FT 19.03 Amendment to the Electoral Procedures 2.0 Act (Statute)
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  FT 19.03 Amendment to the Electoral Procedures 2.0 Act (Statute)
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Author Topic: FT 19.03 Amendment to the Electoral Procedures 2.0 Act (Statute)  (Read 588 times)
Anna Komnene
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« on: February 25, 2021, 08:36:47 PM »
« edited: April 24, 2021, 06:08:16 PM by Anna Komnene »

Quote
AN ACT
To prohibit candidates from running in more than one election on a given weekend

Quote
Section 1: Title

This legislation may be cited as the Amendment to the Electoral Procedures 2.0 Act.

Section 2: Text

Section 2 of the Election Procedures Codification Act of 2017 is hereby amended:

Quote
vii. All such House of Commons candidates as shall have met the requirements imposed by Article V of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Fremont, and being eligible to hold the office for which they are a candidate, shall be included on the sample ballot, provided that they are not candidates for more than one (1) election, Regional or Federal, that occurs on the same weekend.
Sponsor: YE

The floor is open.
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YE
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« Reply #1 on: February 25, 2021, 09:26:12 PM »

So some backstory to how this got put into place in the first place.

In the past we'd flood the ballot with candidates who were running for offices to increase the size of Parliament. This would fail for 2 reasons.

1. Large Parliaments are not amazing places to foster new talent as their size can lead to people getting lost in the crowd).
2. At such size, it can be harder to find adequate replacements especially in a region this small because the talent pool is depleted, and with more people in Parliament, there are bound to be more turnover and in turn weekly (our election laws were different at the time) by-elections.

April 2019 was the tipping point in which Jimmy and fhtagn were both elected to Parliament and proceeded to the House (with ASV losing the lone House seat). SBS then resigned setting up 3 vacancies and our efforts to recruit people for the open seats fell short. So we had to call a snap just to downsize Parliament and ram through a series of election bills and amendments to fix this, including this one.

However, this change has prevented people from running from House and Senate at the same time as well as making meme presidential runs while running for a more serious office which I think is a step too far.
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Unconditional Surrender Truman
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« Reply #2 on: February 25, 2021, 10:56:18 PM »

I agree with the intent of this bill. It needs to be worded differently, however, because as written it inadvertently deletes guidelines for ballot access in races for Senate and first minister. If the member from Nevada is amenable I would propose the following amendment.

Quote
vii. All such candidates as shall have met the requirements imposed by Article V of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Fremont, and being eligible to hold the office for which they are a candidate, shall be included on the sample ballot, except if a candidate for the House of Commons should also be a candidate for another office under this commonwealth or the Republic of Atlasia in an election which occurs the same weekend, in which case they should not be included.


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YE
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« Reply #3 on: February 25, 2021, 11:04:48 PM »

Oh now I see what I did.
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Anna Komnene
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« Reply #4 on: February 25, 2021, 11:44:54 PM »
« Edited: February 25, 2021, 11:48:15 PM by Anna Komnene »

Edit: I was a bit confused at first but I figured it out.

Just to clarify, is the main change here that Senate/FM candidates should be allowed to run for multiple offices but Parliament candidates should not?
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Sestak
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« Reply #5 on: February 25, 2021, 11:56:39 PM »

I'm a little bit confused. Are we rewriting the June 2019 amendment to the Electoral Procedures Act?

for reference:
Quote
vii. All such candidates as shall have met the requirements imposed by Article V of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Fremont, and being eligible to hold the office for which they are a candidate, shall be included on the sample ballot, provided that they are not candidates for more than one office, whether under this Commonwealth or the Republic of Atlasia, in an election or elections that occur on the same weekend.

Using strikethrough would held clarify that. If so, is the main change here that Senate/FM candidates should be allowed to run for multiple offices but Parliament candidates should not?

My understanding is that, yes, this was the intent. The initial act was primarily intended to prevent a repeat of what happened in (iirc April) 2018, when a number of candidates ran for both Parliament and for other offices, with relatively little intent to taking their seats in Parliament; they were mostly running in order to ensure their side had a stronger chance at winning a majority in Parliament since the body's size adapted to the number of candidates.

