should just for the transition period, whereas the second version actually kicks certain people out of office for awhile. (Obviously, not all regionally elected Senators could pull off an at-large victory.)

So, I think the first proposal is the most fair of them.

First of all, motions to table can not waste time. Final votes take longer. You are either ignorant about this or lying to try and make me look bad.

Second, this is infinitely more complicated. Switch Senate elections around? Extended terms? Half terms? Move regional elections around? What? At this point the harm outweighs the benefit significantly, especially for my region.

This is hilarious and has to be satire. What is difficult to understand about it? It switches when regional Senate elections take place and when at-large Senator elections take place. In the transition period, Senate class terms will be shortened and extended as necessary, and that stops immediately after April.

And what "harm"? It gives regions more flexibility over their regional Senate elections. It's insane to have you sitting here complaining about the idea being complicated, when your version of the proposal is by far the most unnecessarily complicated.

A simple switching of Senate classes and granting regions the ability to change voting systems is more complicated in your view than having five different voting booths for President, forcing all regions to count their own votes and present them to the SoFE for combination and certification? I would believe that you actually thought this idea was complicated if you also thought that idea was complicated, but you seem all on board with that unnecessary fracturing of the Presidential election.

Once again we are stuck in this ridiculous rut of "yeah everything is kinda boring lately, but CHANGE IS TOO COMPLICATED."

[Marokai Backbeat]

My version is not the most complicated. I am going to explain it here, with clarity, knowing full well you, Marokai Blue, will continue to ignore anything I say.

At this point it isn't even a subjective matter which version is more complicated, even just by counting the steps involved under each proposal. Bgwah's version requires a transition period, but everything is easy as pie afterwards. Your preferred version requires, every Presidential election, five separate voting booth under five different booth administrators, counting the vote from five different locations, and asking the SoFE to combined, double-check, and certify them afterwards. It's a lot of silly make-work that goes on forever. It is not a matter of opinion which version requires more work.

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People would still turnout for regional Senate elections the same way people still turn out just to elect Senators at-large. Because Senate elections matter and there will be a ton of campaigning on every side to get out the vote. It makes sense; national elections (at-large Senate elections and the Presidential election) is all done on one date, while the regional Senate elections (held within the bounds of a certain region) is administered within the bounds of that region.

The only difference is that regional elections will actually have some sort of specific flare, as opposed to most of them being absolute bores.

Giving the Presidential elections to the regions individually makes no sense if the way we elect the President remains a national popular vote. The simplest way to conduct a national election is to do it nationally. Though you invoke the US in your post, your proposal for fracturing the presidential election only makes sense if we're going to switch to some sort of electoral college system to elect a President that we don't currently have.

[Marokai Backbeat]

In this case, I don't think I'm even going to vote in favor of this amendment for final passage. I just don't support tabling it since even things that can't be passed can provide good opportunity for discussing what we would like to see out of eventual reform.

I'd agree if this wasn't the second thread for the fourth proposal on an idea whose sponsor would rather sacrifice Ayesa to appease the immobile Nays.

If it comes down to it, I'll stick with the version you like, but I'm at least trying to make this proposal better. The fact that some people here are going to vote nay no matter what because they're stubborn naysayers, isn't anything I can really affect.

I highly doubt your preferred version would pass ratification, anyway. And I also think you know that.

[Marokai Backbeat]

At this point I don't think either version will be going anywhere. Too much opposition to either. HENCE, the motion to table.

Understandable. We need to hurry and get to the next proposal we can vote down.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Were you guys waiting for me to introduce an amendment?

Considering the fact that you raised the idea..

[Marokai Backbeat]

Sponsor? Though it sounds like Yankee wants to do some fine tuning to it...

I, of course, don't oppose them.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Looks good to me! (Though the end result, I feel, is set in stone. )

[Marokai Backbeat]

Is this going too far?

I object.

Going forward perhaps we can just assume you object to most amendments.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Aye

[Marokai Backbeat]

Whatever...

Aye.

It'll go well, I promise!