Constitutional Amendments voted by the RA

[josjoha]

Cleo --

Even with the "old guard" with a majority on the RA, I don't think that the RA will move to abolish our democracy. (Even if they do, those of us committed to it can simply pull up stakes and start up anew elsewhere.)

Beathan

Hello Beathan,

There is no such power in the RA as to abolish the Democracy, at least not under 'natural law' (or 'the way things ought to be, the way for which reason they are, such as Constitutions which are there to restrain and order a Government by greater powers then are vested in the Government). The power to change the state form from a democracy to a tyranny is reserved for the people, even more so then details about the Constitution.

The way in which an RA is dealt with (and this may be short at hand in some nations in the real world, by the way, it is nothing new) that commits high treason is: apprehension of traitors in high offices, immediate new and fair elections being organized by the armed guard and the people themselves. I do not know what the SL equivalent is of revolution against a tyrannical Government; and I do not know if such action is required at the moment - I am strictly arguing the hypothetical from your remark which seems to say the RA can abolish the CDS Democracy.

[Beathan]

JosJo,

I have a different analysis. First, I don't accept Natural Law as having any real legal force (although it makes for good policy analysis for lawmakers -- who make Civil Law, which does have legal force).

Democracy is not a "natural" or inevitable form of government. It is one form among many. I think it is the best form, but it is certainly not the only form.

Democracy exists in those governmental systems that are constituted to operate from the will of the people, either directly or through representatives. Thus, democracy is a constitutional matter. At present, the CDS Constitution implements and protects democratic government. It would be silly for the Confederation of Democratic Simulators to do otherwise.

However, at present, the RA, without any real check on its power, has the sole power to amend the Constitution. Therefore, the RA could amend the Constitution to abolish democracy. I don't think it would, but it could -- and if it did so, that would be lawful (although it would cause me, and probably most other CDS citizens, to leave).

That said, I have been playing with the idea of creating some check on Constitutional Amendment power -- and the passage of the two amendments at issue here highlight for me how important that is. I don't think the RA should be taken out of the picture, but I do think that the Constitution should only be amended on 2/3 vote of the RA confirmed by a 2/3 vote in a referendum polling of the people at which at least 2/3 of eligible citizens vote. I am putting together such legislation for the next RA term.

Beathan.

[josjoha]

JosJo,

I have a different analysis. First, I don't accept Natural Law as having any real legal force (although it makes for good policy analysis for lawmakers -- who make Civil Law, which does have legal force).

(...)

That said, I have been playing with the idea of creating some check on Constitutional Amendment power -- and the passage of the two amendments at issue here highlight for me how important that is. I don't think the RA should be taken out of the picture, but I do think that the Constitution should only be amended on 2/3 vote of the RA confirmed by a 2/3 vote in a referendum polling of the people at which at least 2/3 of eligible citizens vote. I am putting together such legislation for the next RA term.

Beathan.

Hi Beathan,

The 'legality' with 'natural law' goes beyond the courts. Courts are just people in fancy dresses, they will be no match for the storming people's armies, or even a greater power that rests with the people: the power to give an existing Government collectively the cold shoulder, and listen to a new one. That is more or less the 'power' behind 'natural law,' while (ideally) its steering mechanism is a call to justice, to reason, and indeed to rule by and for the people. It is the cry for justice of the people which is its court verdict, and it is the mass action of the people which is the execution of the verdict. Books and laws, lawyers and Constitutions will bow to this power, and later sing its praises because the victors will define what will be legal and proper from that day forward ... So was our nation founded, and so it will be founded again. The People will be the victors, for now and always.

You seem to have a fine ammendment brewing there, I hope I will not miss the opportunity to vote in favor of it, excellent.

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

O-kay. The mess is way worse than I thought, lol. I know I can be naive...

So I preferred to address it on a separate thread: http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php? ... 305#p18305

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

... but I'll be happy to repost the highlights

There have been rumours of "secret email meetings" (some of them publicly admitted) and similar "backbenching" decisions being made in private. That's ok; that's gossip. But it's not factual information.

What is factual is that the Dean of the Scientific Council announced a date for declaring candidacy: November 5th. That day is correct.

One day afterwards, as per Constitutional requirements, the Dean of the SC published a list of 12 candidates for RA and 2 candidates for Chancellor. That is also factual information, all due and correct.

A list of citizens had been automatically generated and provided to the SC.

The campaigning started on the appointed date. We all knew who the candidates were. At least two of them did some active campaigning, since I've been contacted by them. Probably many more did the same. All due and proper.

With all of that, all the Executive had to do was to put out the voting booths on November 12th and let the election begin.

This did not happen. Why? No public announcement was made.

Why not? Because there is a single, valid reason to suspend an election once it has started: technical difficulties with the servers preventing people to vote. Let me repeat that: there is no other reason to suspend an election.

Why do I insist on this point? Because either the CDS was affected by collective hallucination, or, more likely, I was the only one to hallucinate, and for some unexpected reason, the booths were not placed where they should.

Instead, we hear rumours of "secret meetings" and "secret instructions" being given NOT to place the booths. No factual data exist for that.