The seats formula has since been made more reasonable, but it was still decided that this restriction was necessary; however, since Senate and FM races can't be gamed in this way, it just becomes unnecessarily restrictive.


One other thing that was brought up at some point that I'd suggest be added to this bill is to exempt Presidential/VP runs completely from this. A lot of presidential runs are simply carried out for fun etc. and thus shouldn't preclude people from running for Parli. The current statute, for instance, is the reason Battista had to drop off of Koopa's ticket at the last moment.
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Anna Komnene
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« Reply #6 on: February 26, 2021, 01:36:56 AM »

Yeah when you put it that way, I think it makes a lot of sense to make that distinction. I'm not a big fan of people holding multiple elected offices, but running for multiple offices is a different story. I do think we should be more permissive there.

The presidential exception is a tricky one. I'm sympathetic to the idea that presidential campaigns are unique in Atlasia where more people run to have fun. Since this is a game at heart, I think we should always be looking for more ways for people to have fun. (altho some of the smaller parties might dispute the idea that they aren't trying to win the race!)

OTOH there's other tickets that would feel very sketchy if they did this. Unfortunately, I don't think there's really any way to make a legal distinction between a fun ticket and a ticket with major electoral chances.
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Battista Minola 1616
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« Reply #7 on: February 26, 2021, 07:17:11 AM »

Oh hai. MRDA to me saying this, obviously, but I also think there should be an exception for presidential races.

Well in theory I think there should be no prohibition whatsoever to people running for multiple offices, but I can understand the need to not to repeat what happened in 2018 and 2019. So I am a bit neutral there.
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Sestak
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« Reply #8 on: March 04, 2021, 02:35:51 AM »

Quote
vii. All such candidates as shall have met the requirements imposed by Article V of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Fremont, and being eligible to hold the office for which they are a candidate, shall be included on the sample ballot, except if a candidate for the House of Commons should also be an on-ballot candidate for another office under this commonwealth or the Republic of Atlasia (other than the Presidency or Vice Presidency) in an election which occurs the same weekend, in which case they should not be included.

Might as well just write it up for Parliament's convenience. Modifies Truman's amendment.
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Anna Komnene
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« Reply #9 on: March 04, 2021, 04:07:41 PM »
« Edited: March 05, 2021, 01:24:34 AM by Anna Komnene »

Got distracted by the debate and forgot Truman's amendment. Whoops. Anyway, just to be clear, the First Minister's amendment is adopted.

I'm going to go ahead and recognize Ses's amendment on the floor based on Article 1, Section 5 of the Frémont constitution: "no rule shall be made denying the right of any citizen to introduce legislation in Parliament." If a citizen of the commonwealth can introduce legislation, I don't see why a citizen can't also introduce an amendment to legislation. (edit: never mind on this part)

24 hours for objections.
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YE
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« Reply #10 on: March 04, 2021, 04:31:42 PM »
« Edited: March 04, 2021, 05:02:56 PM by YE »

I assume you're sponsoring Sestak's amendment then from a procedural standpoint.

No objections.
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Anna Komnene
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« Reply #11 on: March 04, 2021, 04:35:43 PM »
« Edited: March 05, 2021, 01:24:07 AM by Anna Komnene »

Not technically no. I'm saying that the constitution requires me to recognize it so long as I don't deem it frivolous (which I don't).

Edit: never mind on this.
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YE
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« Reply #12 on: March 04, 2021, 05:17:17 PM »

From a procedural standpoint, an amendment is not a bill so I’d argue otherwise and probably not a great precedent to set but I also don’t want to be harsh with this
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Anna Komnene
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« Reply #13 on: March 04, 2021, 05:52:01 PM »

Well, the constitution says "no rule shall be made denying the right of any citizen to introduce legislation in Parliament." It does not say "the right of any member of Parliament or the First Minister." If a citizen were to introduce a bill in the parliament thread, and I didn't bring it to the floor because no member sponsored it, that would seem to deny the citizen's right to introduce legislation.

