Voting Requirements Amendment

[StevenNick]

How about this:

Voting Requirements Amendment

Section One
A member of the Atlas Forum must obtain 100 posts before becoming eligible to vote in the Atlas Fantasy Elections.  A Forum Member must obtain 250 posts before becoming eligible to run for senate and 500 posts before becoming eligible to run for President.

Section Two
In order to vote in the Fantasy Elections, a registered voter must have posted at least 25 times on the U.S. Election Atlas Forum between elections.

[??????????]

How about this:

Voting Requirements Amendment

Section One
A member of the Atlas Forum must obtain 100 posts before becoming eligible to vote in the Atlas Fantasy Elections.  A Forum Member must obtain 250 posts before becoming eligible to run for senate and 500 posts before becoming eligible to run for President.

Section Two
In order to vote in the Fantasy Elections, a registered voter must have posted at least 25 times on the U.S. Election Atlas Forum between elections.

Strike Section Two and this bill is acceptable.

[StevenNick]

Obviously this is the version that is most likely to pass so here it is.  This is the version of the amendment that I hereby officially introduce to the senate:

Voting Requirements Amendment

A member of the Atlas Forum must obtain 100 posts before becoming eligible to vote in the Atlas Fantasy Elections.  A Forum Member must obtain 250 posts before becoming eligible to run for senate and 500 posts before becoming eligible to run for President.

If JFK could please open debate on this I would be much obliged.

[PBrunsel]

The White House gives it's backing to this amendment.

[Keystone Phil]

I will open the vote on this bill since I believe it should be passed as soon as possible.

Voting will begin at 12:00 midnight Tuesday December 14th and end at 11:59 Thursday December 16th.

Senators will vote either Yea or Nay on the version of the amendment introduced to the Senate.

[frenger]

Yea.

[Nym90]

I can agree with the standards requiring a certain amount of posts to run for office. However, I can NOT agree with a standard REQUIRING someone to post a certain amount of times between elections. Many times we have lurkers who merely read what we write and choose not to participate on that level. I can understand that and I definately respect that. My example for this is NCLib. Although he DOES post in the regular forum I have never seen him post in the fantasy section. Voting should be free for all who meet the fairly easy requirements. We should not start "posting requirements" or "activity requirements" in order to vote. In my opinion this is voter suppression and does not help Atlasia whatsoever. I am strongly against that section of this amendment. I can swallow the rest of it.

Very well said, States. I agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment.

[Nym90]

Nay.

[qwerty]

Nay.

You son of a bitch.

[Vasall des Midas]

I urge my Senators to vote against this bill.

[Redefeatbush04]

I urge my senators to vote AGAINST the bill in its PRESENT form. I have been a strong supporter of a higher vote standard, but this encourages spamming. I made a suggestion a while back on how to discourage spamming while still "raising the standard".

I also agree.

Additionally, I like Alcon's idea of a time limit to prevent spamming. Perhaps

To vote: 7 days at atlas + 50 posts
To run for senate: 14 days at atlas +100 posts
To run for president: 30 days at atlas + 250 posts

[JohnFKennedy]

Nay. The bill as is written seems to remove the registration of those with under 100 posts. I don't think that should happen, besides, I oppose this increase.

[TexasGurl]

Nay.

[True Democrat]

Nay

[Harry]

Nay, because there should be a provision protecting already registered voters, and I still feel 100 is a bit too high.

[King]

5-1 and that is the end of this bill...

[StevenNick]

Yea, not that it makes any difference.

[Defarge]

Nay, for the objections Senator StatesRights has so excellently presented.

[StevenNick]

Defarge, this is the final version of the amendment that's being voted on.  This version addresses StatesRight's concerns by eliminating Section Two.

Voting Requirements Amendment

A member of the Atlas Forum must obtain 100 posts before becoming eligible to vote in the Atlas Fantasy Elections.  A Forum Member must obtain 250 posts before becoming eligible to run for senate and 500 posts before becoming eligible to run for President.

[Defarge]

I stand by my vote also for my previous objections that 100 posts is far too high.  50 posts is fine, but 100 is excessive.

[Peter]

I don't generally comment on issues such as this, especially where propenents of the measure are people I am answerable to. However, the circumstances that lead to this defeat are entirely of the propenents own making.

This Bill was simply steam-trained to a vote. No debate time whatsoever was allocated. The haste of the Vice President in this case to put it to a vote meant that no amendments could be considered.

I don't necessarily disagree with the Amendment, but it has not been well thought out. This Amendment would have disenfranchised everybody with less than 100 posts; No time was given for the Senate to reach a consensus on the matter. I doubt if all the Senators had read this thread before it came to a vote.

[Peter]

For the record I average 2.2 posts per day, thats about 15.4 a week. This has risen from about 1.2 posts per day since I became AG. I don't post unless I actually have something substantive to say and therefore I rarely engage in some of the discussion on the fantasy elections board, though I read most of the threads.

I am in favour of a raise in the limit to stop highly inactive posters just registering to take part in elections, though I consider any activity requirement to be too much of a strain on the SoFA to be practicable. I certainly advocate large jumps in the requirements to run for Senate and President. I would advocate a 1000 post criterion to run for President and a 250 post criterion to run for the Senate. I think 50 seems fair as a limit for voter registration, though I am open to persuasion certainly.

[JohnFKennedy]

With six votes against to two in favour, I declare this amendment to have failed.

[frenger]

JFK, close this so Petey can remove it from his Current Status thread.

[King]

JFK, close this so Petey can remove it from his Current Status thread.

The statement above your post makes it officially closed I believe