Instead, we have forum discussions calling out that some candidates might not be valid citizens. That's fine. It's part of the process: we have the elections first, and sort out mistakes afterwards — with due process. We don't "suspect" that things are wrong and then, acting on "suspicion", we invoke "special circumstances" and abort the process.

The major reason why the dates are fixed in the Constitution (they weren't in the past) is to prevent anyone to tamper with the election process. Note that one thing is the election process; the other is to figure out mistakes, fraud, etc. Like on all democracies, this is always dealt with afterwards. Let anyone who believes that the list of 12 candidates is not correct to present a formal complain. Afterwards. Not during the election!

If, and only if, a definitive resolution has been made on any claims that the election was not properly run, then eventually the SC might call for a re-election. It's within their powers: they can simply impeach all members that somehow were elected but shouldn't have, provide ample justification for that decision, and call a by-election, setting the dates. It's within their power.

While technically the RA can set whatever dates they please, in practice we have a body of laws and a precedent showing that they cannot influence the current election. If they feel that citizens have to be 35 days old instead of 28 days, and wish to change the citizenship requirements for eligibility, that's fine — the new law will enter in effect on the next, subsequent election. That's how we did when we abolished factions, gave AA citizens the vote, introduced STV, and introduced direct chancellor elections. All those laws to change the elections entered in effect on the subsequent term they were approved, precisely to avoid the mess we're currently in.

I might have some qualms about changing requirements or election dates, specially when there is no logical reason for that, but just an emotional one — "I want to exclude the people I dislike from voting and running for office" — but I can accept that inevitably this might happen. We have mechanisms to deal with that: we can vote RA members out of office who are perceived of manipulating the election rules to their benefit. And if all else fails, we can petition for impeachment. For JosJo's sake, the biggest penalty we have in the CDS is the permanent exclusion from being a citizen (it was enacted only once, in June 2006). The second biggest is confiscation of land and property (never enacted). For public offices, we don't have the accusation of "treason", but we most certainly can impeach officials who for some reason have failed to uphold their oath. This happened a very seldom and only under very sad and disturbing circumstances.

The quickly-approved Constitution Amendment on November 13th — 24 hours after elections started — has not been ratified yet. That requires a formal meeting of the Scientific Council to move to ratify it, and only then it enters in effect. Alternatively, if the SC doesn't meet in the 30 days following the approval by the RA, it is automatically ratified (to prevent the SC from "stalling" an important law and refusing to meet). Neither of these conditions are met. Under these circumstances, I fail to understand why the voting booths were not placed on November 12th (before the RA meeting) — no explanation was given for that, and there is only one possible explanation thar could have prevented that from happening: technical problems with the server (e.g. server failure).

So someone has prevented the Chancellor from placing the booths at the constitutionally approved time and place. I want to know — publicly — who it was. I will petition that person to be put on trial for preventing the most important single act in the CDS: running elections.

Even if the reason given was "technical difficulties", I will at least demand an enquiry to be held. What technical difficulties were present? Given that the software is fine, the server is running smoothly, and a list of citizens and candidates was presented in the appropriate time, what further reason exists to have prevented the booth placement? As a citizen, I demand to know.

We then move to the "secret meeting" — which was publicly "confessed" on the last SC meeting — and the subsequent "quick constitutional amendment change". Let me once more restate what I've repeated twice: the Constitutional Amendment approved by the RA on Sunday has not been ratified, and, as such, it has no power to change the dates for the election of this term.

Even if the SC does a "quick emergency meeting" to hurriedly ratify the Constitutional Amendment — and this has happened in the past; the RA certainly can collaborate with the SC to get quick, urgent laws out; there is nothing inherently wrong in that — there is really just one reasonable action the SC can undertake: veto the amendment, on at least three grounds:

1) It runs contrary to all precedent in the history of law-making in the RA, where all laws affecting elections will only take effect on subsequent terms, not on the term they're approved (terms end when the new set of recently-elected officials take the oath of office, which happens after the election booths are closed; we're still in the 15th term until then);
2) It entered in effect after the election process started, and thus cannot affect an ongoing election (even disregarding precedent), because it retroactively affects the list of candidates and active voters for an ongoing election. You cannot exclude approved candidates under a law that gets revoked before the candidates have the opportunity to face the public scrutiny! Laws don't work like that!
3) At least the second clause (the 35-day-requirement for citizenship with the right to vote) is contradictory with other parts of the Constitution, i.e. the one defining that the requirement is 28 days, not 35. Depending on the mood of the SC, they can reject the whole bill; just reject the second clause but approve the first (i.e. just changing the election dates, but not the requirement for 35-day-citizenship); approve conditionally but require rewording by the RA, and sending it back (meaning that the bill is not ratified); not ratify and suggest different wording to comply with precedent and avoid Constitutional contradictions (i.e. suggesting that the change from 28 days to 35 days is applied for the calculations on the elections for the 17th term onwards and that the bill revokes Article 5, Section 3).

