L8.9.1: Constitutional Amendment Establishing Lincoln Election Administrator

[Blair]

This is one reform that I'd planned to introduce for a while; and put simply adds a great deal of flexibility to the way that are elections are handled.

It's problematic in my view to have an office Lt.Governor (who's primary job is to fill in if the Governor quits) that has a tied on element (election administrator). This amendment basically splits this role away from the office of Lt.Governor; I don't think this makes the office any less worthy, and in fact would make the role more attractive!

It's also doubly restrictive; as the Lt.Gov has to be from the Assembly, so therefore the the person running the election has to be from the Assembly. Which means you only have 3 people to chose from

It would still be possible for the Lt.Gov to be appointed as Elections Administrator if the Governor so wishes, but this amendment basically gives much more flexibility to how we run our elections.

[Blair]

It's also doubly restrictive; as the Lt.Gov has to be from the Assembly, so therefore the the person running the election has to be from the Assembly. Which means you only have 3 people to chose from

It would still be possible for the Lt.Gov to be appointed as Elections Administrator if the Governor so wishes, but this amendment basically gives much more flexibility to how we run our elections.

I have a few problems with all this about the Lt. Gov. Situation. I don’t think an appointed Lt. Gov. should also be appointed to the position like they are now, instead it should be the duty of an assembly member or a completely different person outside of the gubernatorial administration. Not sure if there’d be an election for the position included or just a wider field of candidates for the governor to chose from, but I just wouldn’t have both offices, possibly also including an assembly seat, being controlled by one person.

I largely agree; one of the reforms I thought about would be getting rid of the position, or having tickets. It's just a problem because people won't want to run to be Lt.Gov if you're only role is to hope the Governor resigns, or goes inactive.

Basically there are very few people in the game who don't hold office, but are reliably online. I assume that's why Lt.Gov was tied to the Assembly; as people in the Assembly are generally going to be active, where as whoever was begged to run to be Lt.Gov may not be active.

That's why I wanted to create the Election Administrator position; to ensure that someone who is reliable could get the position

[Blair]

The issue of the justice doing it would be that I'd be expected to deal with any subsequent case on my own handling of the election, which would mean that I'd have to recuse myself.

My hope is that since the role can be granted to anyone in Lincoln there should be a lot of flexibility with it.

[Blair]

I don't see why we can't have two amendments; one dealing with the position of Election Administrator and one that reforms the role of Lt.Gov.

I also don't like the Lt.Gov being Speaker; as the it muddles up the divide between the Executive and the Assembly (and we have that codified in the constitution)

My hope was that we could pass this bill quickly to deal with the issue; as it still needs to be voted on by the entire region in a referendum.

[Blair]

What's happening with this bill?