Citizen List

[Sudane Erato]

A current citizen's list was posted yesterday at http://neufreistadt.info/id17.html, in accordance with the requirement that this be provided on a monthly basis.

Sadly, it is already out of date.

The provision of a static list of citizens, especially as we approach election season, is a badly out-moded concept. I have asked Dnate if he would set up links between the tier payment data tables which I maintain and the website display. He's agreed to make this a priority.

Hopefully, within the next few weeks, we'll have a live and up to date list of citizens available to everyone.

Sudane..............

[michelmanen]

Sudane,

Thank you for this.

Until we resolve this matter, and in light of the 30 day waiting time citizens must respect before being allowed to vote, as well of of fastly-approaching January elections, can you please post below and updated list of citizens and update it as soon as we know the final list of citizens who will be allowed to vote in the next RA elections?

Thanks for all your help.

Michel

[Sudane Erato]

Sure. Michel, could you or someone please post the day which we are talking about? What is date of our next elections, and which is the day 30 days before that day? I will post a list of citizens on that day. Any changes to the list after that day would only be removals owing to resignations as citizens, or people who would enter "provisional" status (and therefore non-voting) as a result of not paying their tier.

Sudane.................

[Justice Soothsayer]

Per Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution, voting begins for a 168 hour period commencing 16 January 2008 at noon SLT.

If my math is right, this means that citizens eligible to vote must be on the citizenship roster as of noon SLT on 17 December 2007, 30 days prior to the opening of the election.

Let the electoral games begin!

[Sudane Erato]

In accordance with Justice's calculation in the previous post, everyone will now find a list of all enrolled citizens on the website page:

http://neufreistadt.info/id17.html

Please go over it carefully. Anyone who should be on this list, who is not, and anyone who *is* on the list, who should not be, please let me know as soon as possible. If it stands uncorrected, this should be considered the official election roll for the January elections.

Btw, the catagory "provisional" refers to those citizens defined in the Land Payment System bill of the end of October. It is my understanding that provisional citizens will not be allowed to vote unless their provisional status is lifted.

My thanks to Salzie for posting this for me to the website.

Sudane.....................

[Jon Seattle]

Hi Sudane,

I've volunteered to update the election software for the new election law and to set up a server. The general process will be identical to past elections. Any software I write will be subject to review by FR and members of the SC. FR and SC dean and professors will be given access and allowed to inspect the server as well.

May I assume that I should use this list as a list of eligible voters? I am also planning to hold a mock election to test the software around the first of the year.

Thanks!

[michelmanen]

Sudane,

Thank you so much for posting the updated citizen list. Does this officially mean we are back to 5 RA members instead of the current 7?

Thanks,

Michel

[Patroklus Murakami]

Michel

We're currently on track to have 5 RA members rather than the current 7, however, if three or more new citizens join us before the polls open so that we are at 70 or more citizens then we will have 7 seats.

The number of seats in the RA shall be based upon the number of citizens as of the deadline for voting in the election that will elect that RA (per Article V) or the number of citizens as of the date the polls open in the aforementioned election, whichever is greater.

[Sleazy_Writer]

For those whom it may concern:

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.

January the 16th is on a Wednesday.
The Saturday before the 16th, is Saturday January 12th. So that is the date on which the elections start.

[Justice Soothsayer]

Good catch, Sleazy. You are of course correct. So those eligible to vote must have been citizens since December 13th, which probably won't change Sudane's list (http://neufreistadt.info/id17.html) much if at all.

[Sudane Erato]

No... no change...

[Patroklus Murakami]

Hmm, this may be more complicated than Justice thinks

If we consider 'citizen' to mean 'those entitled to vote in elections' then it's true that the cut-off date for calculating the number of seats in the next RA was December 13th. Since there were fewer than 70 citizens at that point the new RA would have 5 seats.

But, if we consider 'citizen' to mean 'someone who has joined the CDS irrespective of whether they can vote or not' then the cut-off date will be January 12th (the first day polls open). If three or more new citizens join us in the meantime we will have a 7 seat RA again.

If memory serves we correctly, we only learned that this RA was to be a 7-seater at around election time when it became clear that enough new citizens had joined to take us over 70. So the definition we applied at that time was the second one of the two presented above. Has anything changed in the meantime to make a different set of rules apply?

Perhaps this is one for the SC to rule on?

[Justice Soothsayer]

NL 5-17, the Census Scheduling Act says "The number of seats in the RA shall be based upon the number of citizens as of the deadline for voting in the election that will elect that RA (per Article V) or the number of citizens as of the date the polls open in the aforementioned election, whichever is greater" (emphasis added).

So as of right now, it should be a 5 seat RA, but if we have 70+ citizens "as of the date the polls open", then it would be a 7-seat RA. Those 3 or more new citizens would "count" for the purpose of determining the size of the RA even though they would not be able to vote in the election, since we require citizenship for 30 days prior to the election in order to be eligible to vote.

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

I actually second my SC colleague's interpretation... a citizen is a citizen, no matter if they're eligible to vote or not, although this should be clarified at some point. I'd say that it makes more sense to count citizens that are eligible to vote for the purpose of determining the size of the RA, but that's not clearly spelt on NL 5-17...

[Justice Soothsayer]

It might make more sense to count the citizens eligible to vote for purposes of determining the size of the RA, but the language of the statute is clear and requires the RA size to be based on whichever is higher, the number of citizens when eligibility to vote is determined or when the polls open thirty days later. Two competing ideas come into play here: the requirement that the electoral rolls be closed for thirty days to avoid last-minute electoral mischief, and the notion that a growing CDS requires a larger RA to more accurately reflect that growth. I think it is a fairly nice balance reflected by the rule that the RA size is calculated by whichever number is higher, rather than whichever is lower.