FT 11-07: Vacancies Act (Passed)

[YE]

Per Discord, how would everyone feel about having vacancies filled by the relevant party chair, as is the practice in the federal House?

Too partisan-oriented for my tastes.

The best solution might be just hold two separate elections on the same weekend for multiple vacancies.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Per Discord, how would everyone feel about having vacancies filled by the relevant party chair, as is the practice in the federal House?

Too partisan-oriented for my tastes.

The best solution might be just hold two separate elections on the same weekend for multiple vacancies.

Yeah, and at this point I'm still partial to shua's proposal of reserving one weekend a month for special elections.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Per Discord, how would everyone feel about having vacancies filled by the relevant party chair, as is the practice in the federal House?

Too partisan-oriented for my tastes.

The best solution might be just hold two separate elections on the same weekend for multiple vacancies.

Yeah, and at this point I'm still partial to shua's proposal of reserving one weekend a month for special elections.

Those two ideas aren't mutually exclusive in my mind. In any case, holding multiple elections for multiple seats would be acceptable.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I'd appreciate some feedback on this. I'm hearing different things from different people on Discord: do we prefer party appointments or individual by-elections for each seat as a means of filling vacancies?

[AustralianSwingVoter]

I personally think we don't need to reform the system at all. All we need to do is make it harder for seats to become vacant in the first place. Make recalls harder and banning dual running should do wonders to reduce the numbers of vacancies. Maybe we could allow there to be an option for the seat to go vacant if the FM and the Parliament want it to be, but I do oppose any needless reform of the by-elections system.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Here's my proposal.  I'm not formally submitting this as an amendment yet without feedback from at least a majority of the House:

AN ACT
to reform systems and procedures for resolving parliamentary vacancies

Section 1 (Title & definitions)
i. The long title of this Act shall be, the "Parliamentary Vacancies and By-Elections Act of 2019." It may be cited as the "Vacancies Act," or as "PARVA."
ii. For the purposes of this legislation, "vacancy" shall refer to any instance when the number of members sitting in parliament shall be reduced from the number chosen in the last election, as a result of the death, recall, or resignation of one or more members.
iii. For the purposes of this legislation, "by-election" shall refer to an election on the second Friday of each month to choose one or more members of parliament, and which does not accompany the dissolution of parliament itself.
iv. For the purposes of this legislation, "member serving ad interim" shall refer to any person appointed in accordance with Article I§8 of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Frémont, who has not been returned for the remainder of the existing term as the result of a by-election.

Section 2 (Resolution of vacancies)
i. Whenever a vacancy should occur in the composition of parliament, the first minister of Frémont shall appoint an eligible person to assume the vacated seat ad interim. A by-election for the vacated seat shall then begin on the second Friday of the following month from the appointment of the member serving ad interim.
ii. Whenever multiple vacancies should occur in the composition of parliament before a by-election may be held, the number of members to be chosen at the by-election mandated by §2(i) of this Act shall be equal to the number of vacancies which should occur before 12:00:00 am (EST) on the Wednesday preceding the election.
iii. Should the first minister make no appointment, after the expiration of fourteen (14) days, parliament may vote either to order a by-election for the vacated seat or seats on the second Friday of the current or following month, or to declare the seats vacant for the remainder of the existing term.

Section 3 (By-elections)
i. Parliamentary by-elections shall proceed according to the regularly-established provisions for the election of members of parliament, except as otherwise provided by this legislation.
ii. By-elections for parliament shall be by single transferable vote. The number of votes allowed each elector shall be equal to the number of members to be chosen.
iii. If a by-election results in fewer candidates elected than vacancies available, the remaining seats shall remain vacant for the duration of the term.
iv. No candidate who fails to declare prior to the commencement of the by-election shall be eligible to receive votes for member of parliament.

The way this works is simple: by-elections are reserved for the second Friday of each month in the instance that a vacancy occurs.  If no appointment is made within fourteen days after the vacancy, Parliament may vote to either hold a by-election or to declare the seat vacant for the remainder of the term.  New seats are filled via single transferable vote and by-elections do not include a "None of the Above" option.  If a by-election returns fewer elected members than vacant seats available, the remainder of the seats shall be vacant for the rest of the term.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I'm disappointed by the removal of the NOTA option, as I feel this is an important democratic reform—candidates should not be guaranteed a seat in parliament by the simple act of filing for ballot access. This likewise does nothing to address the issues with STV I noted earlier in debate.

[YE]

I don’t like the idea of monthly special elections because it increases the level of power given to the excitive making the appointment and in turn only increases the number of multi-seat elections.

[Esteemed Jimmy]

I'm disappointed by the removal of the NOTA option, as I feel this is an important democratic reform—candidates should not be guaranteed a seat in parliament by the simple act of filing for ballot access. This likewise does nothing to address the issues with STV I noted earlier in debate.

