[Discussion] - Constitutional violation

[Leonardo]

Gents, I think we have a serious dilemma here and what I'm talking about is zoner16's application for citizenship.

I know it's a bit late, but I do think it's time we need to come up with a solution that's acceptable for everyone and that's about how we in the Curia correct a Constitutional violation.

7. If the candidate achieves sixty percent of non-abstaining votes, they are entitled to the award of Citizenship.

In the regulations and procedures for article I, it states that an applicant is accepted as a citizen when one has 60% non-abstaining votes, but does zoner16 has that. No, zoner16 is below 50% and I think zoner16's application should not passed as it actual happen.


I also think that The Constitution need an amendment and that's about to have a more clear definition for Support, Abstain, Opposed when the citizens casting their vote for a citizenship application.

I think a definition could be something like this.

Support = Yes, I support a citizenship application.
Abstain = No, I cannot support this, but the applicant may be accepted later.
Opposed = No, I cannot support this and the applicant need to have more constributions than it is presented in the application of citizenship before being accepted.

Note, that both Abstain and Opposed is a negative assessment of a citizenship application while Support is a positive assessment, so I suggest that an application for citizenship must have the majority of votes that support (not necessarily 60%, but the votes must be more than both Abstain and Opposed altogether) an applicant and not have the result that zoner16 had in the application for citizenship. Below is the result of the poll.

Yes 9 47.37%
No 4 21.05%
Abstain 6 31.58%

The topic title could be somewhat misleading, but that's not my intention for this discussion.

[Katsumoto]

I think you may have misunderstood. Zoner had 9 out of 13 non-abstaining votes, which is over 60%. Abstain doesn't mean 'No, I cannot support this, but the applicant may be accepted later' it means you've voted but abstained from making a decision either way.

[Gaius Baltar]

9 votes for and 4 against = 9/14 = .69

[Leonardo]

Well, I think the current system is confusing as one cannot see any indications, based on the result, that the applicant has passed or not. Unless, the percentage of 41.37 is the same as over 60% of the non-abstaining votes.

[Iskar]

I find 60% of non-abstaining votes to pretty clearly exclude all "Abstain" votes from the calculation. Also, the forum mechanic automatically highlights successful votes in green.

[Love Mountain]

I don't think abstain should be viewed as a negative assessment either. Rather, it's neutral.

[♔Greek Strategos♔]

I don't think abstain should be viewed as a negative assessment either. Rather, it's neutral.

Well, I also feel that Abstain is a neutral choice. Sometimes I don't know the applicant or I'm not aware of his work and I don't have the time to search it, so I choose to Abstain. It happens, not often tbh, but still...

[Squid]

As Ishkar noted, if you are viewing the Citizen Antechamber, or the Quaestiones Perpetuae, you will notice three things. First there's a vote listing on all polls that have poll options of (Yes, No, Abstain). Second, if the poll passed with two thirds of non-abstaining votes listing is highlighted in green, if it failed to achieve the 2/3rd majority required the vote listing is highlighted in red. Third, if you voted in the poll the option you voted for is bolded.

As an additional note, abstain is like a spoiled ballot. It is used to show a member is taking part in the process without actually choosing a side.