Hello all,
As it could be seen on the transcript of the second meeting, it was a quite productive one, and we pretty much covered all items on the agenda! Thanks again to all who participated.
Due to the recent changes in the CDS, two seats at the RA were left vacant, calling for immediate by-elections, but unfortunately none of the recommendations eventually being made will apply to these elections... but hopefully some of them might be in place for the next term.
I propose that we do a final meeting — suggestions are welcome, and if nobody opposes, I'd suggest either Saturday, July 30 at either 9 or 11 AM (since the RA meeting was anticipated to Thursday) or Sunday, August 1 at 9 AM or at 11 AM (assuming that the New Guild doesn't meet that day), to review the document to be submitted as final recommendation to the RA.
Based on the transcripts, here is a resumed version of the consensus reached so far (and also some notes where there wasn't a consensus!):
1. Explaining the voting system better
This issue was left mostly undecided. It was found out that STV is not really well-understood by most, and although an open-source tool exists for validating the results (OpenSTV, used by the Dean to validate the last elections), explaining how the system works is beyond the abilities of most.
No decision was made, although a suggestion was made to research into different, more easily explained systems; the chair also suggested to keep STV for a few terms at least to give people a certain familiarity with it.
2. Campaigning and 3. Role of the SC in the election process
It was felt that the role of the SC in the election process should just be limited to overseeing the campaigning. This leads itself to the following bill:
Campaigning Act
1. Campaigning starts officially two weeks before the last election day [My note: the second week of campaigning overlaps with the week where the election booths are open for voting]
2. Campaigning ought to be supervised by the SC as they see fit, trying to keep a balance between limiting spam and allowing free access of candidates to do their campaigning. The RA might pass further legislation regarding campaigning, to be enforced by the SC.
3. Candidates would be allowed ONE group notice, with an attached notecard, announcing their candidacy and stating their platform; no further campaigning/political group notices are allowed. However, if candidates wish to "sponsor" a general event and use it to raise awareness as candidates, that's fine — as an event, it will be announced as usually. [My note: via in-world notices and IMs; via the portal; via the shared Google Calendar; via the forums; or via any other method that the Communication Commission sees fit to establish as a valid communication medium for the CDS Government]
4. Each candidate should be allowed to post their own notice.
5. The SC should collect notecards/pictures from candidates and set up a board (possibly at several locations) where citizens can learn about what the candidates stand for. This is non-intrusive and gives all a fair chance.
4. Leader of the Representative Assembly (LRA) and 5. Eligibility and dates
Bundling together these two items... the issue to be discussed is that the appointment/election of a new LRA is not codified in law now that we're using a STV system. Traditionally, the LRA was "the candidate with the most votes" (who, under St. League, was also a member of the winning faction). Since we have no more factions and STV doesn't translate the results directly into a "candidate with most votes", a difficulty was created — the LRA is the person in charge for managing all meetings for the RA since Day One, but if the first meeting is the one that actually appoints a LRA, this method is flawed.
Recent discussions at the Scientific Council also rejected the SC's interference with the RA's meeting schedule as being unconstitutional.
Thus, a proposal was made for codifying more precisely the dates after the election (other dates, like the citizen roll call, the dates for announcing candidacy, and the actual election dates, were already codified in law):
New Term Act
1. The last day the voting booths are open is always a Saturday (until noon). The newly elected Representative Assembly will automatically meet on the immediately following Sunday at noon, unless the newly elected RA members decide, by majority, in the 24 hours following the closing of the voting booths, to meet at a different date, which cannot be set beyond 10 days after the voting booths were closed.
2. The agenda for the first term meeting mandatorily includes:
a) Inauguration Ceremony with Administration of the Oath to the newly elected Representative Assembly members by the Dean of the Scientific Council;
b) Election of the new Leader of the Representative Assembly, who will immediately chair the meeting;
c) State of the Nation address.
3. On the weekend after the first RA meeting for the new term, the Inauguration Ball will be held.
6. Chancellor election
This point was the one that received many fundamental changes. The following proposal will probably require a lot more discussion, but an approach was made to turn the CDS into a presidentialist system, where the Chancellor becomes elected by universal suffrage, and not by a college of electors.
One of the reasons for the proposed change is to deal better with a factionless Representative Assembly. The previous model relied on the assumption that the winning faction would in effect nominate the Chancellor, as is the case in most parliamentary systems, thus having a RA-friendly Chancellor for a term. With the abolishment of factions, that model does not make sense.
Chancellor Election Act
Constitutional changes:
Art II, Section 5 - Deleted and replaced with:
1. The Chancellor of the CDS shall be elected by universal suffrage of all citizens from among any CDS citizen who shall make application to the RA.
