Amendment to Article I of the Constitution

[zorven]

As I said in my comments - I don't like the proposal. It IS better than the current law, but I don't like it, and will not support replacing a bad law with another bad law.

That about sums it up for me.

 

[Donovan Zoi]

Actually, RF, I am calling you out on your public statement. I have no intention of abusing the public poll feature should it be allowed.

That said, my apologies to zorven. It was most unfair of me to do exactly what ravensfire accused me of. I will be more wary of this in the future.

Now, if I must defend the amendment here, I will start by stating that Abstain is essentially a neutral vote. If we were to force it to be used against the 67%, then it would essentially become a NO vote. So that is what Abstain is all about. It allows those who do not have an opinion on a matter to reflect such while still applying to the census.

As far as the turnout clause, this is a vast improvement on the YES only clause. And as the game dwindles down, 2/3rd of the census is not too much to ask once that census stands at something like 40. Do we really only want to hear the opinion of 20 people to alter our Constituution? As you yourself have stated:

This is the Constitution we're talking about here people. This is supposed to be hard to change........

This proposal reflects the best of both worlds by requiring a clear majority of decided(and therefore informed) voters from a reasonable turnout. And I am not sure that removing Abstain is a great idea as it would force a citizen to make an uninformed choice.

There, this is the response you should have received. I apologize for my lack of tact earlier but there is much to be resolved this month, and a failed amendment here will make it that much harder to accomplish.

Of all people, you should know this feeling.......

 

[Comnenus]

Well Im sorry you poor individuals breaking your back over trying to get these constituional articles can understand how I felt when 3 articles failed by 1 vote. DZ, Commenus, Cyc.

And guess what? 2 of those 3 aborted articles are up for JR, and they are simple to deal with.

Yes, and Immortal, I for one wholeheartedly thank you for all the work you put into trying to get a Constitution in place. It seems to be a thankless job, what with all the important discussions taking place like what to name the first province, etc, etc. But I'm am sure I speak for at least a few when I say:

 

[Immortal]

If abstain applies as a percentage added to the no vote total against yes vote total, I move abstain be removed from polls entirely.

 

[Donovan Zoi]

Well Im sorry you poor individuals breaking your back over trying to get these constituional articles can understand how I felt when 3 articles failed by 1 vote. DZ, Commenus, Cyc.

It's what we are trying to fix, Morty. I do not want all of your suffering to go for naught.

 

[Donovan Zoi]

If abstain applies as a percentage added to the no vote total against yes vote total, I move abstain be removed from polls entirely.

In this law as written, it does not.

 

[Immortal]

I mean for EVERY poll Donny.

 

[Black_Hole]

I mean for EVERY poll Donny.

its right here:

A 67% majority of Yes votes over No votes, Abstain 
notwithstanding.

Abstain is neutral

I for one totally agree with this aricle! And rf/zorven, if this gets passed it will be easier to change this aricle later to improve it... overall this is better than the one before which is the important thing.

 

[Immortal]

Blac_Hole, be extremely careful when you are reading these articles, I know, I helped write them.

This article applies ONLY to amendment of constitutional articles, not citizen polls or the like.

 

[Donovan Zoi]

Oh, you mean how it affects that number with the funny little symbol on the far right of the choices? I have written that out of the equation. Only YES votes and NO votes will be applied when determining the 67% threshold.

 

[Black_Hole]

Blac_Hole, be extremely careful when you are reading these articles, I know, I helped write them.

This article applies ONLY to amendment of constitutional articles, not citizen polls or the like.

yes and if this article is approved it would be easier to edit this article again in the future(since this article applies to constitutional amendments which editng and article is )

 

[DaveShack]

The correct solution for citizen polls is to announce at the opening of each poll what the criteria is. It can be highest vote total wins, or it can be top two options go into a runoff indefinitely. I prefer highest vote total.

In RL, Abstain is normally used to show that someone was present but has a conflict of interest with voting either yes or no. There isn't really an abstain in election style votes, which is the model we are following for all of our votes, not just elections.

I voted yes on this one because contrary to what ravensfire said, it is not replacing a bad law with a bad law. It is replacing a bad law with an imperfect one, but if this amendment passes it will make it much easier to amend it again compared to what happens if this amendment fails.

 

[Comnenus]

I wouldn't call the existing Article a "bad" law. It it simply flawed in the way it is worded. This amendment makes the threshold clear. If some people don't support it, that is understandable as we will always have disagreements. I do support this amendment, and urge all citizens to vote YES!

 

[Comnenus]

Okay, so there's a great possibility that some very much needed articles to the Constitution are going to be defeated today, despite being overwhelmingly supported by the voters. If that happens, it is just one more nail in the coffin of the detractors of this legislation. Article I was never meant to make it impossible to add to or change the Constitution, but that has been the effect. Here we have more than 2/3 of the voters casting their votes, but in each case the proposed articles stand the chance of being defeated by less than a handful of detractors. Now, I believe that we are each entitled to our opinions, but this is not democracy. It is Tyranny of the Minority. If you care anything about the future of Japanatica and this DG, please vote YES on this amendment to Article I.

