Constitutional Amendment: Special Elections Amendment (Passed)

[SevenEleven]

Special Elections Amendment
Section 3 Article 5 of the Atlasian Constitution shall be amended to be
Vacancies in the House of Representatives shall be filled by the executive of the affected Party; but should a vacancy occur as the result of the death, expulsion, or resignation of a Representative not being a member of a major Party, then a special election that shall be held to choose a replacement to serve the remainder of the existing term.

Sponsor: OBD
Status: Passed

[OBD]

I don't support this. We don't need to have a national election (which requires work from both party appratuses and our good elections administrator) every time a representative has personal problems and needs to step down.

From my understanding, this aims to avoid a repeat of the event colloquialy known as the Great Green Panty Raid. My counteroffer is that a special election be triggered only if the party chair is incapable of making a replacement within an allotted time period, or if the Representative in question is an Independent. That's a far more reasonable solution that addresses concerns while also sparing the voters of this nation from going to the polls every time a representative resigns.

[Lumine]

I've tried to stay away from commenting on policy for the most part, but I did want to express a strong support for this particular measure and/or for alternatives which preserve its goal. Voters should have a direct say over who represents them, and we've seen countless examples of appointments - particularly in the case of smaller parties - leading to problems which are entirely avoidable if voters had the power to decide.

Personally, I don't find it problematic to ask voters to decide on a replacement as opposed to a less transparent process of appointment, particularly when said process has been clearly open to abuse in the past, and when we have the pre-reset precedents of special elections to the At-Large Senate.

[Esteemed Jimmy]

There needs to be a solution to this problem. I'd support this bill or an amended version of it.

[Continential]

From my understanding, this aims to avoid a repeat of the event colloquialy known as the Great Green Panty Raid.

Poirot has supported having special elections since the reset happened.

I'll do a separate post on why we should have this amendment.

[OBD]

Regardless of the purpose this seems too burdensome for the voter. I'll propose an amendment limiting this to when a party leader fails to make an appointment or if there is no party leader, following sponsor advocacy.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

No.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

No.

Snark aside, the reason the ConCon opted against special elections for the House is that it s with the proportionality of the chamber and basically ensures the majority party (in terms of the electorate) will fill vacancies in the House. If you want to provide for instances where a party doesn't have a chair capable of making an appointment, that is easily resolved through statutory reforms.

[Mike Thick]

What if you made it so in janky situations, the Speaker of the House appoints a member who was registered in the vacating Rep's party at the time the vacancy arose? Just a thought

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

What if you made it so in janky situations, the Speaker of the House appoints a member who was registered in the vacating Rep's party at the time the vacancy arose? Just a thought

I would support this.

[OBD]

What if you made it so in janky situations, the Speaker of the House appoints a member who was registered in the vacating Rep's party at the time the vacancy arose? Just a thought

I would support this.

Likewise. This system is currently used in OTL Oregon (and other states) and would be a nice solution to this problem. If the resigning rep had an active/serving Party Chair, we can retain the current system.

If the Vice President isn't interested I can propose an amendment to this end following sponsor advocacy.

[Continential]

Here is my post on why we should have this amendment.


I don't see how it puts a strain on Peebs considering that there will likely be two/three candidates and elections happen a couple times a year and there would have been the exceptional number of five special elections since the year started.

• tack when he resigned to take office as Senator following Peanut's assention to the VPship
• LT when he resigned to take office as Senator
• RC when he resigned for personal reasons
• Laki because of the Green Raid or whatever you call it
• Adam Griffin because of the Georgia Runoff I guess

One of them could have been done (tack) with the loophole of being appointed to a office and serving in both I'm pretty sure.

Like Lumine said, there was Special At-Large Senate elections, (so basically the At-Large Senate was the House but with 5 At-Large Senators and with unicameralism) since the first constitution to the reset when the House was created.

Unless if there are voters who are only online around the elections, which I highly doubt there are, and by your standard, elections like the Fremonter/Southern/Lincolner regional elections should be held alongside the Presidential/Midterm elections. For instance the November Lincoln Gubertorial Election, even after it was held in November and was delayed by a week got 6 votes less then the August 2020 Senate race, which was the most competitive race in a while.

So I don't see how it is burdensome for the voter, to be honest.

Edit: I'll catch up with the consersation later.

[Poirot]

Advocacy

Vacancies to the House of Representatives should be filled by special elections because it is more democratic. Citizens elect the individuals who will represent them in the House. When there is a vacancy citizens should vote to elect a new representative. Representatives get a mandate from the voters. When a party Chair decides who will sit in the House, there is no choice made by the people.

This is an elections game. Filling vacancies by elections is natural, it goes with the game. Election time seems to be a time that wakes up people. Special elections were accepted pre-reset. There are not huge numbers of resignations so we won't be constantly in elections.

Holding a special election for all vacancies treats all vacancies the same way. Right now there is a special election if the seat is held by a person from a recognised party or not. The unrecognised party or Independent doesn't pick the replacement like a major party can do.

[Pericles]

The Green Party situation was a unique one caused by the deregistration of its leadership, and is unlikely to be replicated. Special elections would cause unnecessary stress for players and lead to less active players feeling spammed and potentially deregistering. It could just as easily distort the will of the people due to lower turnout than enhance it. So I think we have it about right with the amount of elections we have already. I do actually support a more limited reform to prevent future Green Panty Raids, but I'm not sure what that is. The classic game reform dilemma lol.

[Mike Thick]

I don't have a strong of an opinion about this as some other people. However, I will say that I don't find the example of the At-Large Senate specials very persuasive, mainly because the game was quite a bit smaller then than it is now. National races are a huge effort by all sides these days, and I'm a little concerned that active players will burn out if we significantly increase the number of them.