Now I'm not saying that there weren't irregularities in the candidacy phase. There might be a few, but that's up to the SC to validate. If they didn't validate those irregularities in the first place, there are two possible explanations:

1) That there weren't any irregularities, just "gossip" — and the list posted by the Dean of the SC was in fact correct. If so, whoever prevented the booths to be placed at the Constitutionally-appointed time is now guilty of having commited one of the most offensive crimes in the CDS: being a direct agent against the most democratic act in the CDS, the public elections. This demands a public trial at the very least. I truly don't care if the result of that trial is just a friendly pat on the back due to all sorts of mitigating circumstances. But it has to become crystal-clear in our democracy that nobody has the right, no matter how well-intended, to stop the election process.
2) There were irregularities in the candidate and citizen list, and the SC failed to spot them and sort them out in time. This is merely incompetence, and it might have a lot of mitigating circumstances: lack of time being the most common one, or being already too tired and in a hurry, or being led to believe by circumstances that the list was actually correct and having officially posted it in good faith. Depending on the severity of the issue, which shall be found by enquiry, this could be something as simple as accepting a resignation from office, or as severe as an impeachment.

At this point, without a public enquiry, we really can only speculate about the real reasons, and it's pointless to point fingers. We have proper procedure to deal with the irregularities. And in most cases, justice and law in the CDS are benevolent and condescending. We all make mistakes. Few of us can seriously expect to have enough time to do everything properly. It's far better to be tolerant and go on with our democracy than finding scapegoats to snap our fingers at. Nevertheless, that doesn't mean ignoring the issue. If there were irregularities in the list, we have to find out why they happened and who was responsible for them — not to "blame" people, but to fix the issue and prevent it from happening ever again.

As for the actions of the RA... well, the RA is dealt with differently. For the sake of the argument, let's assume they acted in the best of faith and with the most pure of motivations: they wanted the election process to go on smoothly without irregularities, and, in a misguided attempt to correct things "after the fact", they overextended their power and abused it, and led others to believe that they had, in fact, the power to abort an ongoing election process while in fact they have not. Now, the RA members are not under an oath to pass only good laws. They can pass bad laws with good motivation — that's why we have an SC to ratify bills, in order to veto the bad laws. A RA member that passes or proposes bad laws is answerable to the public in the general elections: the citizens will decide if they prefer politicians with good motivations but bad laws, or politicians with bad motivations but able to write good laws (or any combination of those). I'm not very fond of the "wisdom of the crowds", but at least I fully believe that under a democracy, voters will decide how important certain political acts were for them, and vote accordingly. Perhaps a majority of the citizens think that it's better not to have elections than to have flawed elections — and are fully behind the members of the current RA and wish to elect them again. That's up to the citizens to decide with the vote!

Bad intentions are hard to prove. If there is factual information that the RA has acted in bad faith, to effectively exclude some people to get elected, well, then that would be enough to push for impeachment, or even worse than that. But proving that bad faith requires a court and a trial — and a lot of proof. Sure, there was a "secret meeting" — which are strictly forbidden and more than enough reason for impeaching all who participated in that meeting, but this will be pointless as the current members can be voted out anyway. But the whole messages of that secret meeting were offered for public scrutiny, so I can only assume that they cannot prove bad faith in this. Depending on the degree of intolerance of the SC, the secret meeting in itself would, at most, be just a reason for impeachment — I would certainly do that merely as a question of principle, to show the citizens that we cannot tolerate elected representatives who, a the first opportunity — no matter what good intentions were behind it — are keen to violate the letter of the Constitution and do something clearly forbidden. The impeachment at the end of the term would only have symbolic value; we have no law forbidding an impeached member to run again for office. But in our little democracy, symbolic actions are also valuable, at least to make a statement of what is tolerated and what is not, and as an example for future representatives.

So, to recap, and to be pragmatic about it, this is what a reasonable democracy would do:

1) First, be practical: Immediately place the booths in place, with the published and official list of candidates. That's the least we can do. We already lost over 48 hours of election time. It's better not to waste any more time.
2) After the announcement of the winning candidates, the SC ought to investigate if there were any irregularities in the candidacy process, and deal with each in turn. There are really a lot of options here. The worst case scenario is if all elected officials were irregular candidates — then all the SC has to do is to impeach them all and call a by-election for 7 seats. The purpose of this enquiry is not really to find scapegoats, but to understand what went wrong so that we can fix it for the next term.
3) Open an enquiry to see who has stopped the election process. I insist on that. I don't care what the result of the enquiry is. From my point of view, it can be a mock enquiry which "results in nothing" — the principle is still sound. Nobody is allowed to stop the election process, and we have to give an example for the future elections to know that the elections have to go on, no matter what happens, and that problems and issues are dealt with afterwards.
4) The SC should reject the bill with the Constitutional Amendment, by vetoing it. The consequences are purely political. But they will reaffirm the SC's strong conviction to uphold the Constitution and make sure that all bills, no matter what they specify, have to go through proper procedure until they become laws. We can always discuss how Constitutiional Amendments are to be passed in the future; and someone might be lucky enough to find the precedents on the many hours of transcripts which state that no RA can change the election laws for an ongoing election or an election in the same term that the law is passed.

