Neualtenburg Constitution 3

In the "Neualtenburg Constitution 2" thread, Gwyneth noted that time is growing short. How right she is! Below is a proposed schedule for the completion of the city's government in time for the elections.

Stuff for all of us to do:

1. Register your faction by the 19th of December!
   
2. Start recruiting faction members.
   
3. Comment on changes to the constitution as they come in.
   
4. Vote on the 9th of January for the faction of your choice!
   

Stuff for me to do:

1. Work out the remaining constitution issues.
   
2. Write a city statement of philosophy.
   
3. Code up a voting system.
   

Here's a schedule:

1. 19 Dec - Last day to register a party.
   
2. 26 Dec - Method of voting and organizing parties finalized.
   
3. 31 Dec - Constitution done, city philosophy done, voting system done.
   
4. 02 Jan - Test voting system.
   
5. 09 Jan - Election day!
   
6. 16 Jan - City report and future proposal due to Haney.
   

~Ulrika~

I have two proposals:

1. For the first election, we allow AC Meisters and SC members, who are normally not permitted to participate in the RA, run for seats and replace them as we grow. I don't think we'll have enough participants otherwise.
   
   
2. Let's make the first term half the length of a normal term so we can test out the system and hold elections after we have the bugs ironed out.
   

What do you think?

~Ulrika~

While I disagree on both suggestions in principle - i.e. they're a bad precedent! - I think we don't really have a choice, do we?

So, ok, let's go for it. I can only fear "external comments" - internally I guess we will certainly work things out

I personally think we should wait until we actually have people recruiting for factions and such and see how many people we get into the project. I know there are some who are interested in being a part of the government that still don't use our forums. So I think sending notecards to members on a twice weekly basis with where we stand is a good idea (at least for right now while we are getting down to the nitty gritty). I'll be happy to do this even if I have to get some of the notecard information together from other sources besides myself. Maybe give a deadline of Jan 2nd to see where we stand before we need to consider your proposal Ulrika? Just my thoughts.

I agree with the SC/AC thinger. We don't really have enough members to do otherwise, yet.

OK! We're going to have to push back elections until the 15 Jan 2005, the last day of our lease due to my excessive recreating during my vacation. With that said, here is my plans for finishing off the constitution and preparing for the vote.

Before the holidays we realized there was a problem with our method of voting and some unanswered questions concerning factions. I think I have some answers that will get us through the first election.

For voting, every election a citizen will cast one (or two) ranked votes. I would like to use the Borda count method for ranking.

The first vote will be a ranked vote for faction seats in the representative assembly (RA). A voter will rank factions in order from 1 to n, with their favorite being "1" and their least favorite being n, where n is the number of factions running for seats. We'll then add the points and use the Sainte-Laguë method to hand out RA seats as planned.

The second vote will be for those who are members of a faction. They will be asked to rank a list of m members of their faction who are running for seats. The rank will be secret except for those who earn seats in the RA. The member with the most votes will be the faction lead. If a member of the RA retires, the next person in the rank takes the seat.

I propose we make the Bürgermeister (or president) the lead of the faction which holds the most seats.

Let me know what you think and I'll add it to the constitution.

~Ulrika~

The constitution is done! While making the final modifications, I was struck by just how thorough yet concise it is. I think we have a wonderful system which balances three methods of rule against each other and obscures just who is leading whom.

Technically, there won't be a single leader of the city. Rather there will be three heads of each branch with equal standing -- a triumvirate. I rather like that.

I'm working on the voting system right now and should have something by Sunday that can be tested. I'll try to get in world tomorrow to start talking to folks about joining factions and letting them know what they need to do to vote. Now is the time to put together your faction platform for next lease, provided it's renewed!

~Ulrika~

Congratulations, Ulrika! Or, as people would say (though I despise the expression), woot!

Just one question (yes, I always have one ):

According to what I understood, factions also vote among themselves to rank their members into a list, is that right? I mean, only faction members will be able to vote for the faction election - not outsiders. If so, I fully agree on that (despite being a novelty, hehe... in RL, my country is currently preparing itself for elections as well and the current discussion is precisely around the way the faction lists are presented - around here, it's the faction leader that nominates the list members, but, of course, the faction leader is elected first by the faction members, by simple majority).

Yes. People in a faction are ranked by members of their own faction only.

We could change this ranking in the future after the first election. Originally, I was trying to model the German style of elections but knew that we would barely have our factions organized in time. It didn't seem realistic to think that factions could self organize in time (choose a leader who then creates a nomination list).

With this format we don't have to worry about it. It all happens automatically on election day. Further, because members are doing a ranking instead of a simple majority vote, a single vote will rank the entire faction, so low turnout isn't an issue. (Given how most members are still on sabbatical, I figured it would be best.)

It also has the benefit of keeping which members in the group will be elected to seats until the last minute increasing the suspense.

~Ulrika~