EDIT: I'll add one more thing: I have no problem with an Amendment to stop the GGPR from happening again, and I think that would probably be good for the health of the game. I just don't want us to go overboard.

[Joseph Cao]

With all due respect to Ishan and Poirot, I'm not really sure that argument holds water.

Our special elections are a carryover from the USA OTL, where House special elections are held to fill a vacant seat for the remainder of a term. In OTL these elections are held within a district, with a specific electorate which is reasonably close to the electorate that previously elected the dead, expelled, resigning, or incapacitated representative. When we say "will of the people," this is the constituency of people we are referring to. But we use STV for House elections, and there is no guarantee that this OTL property will hold in Atlasia under those conditions. Technically speaking, the same nationwide electorate elected razze and Jessica in December. Their voters are scattered around the country, however, and it is not a given that, in the hypothetical event of a Jessica resignation, Jessica's voters will be the ones getting to decide on a replacement for the representative to whom they previously gave a mandate, even though they are the "people" whose will we wish to gauge. In fact, as things stand, they will always be overridden by razze voters. It is more democratic in the sense that the majority of our electorate would prefer a left-leaning representative to fill a vacancy, and thus a 9-0 House if all nine seats simultaneously required a special election for each seat.

If Lumine's goal is to give voters a direct say over who represents them, and we are referring to the voters who elected the vacating representative, then there is no directly democratic way of satisfying their will – it would be disingenuous to hold an election for them and them only. (Lumine can correct me if my assumption is faulty, of course, though the alternative would seem to be giving the nationwide electorate the final say over who gets elected to a seat that only a fraction of them previously voted on.) In existing situations where the party chair can appoint, statutory law can be modified to enforce an ideologically similar appointment to the vacating representative (as Yankee currently does) so as to preserve the will of the people who elected that representative. If the party chair is also required to explain their decision, so much the better for purposes of transparency. For situations where the chair is incapacitated or otherwise unable to fill the vacancy, or if the representative is an independent, that responsibility could pass to the Speaker, who would likewise be bound by statutory law to pick an ideologically similar representative. That would treat all parties equally and would eliminate the possibility of another Panty Raid.

[OBD]

I'll propose an amendment based on Ted's and Cao's comments on this issue. This would create a system handing the appointment over to the Speaker if the executive position of the resigning Representative's major party is vacated anytime after the creation of the vacancy (like in the GGPR), or if the executive is incapable of filling the seat in a timely manner. I'm not the best writer so feedback would be appreciated. I'm also open to replacing special elections entirely with this system but that amendment probably requires a separate discussion.

Special Elections Amendment
Section 3 Article 5 of the Atlasian Constitution shall be amended to be
Vacancies in the House of Representatives shall be filled by the executive of the affected Party; should the executive of the affected Party resign at any time between the creation of the vacancy and the appointment of a replacement Representative, or be otherwise unable to fill the vacancy within 72 hours, the Speaker of the House shall fill the seat with a member of the Party of the departing representative. But, should a vacancy occur as the result of the death, expulsion, or resignation of a Representative not being a member of a major Party, then a special election shall be held to choose a replacement to serve the remainder of the existing term.

[Poirot]

the proposed amendment is not friendly.
The original proposition is to fill vacancies by special election instead of by designation. The proposed amendment removes the special election so it goes against the basic principle of what I introduced. It even adds a power to the Speaker to designate a replacement. If a party fails to designate a replacement it is a good case to have a special election. 

[OBD]

I believe that the amended version fixes the problems posed by the Great Green Panty Raid while also not creating burdensome special elections that could end up giving the majority even more power if a minority party representative resigns. But let's see what the House thinks.

[Poirot]

The original proposal is about filling vacancies and it's not about the Green Party situation.
I've run in special elections and it was fun. If players don't like elections or voting, they don't have to vote, if they are annoyed by elections maybe they are in the wrong game. Special elections are not more stress. In a special election not all parties are forced to run a candidate so if it's too much work or nobody in the party  is interested, a party just doesn't have to run a candidate.

Appointments for vacancies can be acceptable if there is one week left in the term and there is no time to have an election but otherwise voters should decide who will represent them.

[SevenEleven]

I proposed a similar amendment prior that was never brought to the floor. I suppose my main concern is the protection of minority political interests.

[Joseph Cao]

To be clear, I'm not opposed to the argument that voters should pick their representatives. My opposition is based more on the assertion that we shouldn't be conflating the voters who picked the vacating representative and the entire electorate which would get to weigh in during a special election. The will of the people isn't really respected when we move from STV in regular elections to (what is effectively) FPTP in special elections.

In the specific event that parties fail to designate a replacement or are otherwise incapable of doing so, I would be open to supporting a special election. I passed over this in my earlier remarks because a) I was trying to argue for a self-consistent application of appointments across all possible scenarios, and b) my personal belief is that "the will of the people" is best respected when party chairs are formally or informally bound to pick ideologically similar representatives to fill vacancies. If the political interests of smaller-party members or independents can't be protected under this framework, then we ought to extend the framework to cover them.

[SevenEleven]

Special Elections Amendment
Section 3 Article 5 of the Atlasian Constitution shall be amended to be
Vacancies in the House of Representatives shall be filled by the executive of the affected Party; should the executive of the affected Party resign at any time between the creation of the vacancy and the appointment of a replacement Representative, or be otherwise unable to fill the vacancy within 72 hours, the Speaker of the House shall fill the seat with a member of the Party of the departing representative. But, should a vacancy occur as the result of the death, expulsion, or resignation of a Representative not being a member of a major Party, then a special election shall be held to choose a replacement to serve the remainder of the existing term.

A vote is now open on the above amendment.

[SevenEleven]

Aye.

[Left Wing]

Aye.