Vote Shortening and Challenge Amendments

[Guy]

Amendment 1

(1) Amend Article 3, Section C by striking 'seven' and inserting 'five' in place thereof, as follows:

C: Votes in the Assembly are visible to all citizens, and last for seven five days.

(2) Amend Article 6, Section E to read as follows:

E: Once the campaign period is over, the Assembly will vote to elect the Officer or Delegate, as set out in Article 3; except that the voting period for Delegate shall be one week. Candidates may continue to campaign during voting.

Why this is needed: We are seeing very few votes cast in the last couple of days of the voting period, and this will ensure that we can get legislation passed and Officers confirmed more quickly.


Amendment 2

(1) Amend Article 6, Section C by striking 'three' and inserting 'six' in place thereof, as follows:

C: Any citizen who also wishes to submit a challenge may do so during the first week of elections in the case of a challenge for Delegate, or during the first three six days of elections in the case of a challenge for Officer. No further challenges will be accepted during the elections after this period.

(2) Amend Article 6, Section D to read as follows:

D: Once the challenge period for Delegate is over, a period of campaigning equal to the length of that challenge period will follow, during which candidates are encouraged to lobby citizens for their votes.

Why this is needed: A concern has been raised that the nomination period is too short. While I do not necessarily agree, I am presenting this option. The increase in length of the challenge period is offset by a complete elimination of the campaign period in an Officer election.

[Goobergunchia]

Of the 156 votes cast in closed votes since the beginning of July, a grand total of 7 (4%) were cast in the last two days of the voting period.

[Harmoneia]

I don't see any probs with 7 days..

[sedge]

I don't agree with shortening the voting period either. Most of us here are active fairly regularly, but we still have citizens who only check the forums infrequently.

[Guy]

I think Goob's statistic makes the case fairly well for the first of the two amendments -- we cut 29% of the voting time, and only lose 4% of the votes.

[sedge]

We could probably keep shaving days off, and find we're losing a smaller percentage of votes than time, but that doesn't make it the right thing to do. We have people using the last couple of days of voting (and to change their votes too), and 7 days isn't an overly long time to have for major decisions like electing officials, and passing laws.

[Guy]

It works the other way too. If we hold Citizens' ability to vote as more important than the length of the voting period, then we can continue adding days to the voting time -- there would always be a Citizen who was not able to vote during a certain period.

So as you said, it's about striking a balance between a reasonable voting time and Citizens' ability to vote.

The fact is though, that even though seven days is not such an unreasonable voting period, such a small number of Citizend actually use those extra two days that it would be better to get rid of them.

[sedge]

Of course it works the other way, but I'm not suggesting we move that way What we have now works. Some people use those days, and a week of voting isn't overly long. We have to take into account that for several of our citizens, the forum is something they only check every few days. We shouldn't rush to possibly disenfranchise them because of our impatience.

[Guy]

Every few days does not mean 'once a week'. You also know a vote is coming up, as there is usually a discussion / challenge period before the vote.

I'm not saying a week is overly long, just that the extra two days are quite unneeded, and should be cut.

[Guy]

I would like to see Amendment 2 come to a vote as a competing measure to Christian Democrat's amendment.

[sedge]

I think such a vote would be tricky... because it's not an either-or choice - there's also the option of rejecting them. There's 1 day's difference between your options. I think we can resolve that before putting this to vote.

[Guy]

It is actually a 3-day difference. My proposal is 5 days challenge period, no camapaign. Whereas CD's is 7 days challenge, 1 day campaign.

[sedge]

His latest version has 5 days of challenges for Officers, followed by 1 day of campaigning - so elections stay the same length. If we're going to do that, though, my preference would be a 6 day challenge period and no campaigning period...

[Guy]

I'm happy with six-and-none. Edited to reflect that.