I agree with there being a NOTA option on ballots.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

So, right now we have two MPs against my proposal and one MP who doesn't support any reform at all.

I can sympathize with voters wanting a NOTA option in the special elections, so if we keep that provision, why don't we extend this option to general elections as well?  It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me to allow this option for special elections but not regular ones if a voter disapproves of the whole slate of candidates and wants a new election.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I can sympathize with voters wanting a NOTA option in the special elections, so if we keep that provision, why don't we extend this option to general elections as well?  It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me to allow this option for special elections but not regular ones if a voter disapproves of the whole slate of candidates and wants a new election.

I agree, actually—I've already introduced legislation to incorporate a NOTA option as part of the proposed Seventh Amendment.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

If Truman's goal here is to establish representative dimocracy, perhaps district should be considered.  I wrote a map that divides the Commonwealth geographically.  I did not look at party distribution and I anticipate idea being met with much criticism.



This wouldn't be the frist time a region has experimented with this system.  Oh, how I long for the days of TNF and his posse sh!tting up.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

If Truman's goal here is to establish representative dimocracy, perhaps district should be considered.  I wrote a map that divides the Commonwealth geographically.  I did not look at party distribution and I anticipate idea being met with much criticism.



This wouldn't be the frist time a region has experimented with this system.  Oh, how I lobf for the days of TNF and his posse sh!tting up.

I would note that the FM's map is not particularly fair and equitable with regards to the malapportionment present. If a move to districts is desired the most equal 5 seat map at present would be as follows:

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

In a perfect world, I'd love to see us transition to single-member constituencies—if we can make it work. Obviously, the biggest stumbling blocks would be inconsistent voter participation and strategic registration. If we can solve those, I'll be very tempted at least to give it a shot.

Questions we'll have to consider if we want to go this route:

(1) Should constituencies be redrawn periodically, and if so after what interval?
(2) Should voters be assigned to constituencies based on their state of registration, or some other determiner? If the former,
(3) How should we (or simply, should we) go about discouraging parties to game the system via strategic registration?
(4) Should we require candidates to reside in the constituency they represent? (I'd argue "no" from a purely practical standpoint, esp. if we take steps to discourage strategic registration, but assume this will be an unpopular opinion.)
(5) How do we ensure relative equivalency of voter participation in each district (my main fear regarding a constituency system, after strategic registration, would be that districts heavily packed with zombie voters might lend themselves to non-competitive races with one or two votes cast in each.)

[AustralianSwingVoter]

In a perfect world, I'd love to see us transition to single-member constituencies—if we can make it work. Obviously, the biggest stumbling blocks would be inconsistent voter participation and strategic registration. If we can solve those, I'll be very tempted at least to give it a shot.

Questions we'll have to consider if we want to go this route:

(1) Should constituencies be redrawn periodically, and if so after what interval?

I think it would be preferable for redistricting every election, and the lines to be set from the registration a fortnight before each election (with people unable to move states in the 2 week window). That gives time to draw the lines but more importantly gives a long enough campaign so people know which district they are in and which district they are running for.

(2) Should voters be assigned to constituencies based on their state of registration, or some other determiner? If the former,
(3) How should we (or simply, should we) go about discouraging parties to game the system via strategic registration?

As I suggested on FremontCord, the best path would be a change in federal law so that changing states is the same as changing region, but until then I think a temporary measure would be to base it off a regional register. The regional registration would begin as the same as the federal registration, however the 6 month federal region lock would apply to changing states at the regional level.

(4) Should we require candidates to reside in the constituency they represent? (I'd argue "no" from a purely practical standpoint, esp. if we take steps to discourage strategic registration, but assume this will be an unpopular opinion.)

There would be no point of districts if you can still run anywhere, in my opinion.

(5) How do we ensure relative equivalency of voter participation in each district (my main fear regarding a constituency system, after strategic registration, would be that districts heavily packed with zombie voters might lend themselves to non-competitive races with one or two votes cast in each.)

I think the redistricting commission could take into account voter turnout in redistricting, so they could deviate from the simplest plan if it would leave one district with substantially less active voters than the others.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

I think 4 districts + the FM would be the best system, as it allows for an odd parliament, and of even numbers 4 falls in the sweet spot between too many (6) and too few (2).
So with that in mind here are my 2 suggested maps for districts based off the current registration:

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I apologize for my barely coherent posts ftr.  I'm a little looped out on all the new medications I'm on, so please try to be patient with me.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Questions we'll have to consider if we want to go this route:

(1) Should constituencies be redrawn periodically, and if so after what interval?

My preference would be once a year.  Redrawing the districts for every election would be time-consuming and would defeat the purpose of constituent representation.

