Curia Votes and Secret Ballot Act Merger Bill

[Mímirswell]

Curia Votes and Secret Ballot Act Merger Bill

Proposed by: Mimirswell
Supporters: Perikles, gigagaia, Spiff

The necessary time limit has passed that allows me to propose a similar idea to the previous Secret Ballot Act Revision. This revision is based on the compromise that was reached within the thread (reply but notification only) that was not implemented in the bill itself leading to the bill's failure.

Removes the Secret Ballot Act and adds the following to the Curia Votes Act:

Curia Votes Act
Once moved to vote, all bills shall be voted on over a one-week period. All Bills will be required to run for the full duration so that all Civitates may be able to vote if they so wish. Civitates are proscribed from viewing the results of any poll in the Curia they have not voted in. In addition, replies in the Curia Vote sub-forum will be limited to notification of having voted.

An Amendment Bill shall pass on the basis of a two-thirds majority in favor, while an Act of Law Bill shall require only a simple majority. Abstentions are not considered when determining whether a Bill has achieved the required proportion of voters. If any Bill fails a vote, no revote on a substantially similar bill will be permitted for twenty-eight days unless the Triumvirate unanimously supports it.

Act of Law Bills may be passed to change any existing Act of Law or to enact new restrictions, ranks, procedures, or anything else not dealt with by the Syntagma. Amendment Bills shall be permitted to change any portion of the Syntagma.

Rationale for change:
Discussion of relevant points of a bill belong in the Prothalamos thread and not the Curia Votes forum. In addition, indication of how someone voted during the voting period unconsciously bias voters and should be discouraged throughout the forum and explicitly forbidden within the vote thread itself. However, notification can be useful in identifying active participants in the Curia and thus replying should not be outright forbidden. A side benefit is the removal of some unnecessary material and the consolidation of two acts into one.

Reference:

Curia Votes Act
Once moved to vote, all bills shall be voted on over a one-week period. All Bills will be required to run for the full duration so that all Civitates may be able to vote if they so wish.

An Amendment Bill shall pass on the basis of a two-thirds majority in favor, while an Act of Law Bill shall require only a simple majority. Abstentions are not considered when determining whether a Bill has achieved the required proportion of voters. If any Bill fails a vote, no revote on a substantially similar bill will be permitted for twenty-eight days unless the Triumvirate unanimously supports it.

Act of Law Bills may be passed to change any existing Act of Law or to enact new restrictions, ranks, procedures, or anything else not dealt with by the Syntagma. Amendment Bills shall be permitted to change any portion of the Syntagma.

Secret Ballots Act

To the extent made possible by the forum software, no member will be able to view the results of a poll in the Curia until he has voted in the poll or it has closed.

If the forum software cannot reasonably be modified to prohibit viewing of poll results by any given member, that member, ishereby obliged on their honour as a Civitates not to view the results of any poll in the Curia he has not voted in unless necessary for the execution of any duties he may have to the site.

[Perikles]

Red Tape Cutting, Extreme Mim comes up with yet another great idea.....

I support, go for it!

People won't be able to influence others now, or else they will be.....? Edited?

[General Sun]

People won't be able to influence others now, or else they will be.....? Edited?

I don't understand why we dont' want people to influence each other. Part of democracy and debate is TO influence each other and bring others into your point of view. It totally eliminates the point of a forums not to influence each other.

[gigagaia]

I don't understand why we dont' want people to influence each other. Part of democracy and debate is TO influence each other and bring others into your point of view. It totally eliminates the point of a forums not to influence each other.

But not in the actual vote itself. There will always be threads in the Proth for those. In democracies, undue influence is highly discouraged. Hence when you go to vote, you don't see political ads outside of polling stations (in Canada they are limited to I think about 250-300 meters from the polling station). This is about stopping peer pressure influencing how people vote, which is undue influence, really.

[Perikles]

I don't understand why we don't want people to influence each other. Part of democracy and debate is TO influence each other and bring others into your point of view. It totally eliminates the point of a forums not to influence each other.

The whole point of the Prothalamos is trying to influence others when making an amendment. The Curia Vote should be about voting, people should be allowed to make up their own minds, not have them made up for them by others....

However posting Voted should be allowed as:

a)It shows who is patriciapting
b)It increase our post count..... :wink:

In democracies, undue influence is highly discouraged.

Exactly. Let the merit of the bill itself be the sole determinant availible at the "ballot box."

These comments make my position very clear....

[gigagaia]

Rationale for change:
Discussion of relevant points of a bill belong in the Prothalamos thread and not the Curia Votes forum. In addition, indication of how someone voted during the voting period unconsciously bias voters and should be discouraged throughout the forum and explicitly forbidden within the vote thread itself. However, notification can be useful in identifying active participants in the Curia and thus replying should not be outright forbidden. A side benefit is the removal of some unnecessary material and the consolidation of two acts into one.

I support this.
It makes sense and trims down our list of laws to a more readable level.
As for restricting discussion, I think that is a change for the better. Let people discuss where discussion is intended and vote where they are to vote.

[Spiff]

I will also support this.

It seems silly to not allow people to view results but to allow them at the same time to say which way theyve voted for others to see in the same place. If people want to say which way they voted, it should be restricted to the discussion thread.

