SB 2017-063: Amending the Federal Electoral Act Act (Failed)

[Associate Justice PiT]

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Sponsor: Leinad

     I hereby open the floor for debate.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Any comments on this? It appeals to my regionalist sensibilities, but I want some debate on this.

[Grumpier Than Thou]

I'm not too huge on the word "lower", I'd rather just have it be "regions can optionally set their own requirements." As one of the spearheads of Lincoln's campaign to change the amount of time between registering to vote and voting from 7 to 10 days, I don't want this to be as reductive as saying just saying "lower".

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I agree with R2D2, and I'll offer an amendment to clarify regional flexibility in this area.

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[Anna Komnene]

I object to the amendment.  I feel like this gives the regions too much power over deciding who can vote in their elections.

In the constitution it says this about voter rights:
Section 4. The right of citizens of the Republic of Atlasia to vote shall not be denied, except in regards to persons whose account is fewer than 168 hours old, or in consequence of failing to meet such requirements for activity as may be established by law.

So activity requirements can be established by law but account age is specified separately.  To me, that suggests that people are constitutionally eligible to register as long as their account is 7 days old.  Even if you disagree with that interpretation, if we allow regions to do whatever they want, they could change it to 10 days, they could also change it to 5000 days or disenfranchise people with no avatars (the horror!)  The right to vote is essential imo and should be protected as much as possible, which means not giving freedom to modify it to more stringent terms.

[Leinad]

I second Siren's objection with concerns over the constitutionality of letting them raise it. That being said, if someone can make a case that allowing them to raise the requirements is constitutional, then I would be happy to vote Aye on the amendment when we do so.

The reason why I am proposing this is simple: the general consensus at the ConCon is that regions run regional elections. This was even extended to Senatorial elections. Therefore, it would be a clear infringement on regional authority not to let them set the rules for their own elections, would it not?

[LLR]

Yeah, I feel like we should set some parameters - nobody should be able to vote regionally if they haven't attained enough posts to register, for example. And also, we should cap these limits at like 25/14 days or something, because anything beyond that point would be incredibly ridiculous.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I withdraw my amendment.

[cinyc]

Wouldn't it be prudent to wait until the Supreme Court decides the cinyc v. Lincoln case before jumping into a law change?  It might not be necessary if the court rules in Lincoln's favor.

[Grumpier Than Thou]

Wouldn't it be prudent to wait until the Supreme Court decides the cinyc v. Lincoln case before jumping into a law change?  It might not be necessary if the court rules in Lincoln's favor.

The case has been in deliberation for almost two weeks now.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Wouldn't it be prudent to wait until the Supreme Court decides the cinyc v. Lincoln case before jumping into a law change?  It might not be necessary if the court rules in Lincoln's favor.

The case has been in deliberation for almost two weeks now.

     I have contacted the Chief Justice to ask when we can expect a decision to be made. Based on what he says, we can decide how to proceed with this.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     We can expect something in a few days.

[Grumpier Than Thou]

     We can expect something in a few days.

So are we tabling this bill until then?

[Associate Justice PiT]

     We can expect something in a few days.

So are we tabling this bill until then?

     I would be fine with leaving it to sit on the backburner until that time. Tabling would take time for it to return to the floor, which seems unnecessary if we an expect to have this concern resolved in just a few days.

[windjammer]

Done!

Just to be clear, it has been for quite some days that every SC justice was in agreement on this case, we were waiting for a constitutional amendment to pass or to fail that could have radically changed the outcome of this case. Even if it was literally on "emergency", it still didn't pass/fail (that's quite strange tbh).

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I just read through the Supreme Court's opinion and it seems to me that this will have to be a Constitutional Amendment, or else any regulation that a region passes will be struck down.

[Leinad]

     I just read through the Supreme Court's opinion and it seems to me that this will have to be a Constitutional Amendment, or else any regulation that a region passes will be struck down.

Huh. It will thus need to be completely re-written because this whole bill was made to amend statute.

I'll write something up for this shortly.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I just read through the Supreme Court's opinion and it seems to me that this will have to be a Constitutional Amendment, or else any regulation that a region passes will be struck down.

Huh. It will thus need to be completely re-written because this whole bill was made to amend statute.

I'll write something up for this shortly.

     When can we expect this amendment?

[Leinad]

     I just read through the Supreme Court's opinion and it seems to me that this will have to be a Constitutional Amendment, or else any regulation that a region passes will be struck down.

Huh. It will thus need to be completely re-written because this whole bill was made to amend statute.

I'll write something up for this shortly.

     When can we expect this amendment?

In like 15 minutes...

[Leinad]

Okay how's about:

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Section 14 of the Federal Electoral Act shall be amended as follows:

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[/quote]

Another one of those pairings of a Constitutional amendment and regular legislation.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Senators have 36 hours to object.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Not an amendment yet, but this is an idea that I had to deal with the issue Poirot pointed out (that someone could lose the ability to vote in federal elections based on moving regions. Thoughts?

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Section 14 of the Federal Electoral Act shall be amended as follows:

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[/quote]

[Anna Komnene]

I just had a thought here that I'm kind of concerned about.  We're saying here that regions can admit new voters to Atlasia before the federal government.  But in order for these rights to apply, people have to be a citizen of Atlasia.  There isn't really a definition of what citizen of Atlasia is - I think everyone has always just assumed that its when you register and are accepted by the RG.  So is it possible for a region to admit a new voter to their roll before they are officially an Atlasian citizen?  Or is it possible to become a citizen of Atlasia without being allowed to vote in federal Atlasian elections?  That would be a big change of precedent.

[Associate Justice PiT]

I just had a thought here that I'm kind of concerned about.  We're saying here that regions can admit new voters to Atlasia before the federal government.  But in order for these rights to apply, people have to be a citizen of Atlasia.  There isn't really a definition of what citizen of Atlasia is - I think everyone has always just assumed that its when you register and are accepted by the RG.  So is it possible for a region to admit a new voter to their roll before they are officially an Atlasian citizen?  Or is it possible to become a citizen of Atlasia without being allowed to vote in federal Atlasian elections?  That would be a big change of precedent.

     Indeed, this would allow people to join a region without registering federally. I would note though that with Leinad's amendment (which has now been adopted), we now have two different but related pieces of legislation living under the roof of this one bill.

[Leinad]

I like the amendment, PiT.

I find the thoughts Siren raised interesting, and worthy of mulling over the merits and mechanics of this matter.