 

[Cyc]

The problem with the Constitution Amendment process is not caused by the original version of Article I. The problem is caused by the unethical election recruiting practices of some of our fellow citizens. These people feel it's necessary to recruit all the friends they've made over the years (in such relevant forums as OT) and have those friends vote for them, just so they can get more votes than the other unethical person who is using the same recruiting practices. 66 or 67 votes in an election is sinful. I used to say the same thing about an election that had 51 votes in it. AND IT WAS! We don't have 66 people in the Demogame. You can't tell me the transient population that signs the Citizen Registry and dissappears, never to be heard from again actually come back here to vote during a 4 day election. I've seen this same thing for 4 Demogames now, and have tried to rectify the situation in countless ways. The voting scandal we had in the MA election wasn't one citizen pulling a DL and voting twice, it was that everytime one candidate would get a vote, the other would recruit one more, which would prompt the other to recuit one more, in an endless cycle. There was also no telling how many DLs there were, as TF only had to go back far enough to discont the vote total and declare a winner of the first election. He may have only gone back two voters. This kind of scandal is what causes our problems today.

When these "fair weathered friends" leave after fulfilling the voting duty, our "active citizenry" shrinks by some 50% (maybe not that much). So you see it's not the original version of Article I that's the problem, it is the unethical voter recruitment policies that many of our citizens use. Fix that problem of the "good ole boy club" (or girl) and you will be able to use the 2/3 figure for citizen approval in Constitutional Amendments.

 

[Comnenus]

Well, Cyc, as you say the problem has been ongoing for some time. It doesn't seem like it is going to be fixed, so the problem becomes one of writing an article that allows us to play the game where the actual participants have a say in how it is run. It is a damn shame when 3 or 4 people can hamstring us from making needed changes that are obviously supported by the majority.

off soapbox now, running over to play FascismGame 1.

 

[ravensfire]

As far as the turnout clause, this is a vast improvement on the YES only clause. And as the game dwindles down, 2/3rd of the census is not too much to ask once that census stands at something like 40. Do we really only want to hear the opinion of 20 people to alter our Constituution? As you yourself have stated:



This proposal reflects the best of both worlds by requiring a clear majority of decided(and therefore informed) voters from a reasonable turnout. And I am not sure that removing Abstain is a great idea as it would force a citizen to make an uninformed choice.

There, this is the response you should have received. I apologize for my lack of tact earlier but there is much to be resolved this month, and a failed amendment here will make it that much harder to accomplish.

Of all people, you should know this feeling.......

I quite well know this feeling. I'm greatly disappointed that the game was forced to start, again, before everything was ready.

To be really honest, part of me says something along the lines of "Be careful of what you ask for!" w/ this article. The people originally wanted these standards - look what it got them.

I will stand by the my proposal, especially w/ the difficult to change concern you raised. I will also highlight the problems I have with the current proposal.

The quorum is the determinant of if the poll can represent the will of the people. 50% is reasonably high, and handles the problems Cyc reminded everyone about w/ friends voting only during the elections. It also neutralized the null-vote strategy. When you introduce a strategy of not voting so quorum isn't reached, that is a subversion of the process. Any process much encourage, even reward, people to vote. Setting a quorum of 50% means that will generally be reached, encouraging citizens to vote their viewpoint on the issue. The current proposal has a fairly high quorum, and does not reward those without strong viewpoints. There is minimal reason for those opposed to an amendment, or neutral towards it, to vote. Indeed, a decent opposition (say 20%) would be better off NOT voting. This would almost certainly cause the proposal to fail quorum, rendering the vote null.

Set the quorum at 50%.

The percentage to pass determines the direction of the will of the people. By setting this at 67% of the total votes (including abstains), we are verifying that the WoTP strongly prefers the amendment. We're talking about a change to the Constitution here. If you can't convince someone this is a good idea, then you must count them as against the proposal. When you change status quo, you must convince people that change is good. The current proposal ignores those that have not been convinced either way - tossing them, and their vote, aside. For a lower law, I have no problem with discarding abstains. This, however, is the Constitution.

Set the percentage for approval to 67% of the total votes. Keep the bar high, requiring supporters to create a sufficiently popular idea.

-- Ravensfire

 

[Donovan Zoi]

@Ravensfire - Well, after seeing the travesty of the defeat Articles O and E, I hope you can see why this Article should be passed despite its "flaws." With hard data that now leans in support of your argument(we only cleared census by 3-4 votes in both polls), I will be glad to work with you to rectify the wording here.

But in the interim, this law needs to pass badly. Can I please ask that you do what you can to support this law with the knowledge that it can be revisited in an amendment discussion almost immediately? If this does not pass, then we have at least another 4 days to make this work, followed by another 4 days to resubmit the 2(or 3?) defeated laws. So another election will roll out with no election law in place.

BTW, I did what I could to delay the impromptu start of the game(announced 4 days beforehand), but to no avail. Since then, a handful of us have been tireless in our efforts to right our laws. Please feel free to join us.

 

[Black_Hole]

we need this passed badly... O and E failed by 1 vote!, altho 90% of the people voted for it... that is very bad...

 

[Raven1er]

I voted YES