First C.E.S [draft] Recommendation: Banning of Write In Candidates

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Electorate of Atlasia is very small, and is comprised entirely of hyper-partisan politico's, almost all with large ego's.
As a result of this, political parties tend to splinter into smaller parties, and in an attempt to stop the vote splitting that resulted from this, the Senate passed a law introducing a form of preferential voting.
However the ability to write in a candidate on the ballot paper remains in place.
The justification for the existence of write in candidates

The Commision finds that there is no need for write in candidates as:

a) Atlasia has a multi-party system with almost every viewpoint represented by a political party.
b) The existence of write in candidates makes a mockery of the filing process
c) The system is abused by almost everyone for two reasons:

i) Personal grudges
ii) Partisanship

Both happend in the Mid Term elections.

d) It has reached the point where there is no real difference between write-in candidates and candidates who filed on time

The C.E.S recommends that Write-In candidacies are banned.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I encourage all Senators to vote NAY...the write-in is a symbol of Democracy...

Explain that statement

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The UAC candidate in District 1 missed the deadline by THIS much -- he should still be able to run.

There should probably be a filing window after the deadline of 24 hours.
After that: nothing. If they didn't file before the window, tough.

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True

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Why don't candidates have to get a certain number of signatures in order to file on the ballot?

Interesting idea... hmm... I'll have to think about it, but it might work...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This is only a draft remember

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I will propose a piece of legislation that would essentially:

*Allow forum members who miss the deadline to register as a write-in candidate. However, the deadline to register as a write-in will only be extended 36 hours past the original deadline.

*Anyone can write-in anyone on election day, but only those who are registered write-ins will have theirs counted. This still allows for "protest" votes.

*If any candidate drops out, whatever political party he is a member of will be given 24 hours to nominate another candidate in his place. This rule does not apply to Independent candidates.

Al, if you're interested, I can clean up this legislation a bit and introduce it in the next session of the Senate.

I like it
The Commision gets it's first result!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well, I had intended to have The Region propose this after the election, but here is a proposed Electoral Registration Act since we have a thread to discuss this stuff.

Electoral Registration Act

Sec. 1. Registration of Parties
 (a) A party in order to be a "registered party" must file with the Secretary of Forum Affairs (hereinafter refered to as the Secretary) -
  (1) the official name of the party,
  (2) the by-laws of that party, and
  (3) the chairman of the party.
 (b) The by-laws of a registered party must specify how the by-laws may be amended and how the chairman is selected.
 (c) Parties must file with the Secretary any changes in the information required by subsection (a) of this section within 7 days of such change.
 (d) A party, to keep its registration, must nominate or endorse at least one candidate in each regularly scheduled set of senatorial elections, or file notice with the Secretary of their decision or inability to not nominate or endorse.  The nominations and endorsements or notice of faillure to nominate or endorse shall be made by the chairman of that party, in accordance with the by-laws of that party.  Failure to do so before one day before the opening of voting for a regularly scheduled Senatorial election shall result in the deregistration of the party.
 (e) A party may deregister by having its chairman file notice of that decision with the Secretary.  A party that deregisters may inform the Secretary at the time of dereistration that it wishes to become a regional party as defined in subsection (f) of section 3 of ths Act.
 (f) Existing parties shall be considered registered parties and shall have 30 days from the date this Act becomes law to comply with the provisions of subsection (a) of this section.  Failure to do so will result in the deregistration of the party.

Sec. 2. Registration of Voters
 (a) A voter when registering shall indicate in the Voter Register thread -
  (1) his name,
  (2) his state of residence, and
  (3) that he either -
   (A) belongs to no party,
   (B) is a member of a regional party as defined in subsection (f) of section 3 of this Act,
   (C) is a member of a registered party, but not of a caucus of that party, or
   (D) is a member of a registered party, and a caucus recognized by that party in its by-laws.
 (b) Voters belonging to a party that is deregistered because of subsection (d), (e), or (f) of section 1 of this Act shall be considered to have no party until they choose to reregister, save that a party which deregisters under the provisions of subsection (e) of section 1 of this Act and in doing so indicates that is wishes to become a regional party, shall be so indicated in the voter register, provided that it meets the requirements of subsection (f) of section 3 of ths Act.

