This is one of those bits of the Constitution that leaves me underwhelmed with its drafting. (There are several.)
After the last general election, we filled 7 slots with five people, and had to sort out the rest.[1] Odder, after the top ranked party left, we had to sort out that the second-ranked party conducts its internal rankings consistent with the Constitution -- leaving me in the interim LRA job.
But odder still is the question of what happens if there is a by-election to fill vacancies.
How are those partial results to be reconciled, if at all, with the last general election results?
-- Do we just leave the last general results in place?
-- Which means what? SP holds LRA now. But CSDF was ranked first. If the by-election voters elect one CSDF rep, do they become LRA?
-- Or do we try to recompute based on the new results?
-- If so, er ... do we just throw out the reuslts from the election of 7, and use the results of the election of the two vacanies? (A moment's reflection will show that's probably a bad idea. What if 7 DPU reps were elected in the general, then 2 resigned, then 2 SP reps were elected from a field not including SPU candidates? Do we hand the LRA to SP? Sounds wrong somehow.)
-- Or can one meld the two sets of numbers somehow. Pro rata? NuCARE score for LRA equals 5/7 of NuCARE score in February plus 2/7th of NuCARE score in April? If so then any faction might always need to run new candidates in a by-election ... or not ... :P Sigh. I feel sure we have mathemeticians who would love to debate this. Personally I find anything that requires the use of complex spreadsheet jockeying - and vulnerable to complex mathematic argument over the head sof the electorate in general -- a little disappointing. And in some cases, possibly even too easy for parties to interpret on the fly to their liking.
On balance, I think I will propose a bill to amend the Constitution such that -- after a by-election only -- the LRA should be chosen by election by the RA immediately after the seating of the new members. Let's leave the LRA selection by general-election faction calculations alone for now .. it seems to need more discussion in the community. But for heaven's sake let's have a simpler rule for this by-election.
All views, including utter disagreement, warmly welcomed :) Regards JP
