Citizen census

[Arria Perreault]

Is it possible to get the number of CDS citizen? The day of the census was December 12th. This is an important information for the different factions of CDS.

[Timo Gufler]

Census in our confederation at this time of the year, wow... I hope the motivation wasn't same as with Mr. Augustus two millenniums ago.

[Aliasi Stonebender]

Census in our confederation at this time of the year, wow... I hope the motivation wasn't same as with Mr. Augustus two millenniums ago.

No, it's more a 'how do we count for factions and votes' kind of thing. We're working on that.

[Arria Perreault]

Getting a list of parcels owners from our two estate owners, comparing them to avoid double counts. Eliminate poeple who don't pay their fees... How much time does it take?
Is it still possible to hold the calender?

http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2579

Should factions meet on Christmas Day to choose their candidates? Do we get a longer delay?
As we did not get these datas few days after the 12 December, I dont think that any faction can set a strategy for next election in so few days/hours.

[Aliasi Stonebender]

My apologies for the delay, I've been quite sick. Rose and Sudane have provided me lists of AA and CDS citizens respectively; I'm hoping we can get our systems better-integrated before next election, that's for sure. One problem is AA's great influx of citizens means no existing CDS faction is big enough to be legal! This is part of what is delaying the census.

Now, were this a benevolent dictatorship, I'd just say, "Let's just calculate things as they were for now" and be done with it, because I like simple measures. But it isn't and I'm not, since really we've had a whole election cycle to tackle this little issue. By the letter of the law, the SC should invalidate all too-small factions... save this would invalidate every CDS-spawned faction leaving only those who happen to have many AA citizens in them. This is not exactly a desirable outcome, either. At minimum we'll need an SC meeting to figure out what to do, unless of course every member of the DPU, CDSF, and SP is happy to be a non-entity in the coming election, which I doubt. Or, of course, they can find the members they need to get to ten percent.

[Sonja Strom]

How many citizens are we talking about?

Everybody keeps saying the DPU will still not qualify for the elections with 16 members, so apparently there are more than 160 citizens? If it is known how many citizens there are, then why are we not being told the number?

[Keila Forager]

Aliasi, I don't really care about the number of citizens ..hehe. I just want to say I hope you are feeling better.

[Sonja Strom]

Naturally I care about Aliasi and hope she will feel better soon. Get well Aliasi!

Is Aliasi the only one in the CDS who can say when the election deadlines are and who will qualify for them?

[Aliasi Stonebender]

Naturally I care about Aliasi and hope she will feel better soon. Get well Aliasi!

Is Aliasi the only one in the CDS who can say when the election deadlines are and who will qualify for them?

It's the SC as a whole, although naturally I'm the one who gets to be yelled at as Dean.

[Jamie Palisades]

I hope that everyone is finishing up a happy, warm & safe holiday vacation season. By good luck, my job in the CDS Executive Branch does not involve election rules or administration. (Except deleting oversized campaign signs.) So anything I say here is personal opinion only.

I see the SC is meeting today, on short notice (thanks Rose for the posting), and the RA tomorrow. Like Rose, I apologize that I may not be able to break other existing plans to attend today's meeting. If I have anything to contribute, I'll put it here in this note.

1. I believe that Aliasi and Rose are fundamentally right, that the existing candidacy deadline (25 December) has passed, so few RA candidates if any have qualified, and certainly not enough. An act of the SC or RA is required, if there is to be an extension or a corrected procedure.

2. That's well within their powers. The RA can change the law (if it meets and 2/3rds agree), including the dates or the faction qualifying minimums; and the SC has powerful ability to interpret or tailor election administration, which includes postponement (as Arria suggested), perhaps until the RA can sort things out.

3. It is interesting, still, to see who declared, both early and late. It's natural for some of our leaders to drift off or move their attention to competing or other projects. (Cedar Island, Arosa, Beta Business Park, etc.) We all are volunteers and have our own projects and lives. Still, so far, I am not sure we have near enough candidates to fill the RA, even if all early- and late-declared candidates were certified.

4. To my eye, this proves that two of our recent discussions were correct:

a. Cindy & Rose & others were right, that these dates are bad calendar dates; deadlines occur when people are out on holiday. It was bad design, and the RA has corrected it, but only starting next term.
b. Carolyn & I & others were right, that the faction system is a creaking, dysfunctional old system which has outlived its usefulness and makes administration much harder.

Personally, I don't think that an 10- or 30- person RA is a problem, using the old formula that increases RA size based on population size. Likely we'd always be able to fill a proportional number of seats ... *if* it were easy to do so, without the baroque complexities of faction qualification. More importantly, the fractious overheated tone that factions bring to RA work also depresses the candidate market. Many smart people who I know, in CDS, have said they would be happy to serve as some kind of senator, in a calm, maybe once-a-month, well-run meeting. But weekly or bi-weekly yelling competitions among raucous opposing football teams? Probably does not make RA service look attractive. (It's only this last term that we broke the annoying CDS tradition of the RA making its main task the crucifixion of a dissenting citizen, at least once a year.)

It's been proposed that we re-reduce the minimum faction size. If so few of our citizens even are willing to identify with factions, that a genuine contest is infeasible, why are we keeping them? That rule change would let a few current, small half-dead clubs keep running the place .. or maybe just one, if Sonja is right ... and then fill in all the vacancies, by club fiat with unelected friends. That seems a lame and sorry solution. (Nothing is deeply wrong with any one of them, by the way - but if they're all dying, that's a signal we should not ignore.) The SC cannot retroactively void an old constitutionally valid law, so may lack the power. The RA could, but I wish that instead they would try real reform. Can't we do better?

For those of you who ignore politics: no worries, CDS has done fine all these years as a stable economic and cultural home, through good RAs, bad ones and absent ones alike.

Warm regards for 2010 Jamie

[Jamie Palisades]

P.S. I saw Timo's joke about the purpose of a December census. If Aliasi sends out tax collectors, we should start worrying. Also, I hope that doesn't make me Herod. I remember that costume from "Jesus Christ Superstar" ... and am not sure the eye makeup would look good on me, or Sudane, or anyone in an Alpine village. And this does not make me feel any better either.

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