Sec. 3. Major, minor, and regional parties; party caucases
 (a)  A "major party" shall be any registered party that has ten registered voters.
 (b) A major party shall be entitled to nominate -
  (1) one candidacy of a presidential candidate and a vice-presidential candidate in any presidential election, and
  (2) one candidate in each senatorial election.
 (c) A "minor party" shall be any registered party that is not a major party and is eligible to nominate senatorial candidates in accordance with subsection (d)(1) of this section.
 (d) A minor party shall be entitled -
  (1) to nominate one candidate in each senatorial election in which that party has three registered voters eligible to vote in that election, or
  (2) to endorse one petition or major party candidacy in any election in which that party is not eligible to nominate.  The candidacy must accept such endorsement in order for the endorsement to appear on the ballot.
 (e) A "party caucus" is a faction of a registered party recognized in the party's by-laws.  As a convienience for registered parties, the Secretary shall keep track of party caucus memberships in the Voter Register, but for all other purposes, members of a party caucus shall be considered under this Act only as members of the party their caucus belongs to.
 (f) A "regional party" is a party that has not registered with the Secretary, but which is capable of nominating candidates to regional offices, such as governor, under the laws of the regions its members belong to.  As a convienience for the administration of regional elections, the Secretary shall keep track of regional party memberships in the Voter Register, but for all other purposes, members of a regional party shall be considered under this Act as members of no party.

Sec. 4. Presidential and vice presidential candidates
 (a) In order for candidates for president and vice-president to appear on the ballot, they must be jointly nominated in a single candidacy by -
  (1) a major party, or
  (2) a petition submitted to the Secretary, signed by ten registered voters
 (b) It is permissible for a candidate to appear in multiple candidacies with different running mates upon the presidential ballot or to be a presidential candidate and a vice-presidential candiate in different candidacies.

Sec. 5. Senatorial candidates
In order for  a candidate for senator to have his name upon the ballot, he must nominated by -
 (a) a major party,
 (b) a minor party, or
 (c) a petition to the Secretary, signed by three registered voters capable of voting in that senatorial election.

Sec. 6. Primary elections
 (a) On the Friday through Sunday two weeks before a regularly scheduled election, official primary elections may be held.
 (b) Parties are not required to use official primary elections to determine the candidates they nominate.  If a party chooses to use official primaries, it may choose to use the votes only to advise the party leadership, or to selct the party's nominee directly.  If a party does use the offical primary to determine a nominee, it may weight the votes in a pre-determined fashion using any method it wishes, inclusing assigning a zero weight, provided that all votes cast by voters registered to no party are weighted equally and that all votes cast to by voters registered in the same party are weighted equally.
 (c) Voters may vote in at most one party's primary in each election.

Sec. 7. Party candidates
 (a) Parties shall determine -
  (1) the requirements, if any, that a candidacy must meet in order to be nominated by their party, and
  (2) the method used to determine which candidates shall be nominated by the party.
 (b) Nominations and endorsements must be submitted by the chairman of the party in accordance with the by-laws of that party to the Secretary -
  (1) no earlier than fourteen days before the election, and
  (2) no later than -
   (A) seven days before the election begins for regular elections, or
   (B) one day before the election begins for special elections.
 (c) In the event that a party's candidate, nominated in accordance with subsection (b) of this section should withdraw, then the chairman of the party may inform the Secretary of the party's replacement no later than one day before the election.

Sec. 8.  Petition candidates
 (a) Candidates may be nominated by petition.  Such petitions must be submitted to the Secretary -
  (1) no earlier than fourteen days before the election, and
  (2) no later than -
   (A) seven days before the election begins for regular elections, or
   (B) one day before the election begins for special elections.
 (b) Petition candiates for Senator must not have participated in an official party primary for that senate seat.
 (c) Signing a petition does not change the registration of the signee.
 (d) Voters may sign at most one petition for each office that is up for election.  Should a voter sign more than one petition for an office, only the first submitted petition that contains the voters signature shall be considered to have been signed by that voter, even if the voter signed a petition submitted later earlier than he signed the petition submitted earlier.

Sec. 9. Casting Votes
 (a) All elections for a federal office shall be run using an instant runoff system.
 (b) Each voter shall rank all candidates on the ballot with a different integer from one to the number of candidates, with one indicating the candidate the voter prefers most.
 (c) If not all candidates for an office are ranked the ballot for that office shall be invalid and not counted.
 (d) In an election with multiple offices, the invalidation of a ballot for one office shall not of itself cause the invalidation of the ballot for other offices.
 (e) The Preferential Voting Act of May 17, 2004 is hereby replaced with this section of this Act.

Sec. 10. Regional elections
Nothing in this act shall be construed to apply to elections conducted by the regions.  However, a region may make use of the federal party and voter registrations maintained by the Secretary howsoever it desires.

It should be made clear that it's 50% +1 to be elected though...
But overall I support this.
Great work
The C.E.S will now write a report on recalls and referendums.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I ws thinking these exact things when I went to sleep this morning.

The same thing happened in D1.  You had a left candidate (Handzus), a center candidate (Andrew), and a right candidate (Phil).  Phils voters did not put down ssecond preferences.  If they had, we would most likely have Andrew in the Senate now.  Because they did not, they are stuck with Handzus.

So thats two elections where the Republicans inadvertently elected the furthest left candidate, by not listing second preferences.

The irony, eh?