Thanks for setting up this thread, Poirot! You might want to rename it "Northern Regional Committee," as parts of the Mideast are being consolidated into the new Southern Region.
For elections to the Senate, I would specify that it must be a public vote (not the assembly voting) so voters have the right to directly choose who will represent them.
I agree completely. Hopefully, there won't be significant disagreement over this matter.
The name of the region should be geographic/directional. This is descriptive and easy to know in what area on the map it is located. The ConCon chose not to decide anything so there could be no uniformity.
What's wrong with that? This is Atlasia, not Prussia (
) - I don't think there's anything wrong with having creative or original names for the Regions, as long as we're responsible about it and avoid naming ourselves the "Mozzarella Free State" (or something of that nature).
The date of the regional elections. The Northeast uses the same months as the federal elections. Mideast seems to use the off months. Using the same months might have a higher turnout but with a big number House, the assembly election campaigns might be lost in that jungle.
Depending on when federal officials swear in after an election, I would study if it would be practical to have regional elections in the off months. If it allows a smooth transition from regional office to federal office. For example, after a federal election a representative is nominated to Cabinet or got elected to the House. If when they resign to take the new jobs there are only two weeks left before a regional election maybe we could skip special elections due to that. The risk is it produces elections every month and could lead to voter's fatigue.
Good point. Putting Regional elections on the same schedule as the feds might also make it harder to find candidates for Assembly. I haven't seen any evidence of voter fatigue in the Mideast - I mean, this is an elections game, it's why we come here. I also agree that, if we're going with the off-month system, it makes sense to abandon the special election system to avoid having the voting booth be constantly open.
The Northeast has a 5 members assembly if there are more candidates, otherwise it is 3. I think Mideast is five. I believe a 5 person assembly is more fun. Not everyone has the same activity level so if you have a 3 person assembly and one is absent, you have a dialogue between two people and everything relies on those two to keep the assembly alive. The problem might be to fill five seats. Turnout in elections and activity levels are down. Nyman has more offices than before. I thought consolidation would make regions more active and strong but they might face the same problem of losing elected officials to Nyman and having difficulty filling regional offices.
Actually, the Mideast has a three-member Assembly now (our Constitution has not been updated to reflect this change). I am firmly in favor of carrying over the Northeast's system - that is, the number of seats fluctuates depending on the number of candidates who ran in the last election (three if fewer than five candidates were on the ballot, five otherwise). It's just not a good idea to shackle the Region to a five-member legislature if there's not enough interest to fill all the seats. Real-life legislatures expand as the population expands; it's only logical to tie the size of our own legislatures to the Atlasian equivalent of population growth: rising activity.
As I explained when the Mideast made the switch from five to three seats, Atlasia is an elections game, and elections thrive on competition. An election in which five candidate run for five seats and everybody gets elected is boring and contributes to voter apathy and inactivity. If you want to get people involved, you need to raise the stakes.
In the end, we'll probably end up with a five man legislature regardless, but I think having a built-in mechanism to respond to a drop in activity is wise, especially given all that we've seen in the past year.
Both regions have a possible oveeride of Governor's veto but don't use the same number for the override (4/5 and 2/3).
It actually works out to be the same number, assuming you have a five-member legislature.
The Mideast has one budet per year while the Northeast has one per Governor's term. It depends how much people enjoy debating budgets. The Notheast lets every Govenor a chance to present a budget. In the Mideast if you're not Governor at the right time of the year you don't have that chance.
One per year makes the most sense, in my opinion. That's how real life works, and it's the model used by the federal government.
I was Speaker of the Mideast Assembly when the Region wrote our last budget. It was a long, time-consuming process, and were we to repeat it every four months, the Assembly would have time for little else.
The Mideast requires the Governor to make an address to the citizens.
This was one of my first initiatives as a Mideast representative - sadly, it doesn't seem that most governors have taken note.
The Northeast has a consecutive two term limit for Governor. Not sure if Mideast has one.
Term limits are a good idea in real life and a very, very bad idea in Atlasia - as hard as it is to find interested candidates for office, we should not be forcibly retiring anyone who has proven themselves to have the confidence of the people on two occasions.
The Mideast starts election on day but not at a specific hour. The Northeast has a specific hour to start the vote. The disadvantge with fixed hour is the election officer might have to post the voting booth before time because he won't be there at the exact minute. That could lead to some citizens voting before the stated time. If voters post a ballot before time I belive they should be allowed to revote and not have the vote automatically invalidated. It must be upsetting for a new voter to see his vote thrown away because the booth was posted but not officially open.
I think the Northeast does it best and agree with your point about reposting ballots.
For the position of Lieutenant Governor, in the Northeast it's the choice of the Governor among the representatives in the assembly. In the Mideast it's a separate office (if their wiki page is up to date). I don't think for the moment we can afford a Lieutenant Governor that is not a representative.
It is not. I absolutely agree with Poirot here - the Northeast system is the best one.
