Forum Affairs

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

I am creating this here as a way for cabinet ministers for Forum Affairs (RG, SoFE, DSoFE) to be able to communicate directly with the government and vice versa.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

5 New Senators have been elected. http://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=120481.msg2623683#msg2623683

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

I am ready for my confirmation hearing!

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Senators I propose the following amendments.

Amendment to the Consolidated Electoral Systems Reform Act. F.L. 14-2. Section 1. Subsection 6.

The words "A voter may vote for "None of the Above" in any election, except a runoff election. Any voter who votes for "None of the Above" may do so only as a first preference; any and all lower preferences of the voter shall be ignored."

To be changed to "A voter may vote for "None of the Above" in any election, except a runoff election. Any voter may vote "None of the Above"; any and all lower preferences of the voter shall be ignored."


Amendment to the Proportional Representation Act. F.L. 21-2. Section 7. Subsecction A
"Where candidates are tied at any stage in the count, they shall be graded according to their status on the preceding count and so on. Where candidates are tied at each such stage, they shall be graded according to their total number of second preferences."

To be changed to "Where candidates are tied at any stage in the count, they shall be graded according to their status on the preceding count and so on."

Subsection B to be removed.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

The change to the first act is to allow NOTA votes as people have been known to use them. It allows for the current De Facto situation to be changed to De Jure as well.

The changes to the second act allows ties to be broken by Condorcet right from the beginning, rather than trying to count second preferences etc. People often vote for joke WI candidates, and a joke WI candidate in the second preference slot would affect this sort of tie breaking. Moving straight to Condorcet would allow us to avoid any such problems.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Senators, I propose the following amendments.

In section 2 of the 11th amendment. To add a subsection that reads: "The special election may be rescheduled if a regularly scheduled Senate or Presidential election is scheduled to open voting anytime between five and fifteen days of the vacancy, in which case, the by-election would follow on that date"


The current section reads as follows:
2. Special elections to the Senate shall begin within ten days of the vacancy occurring and shall begin between midnight Eastern Standard Time on a Thursday and 0001 Eastern Standard Time on the first Friday thereafter, and shall conclude exactly 72 hours after beginning.

It may be too late to change the law for the impeding election, and it may be too long in between, but, it should help in the future. In effect it would give us a 10 day window during which we could tack on by-elections to general elections, and thus, save taxpayer money.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Senators, I propose an amendment, to be worded as you see fit, that would state that a person must be and remain a registered voter for 180 days before he or she can run for President. This, to prevent plants from one or another party from re-activating months or years old registrations in Atlasia without warning to suddenly run for the office.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

The following laws affect voting:

Article_I_of_the_Second_Constitution#Section_4:_Elections_to_the_Senate
Twenty fourth Amendment to the Second Constitution
Eleventh Amendment to the Second Constitution
Consolidated Electoral System Reform Act
Twenty sixth Amendment to the Second Constitution
Fusion Ballot Reform Act
Forum Affairs Reform Act
Fifth Amendment to the Consolidated Electoral System Reform Act
Amendment to the Absentee Voting Act
Party Empowerment Act
Third Amendment to the Consolidated Electoral System Reform Act
Voting Whilst Banned Bill
Secret Ballot Bill
Proportional Representation (Class A seats) Act
Proportional Representation (By-Elections) Act
Campaigning for Invalidation of Votes Act
Proportional Representation Act
Education Reform Act of 2007
Consolidated Electoral System Reform Act (Amendment) Act
Voting System Reform Act

Given the large number of said laws, it may be wise to look into an omnibus act, and, and amendment to the constitution to require all further changes to voting to have to be edited into said act.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

ROUND ONE
Barnes - 42
Vepres - 26
wormyguy - 16
Lewis Trondheim - 1
Sewer - 1

ROUND TWO
Barnes - 44
Vepres - 26
wormyguy - 16



I declare Barnes duly elected to the Senate.

http://uselectionatlas.org/AFEWIKI/index.php/October_2010_Special_Senate_Election#Results

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

PLEASE NOTE THAT...

Fritz/Kalwejt is declared the winner of the election to the offices of President and Vice President.

Eraserhead is declared the winner of the election to the office of Northeast Senator.

North Carolina Yankee is declared the winner of the election to the office of Southeast Senator.

Happy Warrior is declared the winner of the election to the office of Mideast Senator.

Kalwejt is declared the winner of the election to the office of Midwest Senator.

bgwah is declared the winner of the election to the office of Pacific Senator.

http://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=120461.75

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

I wish to seek Senate Approval to replace the current Candidate Deceleration Thread with two new Candidate Deceleration Threads, one for Federal offices, and one for Regional.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

I wish to seek Senate Approval to replace the current Candidate Deceleration Thread with two new Candidate Deceleration Threads, one for Federal offices, and one for Regional.

Am I then to presume that this is "okay"?

