S.18.20: Southern Senate Elections Amendment (Debating)

[TheSaint250]

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2.) Article IV § 3 of the Southern Constitution shall be amended to read the following:

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Sponsor: Acting Gov. TheSaint250
Introduced By: AdamFilinovich

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This bill does more harm than good. For the sake of the game I am opposed to this bill.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This will get more turnout in our elections, I’ll be supporting this bill

Regular general elections for all levels of government only taking place two occasions over a four month period doesn't look like something that would be healthy for Atlasia.
This might increase turnout. It will corrode other vital cogs in our system enough to make this a bad idea.
But eh, lots of faddish things are pushed through in Atlasia in order to try to increase turnout. Most of them fail at their basic task.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

This seems to go in cycles. There is a push to have more elections as was the case in 2016, because elections game, more elections means more campaigning and such. Ensuring there is a shorter "dead" period when there is no campaigning. These are often times when interest declines. Also there was the concern that having them on their own schedules would enable it to receive the appropriate amount of attention and concentration as opposed to being overshadowed by President or House, which tends to engulf attention spans. Also consider the wave of PMing that occurs during the federal elections and the burnout that it causes in the context of the whole overshadowing consideration. There is also the consideration of the available candidate pool. Having more elections occurring at the same time runs a risk of fewer contested seats because they are running for House.

Then it swings back the other way with a push towards consolidating all the elections towards the same days.

I would point out that the Southern region had its highest turnout Governor election ever under this present arrangement. Meanwhile I have seen elections in regions that coincide with the Federal one have lower turnout because people vote federal, think they are done and tune out.  

I strongly urge the Chamber to consider all sides of this before changing when the elections are held. The benefits don't all tilt one way.

[TheSaint250]

In the thread where this bill was submitted, there was discussion of also changing the dates of the Southern Senate elections. I am in favor of changing those dates, too.

After further thought, I can see some of the disadvantages of moving the date of the CoD and gubernatorial election dates, so I have a compromise: let’s leave the regional-level dates as they are but move the Senate elections to match up with federal elections. For example, this August’s Senate election would be held August 24-27 with the House election and Senate elections in Lincoln and Fremont (though obviously this change would be official sometime after).

[P. Clodius Pulcher did nothing wrong]

As the original sponsor of the "changing election dates" bill, I think that changing Senate elections to match up with other federal elections is not only good, but it's something that should've been painfully obvious to the people who wrote our region's constitution.

Nonetheless, our Delegates can now fix this issue. I see the argument for keeping regional elections separate, since I guess we're going for a Virginia-off-year-election kind of vibe, but the federal elections shouldn't be separate.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I'm undecided in regards to when Senate elections should be held.
I could see arguments either way.
What does the historical record suggest? Would it boost turnout?

[P. Clodius Pulcher did nothing wrong]

I've been thinking about this (and the various versions of it) for a while now and I think YT's above comment (which has also been repeated by a few others) is the best option.

I would encourage my former colleagues and successors in the Chamber to vote for a bill that [1.] aligns Senate elections with other federal elections but [2.] maintains Governor and Chamber elections to be on their own schedule.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What is to be done with this legislation?

[TheSaint250]

What is to be done with this legislation?

To fulfill our compromise, the original author has allowed us to introduce this as an amendment:

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[TheSaint250]

The amendment has been added.

[TheSaint250]

I would like to see some more discussion on this.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I would like to see some more discussion on this.

I am happy with the legislation as it is. I don't see anything that can be added to the legislation.

[TheSaint250]

In that case, I am calling for a 24-hour period to achieve unanimous consent.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

No objection

[thumb21]

No objection

[Senator-elect Spark]

No objection.

[fhtagn]

Should be noted that there were other advantages to having our Senate elections separately, for example, it allows the losing candidate to run for other offices, such as House.

There's also nothing from recent elections to suggest that having our Senate elections separate from everyone else actually hurts turnout.

[Mr. Reactionary]

Should be noted that there were other advantages to having our Senate elections separately, for example, it allows the losing candidate to run for other offices, such as House.

There's also nothing from recent elections to suggest that having our Senate elections separate from everyone else actually hurts turnout.

We were the only region to not have dysfunctional senate activity recently.

[Wisconsin+17]

I agree with yankee on this. Turnout does not necessarily coincide with the federal election. Atlasia is not the real world.  We've had years where turnout was actually up because we were the only game in town. I'd like to see more of a justification for these broad changes to our election laws.

Turnout appears to coincide more with the school year which makes sense due to our electorate. The South has had very good turnout in most of our elections.

[TheSaint250]

As we have just entered a new term, I won't declare an end to the discussion period and will defer to the future Speaker on this matter.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Final vote. 48 hours.
[] aye
[] nay

[thumb21]

Aye

[Senator-elect Spark]

Aye

[Wisconsin+17]

Nay. Remain unconvinced that this will have the sought after impact of increasing turnout.