SB 104-14: Senate Special Elections Amendment (Rejected)

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Pre-reset, if at-large Senators resigned, there were special elections for the seat and I introduced this amendment because I believe that special elections will make the game fun especially since the game is competitive and the game is more active when there are elections.

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Sestak's reasoning details perfectly on why a system like what AGA suggested is bad.

hold on.

I really don't see what this does? I mean I see what it's attempting to do, but all it does is allow the Speaker to transfer the house seat to some {x}INO staunch ally of theirs - and they'd be able to do this far more easily than any group attempting to raid a party to take the chair.

Like to be clear, under this amendment, if a representative also happens to be the chair of his or her party, and then resigns and deregisters right afterwards, the Speaker gets to pick anyone from that party - a longtime member or someone who joined the party minutes earlier - and they get to do this even if the party has a clearly established Deputy Chair position or other line of succession which is perfectly intact. All this does is allow the majority to continually come swoop in and add extra seats to itself. The provision about being a party member at the time of the vacancy is also irrelevant, as the speaker's party could easily register duds ahead of time.

I understand that this is well-meaning, but it's incredibly poorly formulated. First of all, the amendment should not kick in if there is still an intact line of succession to take over the Chair position upon the resignation. And secondly, I am highly doubtful that it's a good idea for the Speaker to have any special say in the replacement of their colleagues - were it up to me, if there was no clear succession in the party leadership, then major party status would be considered forfeit and the seat would go to special election. That being said, I understand the arguments against the special election concept.

Again, clearly good intentions. But the execution raises too many problems. Thus I will be opposing this amendment as written and will vote against it should it come to the ballot box.

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There is no consistent theoretical basis for electing an at-large senator by one method (STV), with one voter base, and then switching to a different method (FPTP) and different voter base to replace that representative in the event of a vacancy. It does not do the job of making sure those voters are represented, as the goal for special elections ought to be. That is done far better when party chairs can appoint an ideologically similar replacement that preserves the will expressed by those voters.

The Senate seat would be filled with the RCV voting system, not FPTP. Also, a counter argument I'd like to make is that the people elected them, and even if they were replaced by someone who was "ideologically similar", the replacement wasn't chosen by the voters who voted for the person who resigned.

I'd be fine with a system where if someone who put the Senator who resigned in their top 5 preferences or something like that, they can vote to replace the Senator in the special election.

Also, the regions of Lincoln and Fremont have a system like this and nobody in recent memory has complained about that.

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Aye