I'm personally quite convinced that the motivations of most of the Government officials involved in this process were quite good, and that they genuinely tried to address a problem in the best way they could, but, due to a misguided view on how the CDS deals with its own problems, preferred to overrule democracy, abuse their powers, and create a terrible precedent, where anyone can suddenly change the elections — or its results — just because they think they can. This has to be stopped and prevented forever and ever — again, no matter how good the motivations were. Good or bad, if there is something sacred in the CDS, it's the election process. Nobody can be allowed to tamper with it even with the best of intentions.

If none of the above four points happen, then...

- I will present an official request to the SC to open a case against the Executive, who is in charge of placing the booths in-world, to figure out why they weren't placed. Depending on the results of that enquiry, there might be further requests for enquiries. I can only speculate about what these enquiries will find out, so I cannot foresee what might happen. I expect at least to understand who stopped the election process and why. And then it will be up to the next RA to pass legislation preventing this from happening ever again.
- I will present an official request to the SC to review each of the 12 candidates to RA and 2 candidates to Chancellorship to see if all of them were valid citizens according to the law in effect at the moment (i.e. by the laws in effect on November 5th, not the ones in effect today). If some of those candidates have won a seat in the elections, I will petition the SC to impeach them and let their seats be vacated to be filled on a subsequent by-election. Again, this is just a matter of principle: nobody can be elected under false assumptions. But thanks to a very benevolent legal system, if any of those candidates are proven to not be valid ones on Nov. 5th, they will be able to run for office again on the by-election. No harm will be done that way; nobody will be excluded; but the principle will have been proved solid and an example for future generations will be given. That's all that matters.
- I will petition the SC to veto the Constitutional Amendment made on November 13th. They are under absolutely no obligation to do so, and they can do it any time — or even disregard the issue, since the law is not in effect anyway. If, however, they ratify the law — or allow a month to elapse and allow the law to pass due to inaction — I will present a Citizen's Bill to the next RA to void the Constitutional Amendment and erase it from the text of the Constitution: it's bad enough to know that it has been passed, even though it cannot enter in effect — I want that blot on our democratic history to be erased Again, nothing will prevent a future RA to fail to vote on my own proposed bill, but at least I'm constitutionally entitled to be heard in the RA about it, and I promise to be eloquent And all that will go on record.

So let's get on with the election. I hope that tomorrow, when I log in again to Neufreistadt, the booth is at its usual place.

[Beathan]

Gwyn,

Masterful and apt proposal from a higher (more bird's eye) view than I had been taking to this issue. I join in all your points and will, if requested, join in any petition you make now or hereafter to the SC on this issue.

However, we have another issue. It appears that there is doubt about the legitimacy of Soro's position on the SC (lack of RA ratification) and there has been additional questions raised as to his involvement in the current problem. I am not sure how to handle those parts of this issue. The obvious solution is for Soro to recuse himself from all proceedings on this matter. The further problem is that a good part of this problem originated in and from the SC -- and the proper response is for all members of the SC who participated in that process to recuse themselves. This presents a further problem, who is left in the rump-SC who can adjudicate any position you or I bring on this issue?

Beathan

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

Oh, just a clarification: when I wrote about "bad laws" I just meant "laws passed not within the scope of the Constitution and the Code of Laws", i.e. laws that have legal problems to be addressed (and hopefully fixed) by the SC and resubmitted back for approval. A "good law", in the sense I've used, is one that has no legal or constitutional issues and that the SC can immediately ratify.

The SC has no power (not any more) to decide what is "good for the CDS" or "bad for the CDS", they only have the power to ratify laws that are constitutionally and legally correct and fully compliant, and reject the ones that are not. RA members are under no obligation to pass laws that will benefit all citizens (a different way of expressing "good" as in "good for the whole of the community"), although obviously a RA member that consistently passes laws that are bad for the community will face their voters on the upcoming elections, and will answer politically for their options. That's all.

Of course, even within its limited scope of action, the SC can often be creative in their argumentation. For example, imagine that there was a strong suspicion that a hypothetical law was passed to exclude some citizens from voting. That's ostracism at worst, and at best a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Even though the SC cannot exclude a "morally wrong" law just on the base of morality — they're not the "moral judges" of the CDS — they most certainly can veto a law because it fails to accomplish the spirit and the letter of the UDHR. That's just an example of what the SC can do in some extreme cases. Typically, any law that limits democracy in the CDS in any way will fail to be ratified, since the SC can always argue against it, but not because of "natural law" or based on ethical/moral or philosophical definitions of what is "good" or "bad", but simply because our Code of Laws has to be consistent with at least three documents: the Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Linden Lab Terms of Service and Code of Conduct.

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

Soro's position is clear: after a member of the SC is nominated by its peers, the RA has to pass a vote of confidence for them to hold office (that means that they cannot vote or speak for the SC [important in announcements, trials, etc.] until that).

However, if the RA doesn't pass a vote of confidence in a month, the SC member gets automatically approved. To the best of my knowledge, no vote of confidence was ever called by the RA, so Soro was automatically approved, months ago.