With that said, thinking about this situation more, I agree with your idea about a procedural difference between introducing legislation and introducing an amendment on the floor. While this bill is actually an amendment to previous legislation, that doesn't necessarily mean that an amendment to a bill on the floor is also legislation.

Really simple thing to do is to just have a member sponsor it. I was reluctant to sponsor it myself because I'm sort of ambivalent about the change, but I guess I will sponsor it just to move things along.
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Anna Komnene
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« Reply #14 on: March 05, 2021, 05:53:44 PM »

The amendment is adopted.
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Unconditional Surrender Truman
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« Reply #15 on: March 06, 2021, 10:31:00 PM »

Invoking my ministerial prerogative to modify the language of the adopted amendment, because stylistically I really hate the phrase "on-ballot candidate." This does not change the substance of the proposal.

Quote
vii. All such candidates as shall have met the requirements imposed by Article V of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Fremont, and being eligible to hold the office for which they are a candidate, shall be included on the sample ballot, except if a candidate for the House of Commons should also be a candidate (excluding write-in candidacies) for another office under this commonwealth or the Republic of Atlasia (other than the presidency or vice presidency) in an election which occurs the same weekend, in which case they should not be included.
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Anna Komnene
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« Reply #16 on: March 06, 2021, 11:40:14 PM »

Yeah, I agree. That's a better way of phrasing it.
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Anna Komnene
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« Reply #17 on: March 08, 2021, 04:13:22 AM »

I motion for a final vote on this bill. 24 hours for objections.
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Anna Komnene
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« Reply #18 on: March 09, 2021, 12:19:14 PM »

Seeing no objections, we'll now have a final vote on this bill. Members please vote AYE, NAY, or ABSTAIN.

Quote
AN ACT
To prohibit candidates from running in more than one election on a given weekend

Quote
Section 1: Title

This legislation may be cited as the Amendment to the Electoral Procedures 2.0 Act.

Section 2: Text

Section 2 of the Election Procedures Codification Act of 2017 is hereby amended:

Quote
vii. All such candidates as shall have met the requirements imposed by Article V of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Frémont, and being eligible to hold the office for which they are a candidate, shall be included on the sample ballot, provided that they are not candidates for more than one (1) election, Regional or Federal, that occurs on the same weekend except if a candidate for the House of Commons should also be a candidate (excluding write-in candidacies) for another office under this commonwealth or the Republic of Atlasia (other than the presidency or vice presidency) in an election which occurs the same weekend, in which case they should not be included.
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YE
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« Reply #19 on: March 09, 2021, 12:29:03 PM »

Aye
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Battista Minola 1616
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« Reply #20 on: March 09, 2021, 12:53:00 PM »

Aye
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Amanda Huggenkiss
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« Reply #21 on: March 09, 2021, 01:23:55 PM »

Aye.
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Unconditional Surrender Truman
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« Reply #22 on: March 09, 2021, 04:02:33 PM »

Aye.
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Anna Komnene
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« Reply #23 on: March 09, 2021, 04:17:32 PM »

Abstain
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Anna Komnene
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« Reply #24 on: March 11, 2021, 02:09:07 PM »

With 5 votes in favor, 1 abstention, and 1 not voting, this bill passes the Frémont Parliament.

Quote
AN ACT
To prohibit candidates from running in more than one election on a given weekend

Quote
Section 1: Title

This legislation may be cited as the Amendment to the Electoral Procedures 2.0 Act.

Section 2: Text

Section 2 of the Election Procedures Codification Act of 2017 is hereby amended:

Quote
vii. All such candidates as shall have met the requirements imposed by Article V of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Frémont, and being eligible to hold the office for which they are a candidate, shall be included on the sample ballot, provided that they are not candidates for more than one (1) election, Regional or Federal, that occurs on the same weekend except if a candidate for the House of Commons should also be a candidate (excluding write-in candidacies) for another office under this commonwealth or the Republic of Atlasia (other than the presidency or vice presidency) in an election which occurs the same weekend, in which case they should not be included.

Frémont House of Commons
Passed 5-0-2 in the Frémont Parliament Assembled,

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