(2) Should voters be assigned to constituencies based on their state of registration, or some other determiner? If the former,
(3) How should we (or simply, should we) go about discouraging parties to game the system via strategic registration?
(4) Should we require candidates to reside in the constituency they represent? (I'd argue "no" from a purely practical standpoint, esp. if we take steps to discourage strategic registration, but assume this will be an unpopular opinion.)

We'll certainly need to restrict how often a person is allowed to change states, the same way we restrict moves to different regions federally.  I would argue that, if we adopt this system, all Fremonters get one free move to any state they want and once they pick a state, they remain their for six months unless they move out of the Commonwealth.

(5) How do we ensure relative equivalency of voter participation in each district (my main fear regarding a constituency system, after strategic registration, would be that districts heavily packed with zombie voters might lend themselves to non-competitive races with one or two votes cast in each.)

Getting voters to turn out is usually a collective effort from the parties.  With districts, Lab/Fed/Pax leaders would still have the incentive to get their voters to the polls and tell each voter which district they vote in.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Questions we'll have to consider if we want to go this route:

(1) Should constituencies be redrawn periodically, and if so after what interval?

My preference would be once a year.  Redrawing the districts for every election would be time-consuming and would defeat the purpose of constituent representation.

Redistricting so infrequently would make exploitation of the districts by the parties almost too easy.
It isn't as if it's hard or complicated for a committee to come up with a good fair map. It would only take a single day.

[Former President tack50]

Districts sounds certainly like an interesting idea a region should try! Regions are supposed to be more experimental after all. Also there are some precedents pre-reset

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Districts sounds certainly like an interesting idea a region should try! Regions are supposed to be more experimental after all. Also there are some precedents pre-reset

Should we draw the new maps ourselves or ask the GM team for a nonpartisan redistricting commission?

[YE]

States MP’s are from to show you how stupid this is:
Nevada (2x)
North Dakota
New Mexico
Washington

Past MP’s were from:
Hawaii
California
Utah
Alaska

All this would do is lower the candidate pool for the sake of geography, especially in rural Weatern states where high quality candidates are in supply due to a move of sorts. Literally everyone but ASV, myself, Galaxie and ON Prog the last 2 terms were at some point regged somewhere else before moving to the rural West, and I’m the only one who actually lives in the rural West IRL. That isn’t the case with most zombies who tend to reg in the state they live in.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

States MP’s are from to show you how stupid this is:
Nevada (2x)
North Dakota
New Mexico
Washington

Past MP’s were from:
Hawaii
California
Utah
Alaska

All this would do is lower the candidate pool for the sake of geography, especially in rural Weatern states where high quality candidates are in supply due to a move of sorts. Literally everyone but ASV, myself, Galaxie and ON Prog the last 2 terms were at some point regged somewhere else before moving to the rural West, and I’m the only one who actually lives in the rural West IRL. That isn’t the case with most zombies who tend to reg in the state they live in.

I don't really see the problem here.  If two MPs don't want to run against each other, one can switch districts.  We would have limitations on switching states, too, so that people won't abuse the system.

[YE]

States MP’s are from to show you how stupid this is:
Nevada (2x)
North Dakota
New Mexico
Washington

Past MP’s were from:
Hawaii
California
Utah
Alaska

All this would do is lower the candidate pool for the sake of geography, especially in rural Weatern states where high quality candidates are in supply due to a move of sorts. Literally everyone but ASV, myself, Galaxie and ON Prog the last 2 terms were at some point regged somewhere else before moving to the rural West, and I’m the only one who actually lives in the rural West IRL. That isn’t the case with most zombies who tend to reg in the state they live in.

I don't really see the problem here.  If two MPs don't want to run against each other, one can switch districts.  We would have limitations on switching states, too, so that people won't abuse the system.

What’s the point of districts if people are going to strategically switch districts then?

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

YE's post essentially confirms my biggest fear, after strategic registration, for the long-term sustainability of a constituency system. Lumine and Encke likewise make what I feel is a very strong argument that replacing the single at-large race with four constituency races would have a negative effect on competition and interaction between candidates, allowing strong MFPs to establish personal fiefdoms and effectively strangle competition from within their constituency —and while I personally would obviously benefit from such a system, I don't think it's in the best interests of the region as a whole. To their concerns I'd add that if we require MFPs to reside in their constituency, and combine that requirement with restrictions on moving between states (which we would have to do in order to combat strategic registration), such would have an enormously negative effect on recruitment. In my time as prime minister, parliament was frequently made up of MFPs from one or two states —typically California or Minnesota, which historically have been vote sinks for the West going back to before the reset (in fact, that was the major reason Minnesota was given to Frémont at the ConCon in the first place). If we pass a law saying there can only be one Californian MFP at a time, we eliminate one of the major functions of regional legislatures: to integrate new voters.

I still really like the idea of a constituency system in theory, but I just don't see how it can work without creating a new host of problems.