While Calli and Lilith are not full SC members yet, and thus cannot vote in SC meetings or speak on behalf of the SC, to make a binding decision, the SC only needs a vote from the Dean and from another member — that's the minimum quorum in the SC. Since at least Soro and Delia are always around on the SC meetings, their consensual decisions are definitely binding. We don't need to worry about that

The best we can worry about is — "when was this 30-day clause voted and where is the text of that law?" Alas, it's hidden in the mists of the billions of lines of RA meeting transcripts My best guess would be 2009 or earlier. It is the complementary law to the "no stalling" law that made bills automatically approved after a month if the SC failed to meet to ratify it formally.

Yes, we need a RA archivist. Urgently!

[Patroklus Murakami]

The RA has acted in a controlled and limited way to restore the elections to their normal cycle. It has done this in a proportionate fashion by:

• *affirming the correct cut-off date for citizenship/candidacy at 15 October (which was the date all along) and

  *setting back the dates for this election by a week (because the polls were not open on 12 November as they should have been).

Now we need to know who the valid candidates and citizens eligible to vote are for the RA and Chancellor elections and need a statement from the SC as soon as possible to make this clear.

We probably only have 6 or 7 valid candidates for RA which means they (we) probably all get elected unopposed. I'd prefer it were otherwise (and have argued previously that we should face election anyway but that has been decided against by previous consideration of the SC).

We have two valid candidates for Chancellor though and we should focus on arranging a debate so the electorate can choose between these two candidates. I'm not sure that further wrangling after the RA has made a sensible, propotionate decision to solve a problem not entirely of its own making is really helpful. We have a way forward now which allows us to hold elections on Saturday. If people have alternative proposals could we see them please?

[josjoha]

For JosJo's sake, the biggest penalty we have in the CDS is the permanent exclusion from being a citizen (it was enacted only once, in June 2006). The second biggest is confiscation of land and property (never enacted). For public offices, we don't have the accusation of "treason", but we most certainly can impeach officials who for some reason have failed to uphold their oath. This happened a very seldom and only under very sad and disturbing circumstances.

The quickly-approved Constitution Amendment on November 13th — 24 hours after elections started — has not been ratified yet. That requires a formal meeting of the Scientific Council to move to ratify it, and only then it enters in effect.

Hi Gwen,

There is no such high treason ongoing at the moment (elections are still occuring, there is some justification for going on with an election even if there are too few persons etc). Note that high treason can also occur if you have a proper procedure in place to amend the Constitution, and at that point revolution may also have to be waged: the existing Governance bodies may simply decide they will rule forever, ignoring the Constitution. You can then say "but this is not right," upon which the Governance body will for example say "we don't care."

With a proper Constitutional procedure for changing it in place, you are both legal by the letter of the law and revolutionary in your right to overthrow an existing Government. That helps the situation, which is one reason that the people should ratify changes to the Constitution as layed firm in the Constitution itself. I hope you see the problem: a set of Governing bodies that are completely out of control, like as if they actually where all sock-puppets for one person, who tries to gain total power, for example to profit from the 'tiers' or sale of the sims. What do you do then ... you will probably have to try to get the appropriate land-powers away from such a rogue Government, perhaps by appealing to the Linden Labs power. It is a good problem to think about some day, I would think.

This problem does not pertain to these election issues, but I saw that the RA 'made Constitutional amendments' - and this caused me to argue the case that this is wrong. Even if the SC has to approve them it remains wrong. By saying "we do not have high treason" you seem to indicate that I wasn't clear about what I meant, I hope this clarifies it.

[Rose Springvale]

First, Congratulations to Tor Anna and Rosie for being elected to the Old Guard so soon! Amazing isn't it? And to Pat for obviously having so much control over the rest that his voice is perceived to be the most powerful! If the results of any issue are so predetermined, why have an RA at all!?

As a mere bystander of this election, I'm really tired of reading about these dates, and this finger pointing and this innuendo that anyone had ulterior motives here. We are supposed to start an election in less than a week, as things stand now. Shouldn't the focus be on what these candidates have in mind for the CDS, and not how long they've been there?

Even if there is no actual competition, (and i don't think anyone should resign in favor of a by election. That's just nonsense) I'd like to know what these reps stand for. As a citizen, they will be representing ME... and if, for example, one of them opposes events, i want to know not to approach that person with my event plan. If one of them supports tearing down the sims as we know them and rebuilding, i want to know to whom to take my plan for Disney CDS.

Finally, for the sake of clarification to all new citizens who MIGHT be reading here (our research showed that only about half the cds population did)... there are several threads in this forum for OFFICIAL communications. Those threads are limited as to who can post there. The RA has one, The SC has one, The Executive has one. In the future, it would be wise never to assume anything posted anyplace other than those official threads is ...well, official.

As for elections? I never understood why a community so small had to have such complexities. It really is absurd.

But, as Gwyn says, that's my own opinion, and no one should rely on that for anything. I am not a CDS official of any kind.

and .. p.s. after the thrashing that these elected and appointed volunteers have been given this past week, why does ANYONE want to be a cds official of any kind? Maybe we should do like they used to do in the old US pre civil rights era, and give a voter qualification test! Sanity being the first section....