2. The Chancellor will serve a term ending with the election of the next Chancellor.
3. The Chancellor may not be elected to or serve on the Representative Assembly, nor serve on the Scientific Council. The Chancellor may hold a position in the Artisanal Collective but may not vote therein. [My note: remains as it was]
New Law:
1. Chancellors are elected for a 12-month term and cannot hold two terms in succession [My note: see also below].
2. The application period shall finish on [to be discussed]. On the next day, all applicants will be listed by the LRA, and campaigning begins [My note: under the same terms of RA elections?]. Election booths will open on [TBD] and close on [TBD], overseen by the Scientific Council, which will announce the results on [TBD].
[TBD: 3. In case the Chancellor leaves its office or is removed from it mid-term, a special Chancellor by-election will be immediately called for by the RA, which will open new applications on the day notice was given and close applications after a week.]
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Note that the suggestion of a 12-month term for the Chancellor follows the recommendations on the next item. Also, a suggestion was made that the terms of the Chancellor and the RA are not held simultaneously, mostly due to allow the Chancellor to prepare the budget with plenty of time; so possibly the Chancellor would be elected either in March/April or September/October and remain in power for a year. This will mean that candidates for the Chancellorship will present the budget as part of their campaigning, and thus also attract votes depending more on the kind of things they want to implement during their office (and less on their ideology).
7. Suggesting a limit of successive mandates
The reason why no term limits were set in the CDS was due to the historically very low number of volunteers interested in participating in Government; on the other hand, this gave citizens the perception that always the same people are in power with little rotativity, thus discouraging their participation. As the CDS increased its population, the objection against limiting terms seems to have weakened. This commission thus proposed the following bill:
Term Limits Act
No directly elected office in the CDS Government can be held by the same citizen more than two terms in succession. [Note: that makes it simple 
Note that the SC and its Dean are not directly elected offices, and the roles like Estate Owner, Treasurer, PIO, Archivists, etc., who are members of the Civil Service and not elected but appointed, will be exempt from this rule. In fact, this will only apply to the Chancellor — in this case, limiting it to just one long 12-month term, as per the proposed law before — and to RA members]
On the other hand, the major issue found by this commission is not really about "people in power who remain in power", but in a perceived abuse of power — expressed through incivilities in public, for example — to officials who have repeatedly been elected. Thus, this commission also recommends the creation of a new entity to supervise the conduct of elected officials:
Standing Ethical Committee Act
[much yet to be discussed!!]
1. The Standing Ethical Committee (SEC) is an advisory body to Government dedicated to validate the strict adherence of officials of the CDS Government to a Code of Conduct.
2. The SEC will be composed of three members: the Dean of the Scientific Council (who presides), the Chancellor, and the Leader of the Representative Assembly.
3. The SEC will establish a Code of Conduct to determine adequate behaviour of all elected officials, keeping the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and integrate them with the principles of politeness, transparency, accountability, and overall civility towards all other citizens.
4. The Code of Conduct will formally be approved by the RA as a law and remain in effect until it's revised by the SEC. [Note: since all officials solemnly affirm to uphold all CDS laws, this makes them automatically affirm to follow the Code of Conduct as well, since it'll just be another law]
5. Under the Code of Conduct, the SEC will formally review the conduct of elected officials, either by its own initiative or by request of any citizen, and keep a public journal of its meetings and its recommendations.
6. All decisions of the SEC will be made by a majority of its members.
7. The SEC will devise its own methods of meeting as well as any necessary internal regulations.
8. The SEC will formally recommend the removal of an official that repeatedly fails to comply with the established Code of Conduct, first by inviting the official to present their notice of resignation; in case of rejection, the SEC will notify the competent authorities to remove the offending official, either through normal mechanisms [e.g. the Chancellor can always be removed by a 2/3 vote of the RA] or impeachment [all officials in the CDS can ultimately be impeached].
9. The Scientific Council will be charged with overseeing that the SEC complies with its own Code of Conduct.
Note that the SEC is only an advisory body (similar to the New Guild) and not an executive, judiciary, or legislative one. It has no powers except to recommend. Nevertheless, it's expected, for the good of the community, that its recommendations are followed. The extreme case — recommending impeachment — might simply never be followed, and there is no requirement whatsoever to do anything with those recommendations, but it would be seen as outrageous if the Code of Conduct was being deliberately violated and the SEC's recommendations completely ignored!
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Final notes (not part of the recommendation!)
Please take into account that this is a draft document! While some things are taken directly from the transcripts, and are thus relatively consensual, others are not. The Election Commission hasn't "formalised" anything yet, except perhaps the few campaigning rules. The rest is really just some notes jotted down hurriedly, based on what was said and what I interpreted to be the will of the commission, and which should just serve as a base to facilitate discussion (it's always easier to start with a working document instead of empty air!). So please comment, change things, yell "that's not what I meant!", and make sure that all contributions are properly recorded!
Also, feel free to suggest which time slots (presented at the beginning) would work better for you.