Amendment [to be determined] to the Atlasian Constitution (Debate Open)

[Colin]

Amendment [to be determined] to the Atlasian Constitution

Be it resolved that:

1. Regular elections to the Senate and Presidency shall begin between 0001 Eastern Time on the second to last Friday of the month in which they otherwise would have started and 0001 Eastern Standard Time on the first Friday thereafter, and shall conclude exactly 72 hours after beginning.

2. Special elections to the [[Senate]] shall begin within ten days of the vacancy occurring and shall begin between 0001 Eastern Standard Time on a Friday and 0001 Eastern Standard Time on the first Friday thereafter, and shall conclude exactly 72 hours after beginning.

3. The exact time at which a given election or vote shall begin may be determined by the voting booth administrator subject to such restrictions as may be imposed by Law.

4. The Ninth and Eleventh Amendments are repealed.


Sponsor: Meeker

[minionofmidas]

So far nobody has explained to me the point in extending possible poll opening times to anywhere in the week. Still waiting.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

So far nobody has explained to me the point in extending possible poll opening times to anywhere in the week. Still waiting.

To avoid potential conflict with holidays and other such events, where applicable?

I'm not sure if it's harder to explain why there should be some leeway built in, or if it's harder to understand why there shouldn't be.

[minionofmidas]

So far nobody has explained to me the point in extending possible poll opening times to anywhere in the week. Still waiting.

To avoid potential conflict with holidays and other such events, where applicable?

I'm not sure if it's harder to explain why there should be some leeway built in, or if it's harder to understand why there shouldn't be.

24 hours is plenty. Seems never to have been a problem before, besides you can appoint a DSoFA if you absolutely need to. Even now people have occasionally complained because they didn't like the polling hours - imagine when polls suddenly run monday to thursday.

You know what I'd like? To change the current rule of opening anytime on thursday to opening anytime between thursday morning and friday noon.
Except I'm not at all sure the need's sufficiently pressing to go to all that trouble of amending the constitution again for that.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

So far nobody has explained to me the point in extending possible poll opening times to anywhere in the week. Still waiting.

To avoid potential conflict with holidays and other such events, where applicable?

I'm not sure if it's harder to explain why there should be some leeway built in, or if it's harder to understand why there shouldn't be.

24 hours is plenty. Seems never to have been a problem before, besides you can appoint a DSoFA if you absolutely need to. Even now people have occasionally complained because they didn't like the polling hours - imagine when polls suddenly run monday to thursday.

You know what I'd like? To change the current rule of opening anytime on thursday to opening anytime between thursday morning and friday noon.
Except I'm not at all sure the need's sufficiently pressing to go to all that trouble of amending the constitution again for that.

Well, the problem with making the rules so tight and specific is that, occasionally, without foresight, the real world may intervene.

The Secretary of Forum Affairs may have computer issues.  Maybe the SoFA will have a last-minute conflict to suck up their time.  Or maybe they'll just plain forget.  There are plenty of plausible scenarios where a SoFA might not be able to post within a specific 12 hour period, or even 24 hour period.

But, of course, the second a SoFA misses the window, we'll have to deal with more lawsuits over election results, and with the latest PR-STV idea, that could lead to a five-member Senate debating the issues while the court wrangles with a sore-loser suit.

We've got a good precedent now—SoFAs know when a booth is traditionally open, and they don't need it spelled out for them to the second by forum law.  I think it's reasonable to have some kind of fudge factor embedded in here, even if its never used.

[minionofmidas]

So far nobody has explained to me the point in extending possible poll opening times to anywhere in the week. Still waiting.

To avoid potential conflict with holidays and other such events, where applicable?

I'm not sure if it's harder to explain why there should be some leeway built in, or if it's harder to understand why there shouldn't be.

24 hours is plenty. Seems never to have been a problem before, besides you can appoint a DSoFA if you absolutely need to. Even now people have occasionally complained because they didn't like the polling hours - imagine when polls suddenly run monday to thursday.

You know what I'd like? To change the current rule of opening anytime on thursday to opening anytime between thursday morning and friday noon.
Except I'm not at all sure the need's sufficiently pressing to go to all that trouble of amending the constitution again for that.

Well, the problem with making the rules so tight and specific is that, occasionally, without foresight, the real world may intervene.

The Secretary of Forum Affairs may have computer issues.  Maybe the SoFA will have a last-minute conflict to suck up their time.  Or maybe they'll just plain forget.  There are plenty of plausible scenarios where a SoFA might not be able to post within a specific 12 hour period, or even 24 hour period.

You usually post it in advance. The issue, if any, is with unlocking. Even then, if you figure you may have a problem, you can keep it unlocked and warn people in big red letters against posting before a specified time. I did that once. No problems.

The current rules are fine. There is no need to tinker with them.

[Torie]

What is the downside Lewis of adopting this amendment?

[minionofmidas]

What is the downside Lewis of adopting this amendment?

1) Currently elections begin on a thursday and end on a sunday. People are used to that - indeed they're used to them beginning late on a thursday, and complain when they begin early.
Under the framework proposed here, they can begin anytime between the friday of the current vote period, and the thursday thereafter. Sure, the SoFA has to tell people ahead when he plans on opening the booth, but I wonder how many people read that. The President tells us he believes SoFAs will if possible open the booth soon after midnight on Friday anyways, thus changing nothing, but there is no guarantee of it.
2) If the booth opens relatively late in the period (tuesday or later), the date of runoff elections in cases of ties is pushed a week further back due to the way it's worded. This isn't too bad in the case of regular elections (indeed, if STV for Class A seats is passed, it's a non-issue in regular elections), but it means vacancies may remain open for even longer. This is bad.
3) Because the Candidate Declaration Deadline is fixed in relation to the earliest possible commencement of the election, a later poll opening , at the SoFA's discretion, also means a longer interval between the filing deadline and the election, and a longer absentee voting period. Both of this is bad.
4) I'm also understandably miffed at how this fairly radical change was introduced without any publicity - most people including me initially thought it just fixes the marginally ambiguous word use of "midnight" in the current constitutional text. These kind of underhanded practices are exactly the kind of thing up with which we should never put!
I note that not one of the Senators who voted for the related bill has spoken in support of it - I don't think many of them understood what they were voting for.

[Torie]

Thanks Lewis. Based on that, I will oppose it, unless someone says something more to change my mind. Election procedures give me a headache. I am glad you are around.

[Colin]

Seeing as there has been no debate on this amendment in over 24 hours,

The vote is on passing the bill.

Please vote Aye, Nay, or Abstain.

[minionofmidas]

Nay.

[Torie]

Nay

[Bacon King]

abstain

[DownWithTheLeft]

Nay

[minionofmidas]

7 days (and then some) having passed, this vote has closed.

Aye 0
Nay 3 (Lewis, Torie, DWTL)
abstain (voted) 1 (Bacon King)
abstain (didn't vote) 6 (everybody else)

The amendment has failed.