[cleopatraxigalia]

Rose ,

I know you are not a government official, but, I have a question for you.

With the sim teirs of the five AA sims doubling during our next term.. March 2012 to be specific...

Do you see any way CDS can help you out with that matter ?

also to the candidates :

I would like to know what the SC / RA
apparently soon to be elected candidates think about
AA's situation and its relationship to CDS, their current affiliations with AA. Also the new SC candidates please answer.

just curious
CLEO

[Rose Springvale]

Dear Princess/Cleo,

AA's seven sims have no need nor interest in anything from CDS. AA is simply not an appropriate topic of conversation for CDS officials or otherwise. There are no affiliations between the two estates, other than a few duplicate citizens. That can be said of a hundred other estates as well.

Rose.

[Beathan]

If anyone cares (and I am not recommending that anyone do so), my answers to the questions raised on this thread are here:

http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3569

Beathan

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

With due respect, Pat, and please do not take it personally — because you're defending one personal opinion and I'm doing the same — I cannot agree with the legitimacy of the actions described in your post. I'm pretty sure that this is not intended; all you (and probably the remaining RA members as well) wished is to get a quick resolution to the problem.

1) There is no need to do a Constitutional Amendment to add a date for a singular event, a date which, as you rightfully commented, was right all along. In that regard, the Amendment is superfluous. It would never have been required in the first place; but by insisting in the redundancy, the SC should have no other rational option but to reject that bit of the amendment on the grounds that it doesn't add anything and doesn't even provide a "clarification" or "affirmation" of anything that was not known before.

Nevertheless, it's not something "serious" or "grave" — just superfluous and unnecessary.

2) It's not within the powers of the RA to "set back dates" of an ongoing election and have the new dates enter in effect immediately. Only the Dean of the SC can do that if there are technical problems with the server preventing the election booths to work. I understand that there were some problems, but we still haven't an official announcement explaining what problems existed and in what way they prevented the booths to function. A "wrong list of candidates" or citizens is not an argument — it's just a wrong list. The SC has no power to change the elections just because it has a wrong list! There is no provision to do that, and this is quite deliberately so.

So if even the SC has no power to change dates — even by request/recommendation/suggestion — the RA cannot do that either, except, of course, via a Constitutional Amendment.

And those, like any other bill, go into effect once they're ratified by the SC. The bill was not ratified. Simply put, it means it's not in effect. That means that the election dates stand as defined: November 12 starting, November 19 ending. Where are the booths?

Even if the SC does a quick meeting overnight and validates the RA bill, how can they effect something that has already started? They cannot turn back the clock. So that RA bill completely missed the timeline to affect the current elections, even if one assumes that the RA can affect them. I have elsewhere provided ample argumentation, based on our code of laws and past precedent, where the RA has no such power, so the bill is unconstitutional based on that. Of course the SC can rule otherwise, but even the SC has no power to turn a clock back — a proposal that gets approved on the 13th when the election has started on the 12th cannot affect the past!

Now we need to know who the valid candidates and citizens eligible to vote are for the RA and Chancellor elections and need a statement from the SC as soon as possible to make this clear.

I don't know who that "we" is, but I'm assuming that you're speaking of either the RA or the citizens in general. In either case, the only branch in office that "needs to know" who the valid candidates and citizens eligible to vote is the SC. Read the laws The citizens' list is public, you can check it. The list of valid candidates were posted by the Dean of the SC on November 6th. That list is the required "notification to make this clear". Nothing else is required by the law.

Now you can most definitely (and this is a singular "you") question the validity of those lists and file a complaint about irregularities with the SC. Every citizen can do that. One assumes that the SC will then convene — after the elections — like they always do, and check the complaints, and see if they're backed up with solid, factual evidence, and then announce the results. But you cannot assume that candidates are not valid for some reason a priori; nobody in the CDS can be found guilty without a fair trial

The presumption is that the SC validated the candidates and posted the list on November 6th, exactly in the form and time that the law requires them to do so. Everything else is just assumptions, opinions, rumours, or gossip — until the SC can validate any claims of irregularities and publicly post their decisions.

We probably only have 6 or 7 valid candidates for RA which means they (we) probably all get elected unopposed. I'd prefer it were otherwise (and have argued previously that we should face election anyway but that has been decided against by previous consideration of the SC).

Unless someone deleted the post, we have 12 candidates for RA and 2 for Chancellor. The list posted by the SC was quite clear and I know I can still count

Where did the SC "decide against facing the election"?

