I propose that we consider this amended version of our Electoral Reform Bill at our meeting on Thursday. I've taken out the requirement to have constituencies so that the CDS is treated as a single, national constituency following discussion of the previous proposal and simplified the RA Size Bill so that it just covers the situation up to a population size of 400.
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[b:zsgez12l]Proposed Constitutional Amendment - Electoral Reform [/b:zsgez12l]
The following sections of the Constitution are amended to read as follows:
[i:zsgez12l]Article I, Section 1 - The Representative Assembly [/i:zsgez12l]
The Representative Assembly (RA) is a body of democratically elected citizens which represent different ideological views. Its governmental role is to pass laws and its service role is to promote the city and perform long-term planning.
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Section 2 - The Representative Assembly Body [/i:zsgez12l]
Representatives are elected by means of the Single Transferable Vote in Multi-Member Constituencies. The minimum number of votes needed to elect a representative is calculated using the 'Droop Quota'.
The total number of seats in the RA is determined by law with a minimum of five seats and a maximum of forty seats.
Each faction controls their seats and may replace members or fill seats due to vacancies as they see fit. Each seat receives a single vote.
The Representative Assembly shall serve for a term of six months. New RAs shall take office on 1 February and 1 August. Elections shall be held over a 168 hour period beginning at noon SLT on the Saturday before the 16th of the month prior to the new RAs taking office. In the event of a server outage which prevents citizens from casting ballots and which lasts more than 12 hours, the Dean of the SC has the authority to adjust or extend the election schedule.
[i:zsgez12l]Section 3 - The Representative Assembly Leader [/i:zsgez12l]
The Leader of the RA is the member of the faction which has the most seats who was elected earliest during the count. In the event of a tie between two or more factions (or between two or more candidates of the same faction), the tie will be broken by one (in the event of a two way tie) or more (in the case of a three or more way tie) best of three games of Rock, Paper, Scissors. The games shall be overseen by the Dean of the SC, who shall be the custodian of the official city RPS device.
[i:zsgez12l]Article IV, Section 2 - The Faction Body [/i:zsgez12l]
All faction members must be citizens of the Confederation of the Democratic Simulators and must join a special SL group created for the sole purpose of running for seats in the RA. No citizen is required to be part of a faction and cannot be a member of more than one faction at the same time.
The minimum faction size is three citizens. No later than 15 days prior to the opening of the polls, faction members will report to the SC Dean their willingness or unwillingness to serve in the RA. Members rank individuals in their own faction through their vote in the election. Individuals will learn their ranks and those winning seats will have their ranks revealed, otherwise all ranks will remain secret. If a member retires from the RA, the faction member with the next highest ranking takes the seat on the RA.
In the event that a faction, via resignation or impeachment, exhausts its list of eligible RA members drawn up at the previous general election during the course of an RA term:
1) If the faction no longer meets the constitutional requirements or if no members of the faction are willing to serve, there shall be a special election to fill, for the remainder of the term, the seats left vacant.
2) If the faction the list of which is exhausted still meets constitutional requirements as spelled out in Article V, and there are members of that faction who did not stand in that constituency in the previous general election willing to fill the vacated seats, members of the affected faction shall rank those candidates to fill the vacated seats as they do in the general election.
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[b:zsgez12l]RA Size Bill[/b:zsgez12l]
1. When the CDS has a population less than or equal to 400 citizens in total, the number of representative seats in the RA is equal to the odd whole number nearest to 10% of the population, rounded down.
2. When the CDS population rises above 300, the RA will pass a law to adjust the size of the RA when the population grows beyond 400.