EDIT:

I think i voted against this last time, simply because i do not think we should be forbidden from saying when we have voted, this new version addresses that nicely.

[Hader]

I support this.

[rez]

Yeah the changes make sense i support. (agree with spiffs edit as well)

However you may want to edit the title of the proposal - you may give off the impression we are passing an act to prohibit the performances of a secret underground ballet company seeking to destroy the world!

... I would have voted for that

[Tacticalwithdrawal]

nah, I think you do one or the other,

either
- say each person can post a vote and a comment why once only (which is the practice at the moment)
or
- just close the curia vote to posting so you only cast your vote (don't even say voted).

Don't go halfway

[Virgil]

I would offically support htis bill - makes sense and further prevents spam. Nice one Mirm.

[Muizer]

Fine by me. However, to ensure a "level playing field" for pro and contra I'm going to insist that the content of the opening post in the vote thread will be restricted to:

- the text that is to be included in the syntagma.
- a link to the prothalamos discussion.

That means dropping any other comments that could influence the voter including "executive summaries", the names of the proposer, supporters and drafters.

[Spiff]

Fine by me. However, to ensure a "level playing field" for pro and contra I'm going to insist that the content of the opening post in the vote thread will be restricted to:

- the text that is to be included in the syntagma.
- a link to the prothalamos discussion.

That means dropping any other comments that could influence the voter including "executive summaries", the names of the proposer, supporters and drafters.

Thats not a bad idea, rather than going by convention it couldnt hurt to outline the form curia votes take in legislation, since elections and nominations are so well documented maybe we should do the same for legislative votes.

[Muizer]

Thats not a bad idea, rather than going by convention it couldnt hurt to outline the form curia votes take in legislation, since elections and nominations are so well documented maybe we should do the same for legislative votes.

I suppose you could see it that way. If we're going to disallow people saying what they voted and why in the vote thread it is only fair and logical that should apply to proposer and supporters as well. It makes no sense to legislate against one but leave the other up to the curator's discretion.

I don't understand why we dont' want people to influence each other. Part of democracy and debate is TO influence each other and bring others into your point of view. It totally eliminates the point of a forums not to influence each other.

I suppose the idea is that people should post in and read the Prothalamos threads for that purpose and then proceed to vote. I do think it's an "all or nothing" decision though. Either the vote thread is purely a ballot box or it is a completely open discussion thread. Once people start to present their views, you must allow others to comment, if only to clear up misunderstandings and factual mistakes that might mislead other voters.

[Tacticalwithdrawal]

if we're going to restrict the first post to just the bill to be voted on (which does make sense) then lets see if we can just restrict the whole voting sub-forum so that you can only vote and not post.

Would be a lot cleaner.

[Spiff]

Its just that people are very likely to vote against a bill which completely restricts comments in the curia vote threads, as they did when this was voted on before. I think a compromise like this makes more sense for now

[Mímirswell]

Its just that people are very likely to vote against a bill which completely restricts comments in the curia vote threads, as they did when this was voted on before. I think a compromise like this makes more sense for now

The reason Spiff outlined is the exact reason I posted a compromise.

In democracies, undue influence is highly discouraged.

Exactly. Let the merit of the bill itself be the sole determinant availible at the "ballot box."

[Søren]

Curia Votes Act
Once moved to vote, all bills shall be voted on over a one-week period. All Bills will be required to run for the full duration so that all Civitates may be able to vote if they so wish. Civitates are proscribed from viewing the results of any poll in the Curia they have not voted in. In addition, replies in the Curia Vote sub-forum will be limited to notification of having voted.

Do you mean 'prohibited' ?

Otherwise, I support.

[Spiff]

prosribed is fine really

anyway how about tagging this in too to further codify the whole process, as Muizer of course suggested

Curia Votes Act
Once moved to vote, all bills shall be voted on over a one-week period. All Bills will be required to run for the full duration so that all Civitates may be able to vote if they so wish. Civitates are proscribed from viewing the results of any poll in the Curia they have not voted in. In addition, replies in the Curia Vote sub-forum will be limited to notification of having voted.

When a Bill is moved to the Curia Vote sub-forum, only the text of the Bill and a direct link to the relevant Prothalamos discussion may be listed. A private poll shall also be attached with options to vote either for or against the proposed Bill, along with the option to abstain from voting.

An Amendment Bill shall pass on the basis of a two-thirds majority in favor, while an Act of Law Bill shall require only a simple majority. Abstentions are not considered when determining whether a Bill has achieved the required proportion of voters. If any Bill fails a vote, no revote on a substantially similar bill will be permitted for twenty-eight days unless the Triumvirate unanimously supports it.

Act of Law Bills may be passed to change any existing Act of Law or to enact new restrictions, ranks, procedures, or anything else not dealt with by the Syntagma. Amendment Bills shall be permitted to change any portion of the Syntagma.

Or should something to this effect be included in a later bill.. maybe small steps are the key to securing a succesful vote in this issue

[Mímirswell]

maybe small steps are the key to securing a succesful vote in this issue

Yes. In addition, the above could be decided upon by the Curator and Pro-Curator without a bill if they so wished.