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING:

Antonio V,
Lief,
AHDuke99,
Dallasfan65,
and Bacon King

Have been declared winners to the 5 vacant offices of Senator At-Large

http://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=120461.msg2752967#msg2752967

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Law Proposal: to allow de-registration, but only if
A - The person requests it to the RG
and
B - The senate votes on it, and, it passes with a majority vote.

They can vote each de-registration individually, or in bunches if the need arises.

[Badger]

Law Proposal: to allow de-registration, but only if
A - The person requests it to the RG
and
B - The senate votes on it, and, it passes with a majority vote.

They can vote each de-registration individually, or in bunches if the need arises.

FWIW from someone whose office has nothing to do with this:

Sec. A: Great idea. Actually crossed my mind yesterday as I have no life. Maybe a few days grace period before going into effect to allow retraction of hasty spur of the moment decisions? If too much trouble to monitor then fine, don't include that. Either way, as much as I'm sad whenever people quit this game, not allowing voter deregistration is just silly.

Sec. B.: Bad, bad, idea. This is the last thing the Senate needs to busy itself with. What possible reason would any senator have to oppose deregistration? If one is opposed to all voter deregistration on general principle then they can simply vote against any legislation including Sec. A above.

My two cents.....

[Jayhawker]

I don't see why it needs to be done. If someone doesn't want to be part of Atlasia, then they don't have to vote, and they'll fall off the rolls sooner or later. It's not like we require citizens to actually have responsibilities.

Scratch this. Carefully considering both sides of this now.

[Lief]

I intend to introduce legislation allowing deregistration once I've been sworn in.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

the reason deregisration was barred is that someone left, then, came back.

I've always thought we needed tougher "coming back" rules. Current rules say things like you need to be registered at the forum for 180 days or whatever to run for president - however I think that it should be 180 days from registering at atlasia.

[Badger]

the reason deregisration was barred is that someone left, then, came back.

I've always thought we needed tougher "coming back" rules. Current rules say things like you need to be registered at the forum for 180 days or whatever to run for president - however I think that it should be 180 days from registering at atlasia.

Erg, no. What's the big deal if someone deregisters in a huff then re-registers even after only a week's cooling off period? Is that really such an onerous burden for the RG to track? Just keep the no activity period just stringent enough to prevent frivolous constant de-reg and re-reg and let it go.

Besides, the standards for running for President and those for voting really shouldn't be comparable. If we want to maintain activity in Atlasia such a stringent bar to re-registering is the last thing to adopt.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Senators
http://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=120461.msg2949587#msg2949587
Our Constitution may be Unconstitutional.

As I outlined it gives me the ability to trump Democracy. Given that currently the SoFE can run for office (something I plan to change though legislation) I could declare the vote, declare my candidacy, and then open the voting booth, within 60 seconds.

I do not believe this was ever the intention of the authors of our constitution. Thus I've done as outlined in the thread.

As it may become a legal issue I wish to make you all aware of this.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Senators.

Our Constitution, Section 4, subsection 5, in part, reads
"a special election shall be called to fill the remainder of the vacated term within one week of the vacancy occurring; Special elections to the Senate shall begin within ten days of the vacancy occurring and shall begin between midnight Eastern Standard Time on a Thursday and 0001 Eastern Standard Time on the first Friday thereafter, and shall conclude exactly 72 hours after beginning."

Due to the problems outlined earlier, I propose the following change.

That the words "begin within ten days of the vacancy occurring and" be replaced with "take place on the second Thursday following the vacancy, with the date of the vacancy not being counted if it falls on a Thursday. The election"

This turns the old passage from

"a special election shall be called to fill the remainder of the vacated term within one week of the vacancy occurring; Special elections to the Senate shall begin within ten days of the vacancy occurring and shall begin between midnight Eastern Standard Time on a Thursday and 0001 Eastern Standard Time on the first Friday thereafter, and shall conclude exactly 72 hours after beginning."

to

"a special election shall be called to fill the remainder of the vacated term within one week of the vacancy occurring; Special elections to the Senate shall take place on the second Thursday following the vacancy, with the date of the vacancy not being counted if it falls on a Thursday. The election shall begin between midnight Eastern Standard Time on a Thursday and 0001 Eastern Standard Time on the first Friday thereafter, and shall conclude exactly 72 hours after beginning."

[shua]

so basically it would be 8-14 days after the vacancy was declared?
With any constitutional amendment, we'd also want to keep in mind a fix to the question that was brought up about allowing a special election for more than one seat as when myslef, Snowguy and oakvale were elected.

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

In order to cut down on the number of amendments being passed, perhaps some of these fixes should be combined together into one amendment. There is also the redundancy in the recently passed amendment dealing with the timing of elections, a fix for which,  could be included as well.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

I'm willing to hold on this fix to also add a fix for when more than one seat is vacant, and, so that I can combine it with other amendments (I'm working with bgwah on that)

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I'm willing to hold on this fix to also add a fix for when more than one seat is vacant, and, so that I can combine it with other amendments (I'm working with bgwah on that)

Good to hear, I look forward to the product of these efforts. There is no reason why multiple corrections to same Article (I think it is the same), can't be combined together.