Constitution Development Comment Box

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I am not a delegate, but I would like to join Marokai Blue in saying that I view universalism as potentially being very destructive to the Atlasian system. I'm sorry now that I did not run to be a delegate, as my fear of being rejected by my fellow party members has prevented me from being able to vote against the universalist proposals before one of them left the convention floor.

     -- Senator PiT, a concerned citizen

[Associate Justice PiT]

Perhaps any any type of universalism needs an escape clause, such as "If a majority of votes in the (house that uses universalism) have less than a majority of current voters participating, in the first (time between elections) then the Constitutional Convention shall resume" or something to that effect.

     Is there any chance of that not happening? Even if we interpret current voters to be only those who voted in the last election as well as are excluded by virtue of membership in the 15-member upper house, we're talking about 45-50 voters. Considering that we're taking out most of the more active members who would likely be in the upper house, a majority would need 22-25 people. Very few if any votes would achieve that.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Perhaps any any type of universalism needs an escape clause, such as "If a majority of votes in the (house that uses universalism) have less than a majority of current voters participating, in the first (time between elections) then the Constitutional Convention shall resume" or something to that effect.

     Is there any chance of that not happening? Even if we interpret current voters to be only those who voted in the last election as well as are excluded by virtue of membership in the 15-member upper house, we're talking about 45-50 voters. Considering that we're taking out most of the more active members who would likely be in the upper house, a majority would need 22-25 people. Very few if any votes would achieve that.

Good point. Maybe adjust something to say 33% or 25% instead of 50%. What would be considered an acceptable level in judging whether or not a form of universalism is successful?

     Strictly speaking, more active members than the elected house (25% would only need 11-12 votes on average, which would fail this with a 15-member house). The point here is that if a universal house has fewer active members than the elected one, meaning that one would have more clout by being an active member of the universal house, then it creates significant unbalance between the two houses as the universal house essentially becomes the more powerful one.