On the Nov 13th meeting, I just see the following discussion by the SC:

1) Soro Dagostino: "It appears that the SC is unanimous in its opinion that "Election" means when the Balloting commences."
2) "Pat (patroklus.murakami): i dont' believe the SC has control of the election dates. they are set out in the Constitution.
[2011/11/12 10:10] Delia Lake: I also believe that the SC cannot change the constitution, that is unless some amendment is past that is in conflict with the rest of the constitution"
3) [2011/11/12 10:25] Callipygian Christensen: I believe the first question is 'Does the RA have the right to change the consitution (in this case the dates of an election' if the required numbr of votes are yes.
[2011/11/12 10:25] Soro Dagostino: Thank you.
[2011/11/12 10:25] Callipygian Christensen: to that question I would have to say yes.
[2011/11/12 10:25] Lilith Ivory: yea same here
[2011/11/12 10:26] Soro Dagostino: I agree.
4) [2011/11/12 10:37] Delia Lake: as a point of technical feasibility, the polls cannot open today
5) [2011/11/12 10:47] Delia Lake: I would like to move that we send these constitutional chances, temporary though they may be, back to the RA for constitutional amendment

Ok, now, it's at these times where formality becomes important.
1) was followed by affirmative action by Lilith and Calli, who are not allowed to vote in the SC, and of Delia and Soro, who are. So there is a valid decision. From now on, and in case there are any doubts, "Election means when the balloting commences". There is one phrase on the Constitution that might require a rewording to fit to this interpretation, but, at least, this issue is settled.
2) was just a comment. It was not put to the vote. Thus, it's not a decision, just a very qualified opinion.
3) is a formal call to vote on a decision. Again, all SC members and candidates to the SC gave affirmative action to that decision. Thus, from now on, it's clear that the RA has the right to change the constitution — they always had that right, but it's always nice to know.
4) (emphasis mine) is not a decision; it's just a comment. More on that later.
5) Delia indeed moved the constitutional changes (remember, this was still the waiver, not the bill passed on November 13th) back to the RA. But her motion was not seconded and not voted upon. Soro thanked for the motion, but didn't present his views on it. Since there was no negative comment on the motion, one can assume that it was passed, but this is not clear; technically, the waiver bill can enter in effect in about four weeks or so unless the SC is more clear about what is required (the RA, of course, can always remove the bill from the floor; indeed, they seemed to have approved a different constitutional amendment, which still requires SC ratification).

Based on that, and as I wrote on the other thread, I've asked formally (yes, with notecards sent to the three branches) for a lot of things to happen.

First and foremost, the booths have to be placed in-world. I've checked — they're still not there. Just because everyone here seems to "assume" that the elections were called off, this is not the case — there is no legal support for "calling off" the election. Delia hinted that there were technical difficulties that prevented the election booths to be placed on the 12th. This was just an affirmation, not a decision; the SC didn't vote, nor decide, if the elections would be postponed to November 19th or any other date. They could have done that — the SC meeting was held an hour or so before the election started — and they would even have had 12 hours to sort out the "technical difficulties", and, if the issue hadn't been resolved by then, publicly announce that the elections had to be postponed until the server could be fixed, and announce a new date.

No such announcement was made. Also, public announcements regarding a technical difficulty have to detail the nature of the technical difficulty. The legislation says that the reason for postponing the election is when there is "a server failure". So, did the servers fail? Do we have backups? Did all problems get sorted out in the mean time or not?

Unless the reasons for the the technical problems are explained, and a public announcement is made about the time expected to repair the servers and bring the system back on again, as a citizen I have to assume that the elections are on. Nevertheless, the booths are not there. This is a very serious issue. My formal requests to put the booths in place has been silently ignored.

Now, as a citizen, I cannot expect that Government officials have time to get back to each and every request they receive; I imagine that they get a lot of those. But as a citizen I have the right to demand that the laws in effect are scrupulously followed by the elected and appointed members of Government who affirmed to uphold the Constitution and our laws. This means that refusing to put either the booths in place, or to make an official statement regarding the nature of the technical difficulties — and I'm not going to "pretend" not to understand them; I'm a professional in that area and perfectly qualified to understand what a "server failure" is — and announce a date when those technical difficulties are going to be solved so that the booths are put in place again.

Failing to do so is a serious, grave breach of the law. As you all know, we have little reason for having "serious" breaches of the laws — except what concerns elections. If there truly are any "technical failures" of the servers that prevent the election to run, then I expect, within a period of 12 hours since the ballot started, an official explanation of those failures and a warning to the citizens telling them not to expect to vote in the immediate future. That's not just being nice, or official, or gentle about it; that's exactly what the legislation demands. Failing to do so — and for all purposes, the time period to make that announcement has elapsed — is more than grounds to hold someone responsible, and I have already filed a formal petition to the SC to make enquiries.

I'll be happy to take Delia's one-liner as an assumption that there were, indeed, technical difficulties before the elections started. But the legislation is benevolent: it gives the SC and the people responsible for the server another 12 hours to try to fix the problems. After those 12 hours have passed, either the booths are up, or an explanation has to be made public. There is no third option. "Stalling" until everybody forgets about it and resignedly votes on whatever dates are announced at a later stage is not an option foreseen in the Constitution or the Code of Laws!

As said, I'm fine with accepting that technical difficulties can exist. Servers *do* fail, that's why we have this exception in the laws. But the exception cannot be used for any other purpose but dealing with server problems.

In particular, using the pretext that a list of candidates might be questioned in the future in order to cancel the elections or to exclude some — or even all — people from voting is not allowed. Not even by precedent! And the reason goes even beyond our Constitution: we cannot find anyone guilty without a fair trial (which is what the UDHR so clearly states). "Suspicions" about the validity of a list validated and published by the SC are just that — suspicions. People are free to complain about irregularities during the elections. This happened before, and will certainly happen again. It will be up to the SC to hear those complaints in a formal meeting and make decisions. If that decision includes excluding some candidates who might have gotten a seat, and leaving a seat or two vacant, so be it. All that is allowed after the election is finished.

What some well-intended but totally misguided members of our community are not understanding is that we cannot withhold the citizen's right to vote based on assumptions, rumour, or gossip that the elections might be fraudulent. We first have to prove that the elections were fraudulent, and then act upon it. From the many discussions I've seen that there is not even on the forums an exact agreement of who exactly had the right to run as a candidate or not; even Pat, on his post, says "6 or 7", meaning he's not sure. Why not? Because there was no public enquiry and no decision determining who is a valid candidate or not. Instead, what we have is a list, published in the regularly alloted time schedule, of 12 candidates. The validation of those candidates was made by the SC. Obviously we can question the validity of those candidates, but I haven't even seen a formal request made to the SC, just many people "assuming" that the candidates were not valid, and a formal petition to the SC asking about how the word "election" should be interpreted.

The rest, until formally proved otherwise, are just assumptions.

Also, the well-intended but misguided RA bill to change the elections in the middle of the elections was not ratified by the SC. While obviously the RA can change the constitution, as I have argued above, there are a few issues with that bill (beyond the date it was approved by the RA) which might prevent it from being ratified, but that's also just a personal opinion; the SC, once they meet on the issue, will have ample opportunity to discuss and argue about the bill's constitutionality.

A non-ratified bill is no law. It has no validity whatsoever. It means that the elections were not called off, and someone is in serious breach of all legislation by failing to place the booths in-world at the usual places to allow citizens to vote as it is their right to do so. As I've said before on another thread, I've made a formal petition to identify who is illegally stalling the election process and hope to see that person or persons before a formal trial in front of the SC.

If "nothing happens" then I'll have to take further measures. Then I will have to question why the SC is allowing the election process to be stalled. Since the SC has no such right or power, they are deliberately avoiding to follow the Constitution, and overextending and abusing their power — because they haven't it. This is at least grounds for impeachment, and I'll be more than happy to present a petition to the RA to that effect. Because, really, the elections are important — they're not something minor and trifle, like failing to comply 100% with the covenants, or forgetting the Government Hour (an old law, never revoked, which mandates the Executive to hold a public meeting, rotating among all Government branches, every week; we never did that anyway). In fact, they are the most important thing in the CDS, and the whole point of its existence.

Of course I'll be more than happy if the SC announces tomorrow that "Due to major server failures and the inability to get a swift backup of the software running the CDS ballot system, the SC regrets to announce that the elections will have to be postponed to MM/DD". I might still demand formal explanations why that announcement wasn't made in the appointed time — at most, 12 hours after the election started — but I'd be happy to see such a statement. Preferably by either the Dean of the SC — who speaks for the SC — or as a result of a formal meeting of the SC where the technical difficulties are enumerated and a majority decision is made to postpone the elections until the problem is solved.

But please be honest with the citizens. Having doubts about the SC's own published list of candidates is not a "server failure". Having doubts about the intention of the RA to change dates in the middle of the protest is not a "server failure". Having read forum rants about who is a valid citizen and who is not is not a "server failure". They're irregularities in the candidacy process, sure, but the SC has no power to postpone the election dates because of that. If there is a suspicion of a fraud, the SC can hold a trial later. If there is a suspicion of some serious and grave mistakes, the SC can hold a hearing later. All that can be done later. If it was found out that we have too complex legislation in figuring out things, that can be fixed later with due clarifications.

The elections, however, have to be held now.

Please take into consideration that I'm not a complete idiot. I'm very well aware of the issues surrounding this mess; I have two eyes and can still read English Nevertheless, one thing is what we think is happening. The other thing — which is way more important — is what the legislation tells us to do. Having good intentions to somehow "fix" the problem by trying to "patch" legislation quickly and in a hurry and give ourselves a friendly pat in the back, saying "we all are aware that this fix was not very constitutional or even legal, but, well, it solved the problem, and now we can rest at ease with our conscience — nobody is going to complain if everybody is happy with the solution" is not the answer. We cannot simply suspend the Constitution or the Code of Laws just for our convenience (the SC even reaffirmed that during the Nov. 12 meeting!). While it's arguable if the *RA* can or not vote laws that benefit them — there is really not a published Code of Honour for RA members to abide — at least the RA faces public scrutiny every term: if we find out that our representatives are really just "fixing" laws for their own benefit, we can simply not elect them again. It's irrelevant what we think is happening; we can make our own opinions, but until those become formal complaints to the SC, and the people addressed in the complain are brought under a fair trial, they're innocent of everything. Obviously, we vote according to our perceptions, no matter what is proved in court or not — that's our ultimate right, voting.

So let's get voting.