local politics

[disorganizer]

i would like to discuss another proposal (yes, i know i always do):

implementing "local politics" in our provinces.

i am for having the governors being elected ONLY by people living in the respective province in an open ballot or secret ballot system. only people living in the province for more than 2 weeks will be able to vote.
if only one citizen (the governor) is living there, the poll is held as normal election in the forum.

ADVANTAGE:
this would enable more provincial politics and not let the provinces come down to "build queue only" things ;-)


Any thoughts?

 

[eyrei]

This does make sense, as it is like this in the real world. However, on a world this size we could end up with provinces with no governor, because noone lives there. I think it would work wonderfully on a small world. For it to work for us, we would have to institute a rule like: Only the president, judicial and cabinet members may live in the capital, thus forcing people to move out. Many people would not appreciate this, however. Basically, I am saying: Good idea, but I don't think it will work.

 

[Chieftess]

What about newer provinces? During the Iroquois Wars, 2 provinces (actually, 3) were carved out quite quickly...

Would that be an execption? What if it's just before election time? Would the exception still hold?

 

[disorganizer]

the governor even in our game would have to move to the province. provinces without citizens will also in our game have no governor.
for those, normal governor elections will be held.

i have one addition:
only citizens living in a province for more than 1 week are eligable for being nominated as governor.

we could also implement a rule that as long as only 1 citizen lives there, he is automatically the governor without any election ;-) this would move people out to the provinces to become a position.

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

I too like this idea, though I fear the "population control" ramifications it could cause.

One question though. Even with this implimented, how would Provincial issues become more than build queue related as you say is a result of this?

 

[donsig]

Provinces with no governor because of no one living there could be territories under the control of the federal government.

 

[Stuck_as_a_Mac]

i like it.
it would have given me an oponent in the prov 11 race. (one of the 2, no 3 provs knocked out)

 

[Strider]

I agree that we need more local elections & politics, but the only problem with that is that we need more people in the demogame. Around term 3 or 4 I proposed having someone who was in charge of bring people to the demogame(and making citizens more active).

 

[disorganizer]

i think the cfc news made some of this work. as we gained about 30 citizens since we started posting there ;-)

i also second donsigs idea of "nationaly reigned territories" for non governed provinces.

 

[Octavian X]

I have to say that it would be a headache counting the votes, and making sure that each citizen was a resident of a city in the province. But, since I only worry about the total number of votes, not counting, I like the proposal. I think a few CoS changes, and perhaps one CoL change also. It may cause a conflict with the constitutional right of free movement.

 

[Strider]

Originally posted by Octavian X
I have to say that it would be a headache counting the votes, and making sure that each citizen was a resident of a city in the province. But, since I only worry about the total number of votes, not counting, I like the proposal. I think a few CoS changes, and perhaps one CoL change also. It may cause a conflict with the constitutional right of free movement.

Like I said before we need more people inorder to make this fun. Maybe we could also use this thread to discuss my idea for having someone in charge of advertising/bringing people to the demogame.

 

[chiefpaco]

Ideally, it is not a bad proposal. If we used some system like this, we would gain some more sense of living in the world. Governors could also more represent their citizens. However, I feel we would suffer a few serious setbacks:

- Numbers. With a small number of citizens to go around, I am not sure I envy a 2 or 3 vote election. I see a great potential for voting deadlocks. Also, a few missing citizens can mean the end of a vote or even having a governor. A few more missing citizens can easily open a hole in the nation.

- Open balloting. I don't wish to see us move to any sort of non-anonymous voting. I think everyone should have the right to secret elections voting. If we do not use a secret system, I think the potential for group voting and voting pressure grow.

- Vote counting. I like the current no-nonsense and error free system we have in polling. I don't wish to burden anyone with the task of counting votes.

- "Regionalism". Not sure how to call this, but we would be creating more of a "regionalistic" view of our nation. This could lead to more conflict within our nation. Not that a bit of this isn't interesting, but too much can surely distract our progress.

- Game-modeling. I think we would be making a bit more work for ourselves for relatively little gain. Separate counts, tallying counts, constant moving, figuring out who is eligible to vote... all for what? The current system does work. There really isn't a notion of provinces in Civ3 so it is something we are making up.

These issues even contribute to each other. With a small number of citizens voting in each province, clear rifts may be drawn. I think this steers us away from the type of democracy we have built.

 

[Octavian X]

The number of votes would be a very important factor. A single election with only 2-3 votes could seriously throw the census because of the Article I amendment. I also agree with the rest of chiefpaco's concerns. This system, good in theory, would probably only work if we had two or three provinces...

 

[disorganizer]

why dont we just have them? if we enlarge provinces it could work ;-)
(i know this conflicts another proposal of me. so no need for a comment on this )

 

[Eklektikos]

I don't like, and never have liked, the idea of governors being elected by the occupants of their province alone. As I have said before, the improvements and units that a province builds directly affects the entire nation, and as such the individuals in control of the build queues should be elected by the entire citizenry, not just by a relatively small subset.

 

[disorganizer]

What about having a local election and a national. Then we could calculate it my weighting the local to the national elections of a governor for example with 1/3 national, 2/3 local.

an example:
lets say mr.x and mrs.y are nominated for governor of province z
national election:
x=10
y=11
local election:
x=3
y=2
so it would be
x=10+3*2=16
y=11+2*2=15
x would win election. even if y won the national election.

other examples:
local election:
x=2
y=2
so it would be
x=10+2*2=14
y=11+2*2=15
y would win election even if it was a tie in the local election.

 

[Eklektikos]

That looks like a hellish system to operate, Dis. It would require open ballots for both national & local polls, since otherwise provincial residents could vote twice - effectively giving their votes 3 times the weight of a normal citizen's. Also I still believe that even diluted local politics at gubernatorial level is undesireable, due to the nature of the governors' powers.

 

[disorganizer]

Ok, so the 2/3 system would be best as 50/50 between local and national. This way only the local balloting would be secret/open and they get their second vote at the national election.
At the example, it would be:
local x=3, y=1:
x=10+3=13
y=11+1=12
(x wins)
local x=3, y=2:
x=10+3=13
y=11+2=13
(tie)
local x=3, y=3:
x=10+3=13
y=11+3=14
(y wins)

the sense of the system would really be to give the local citizens 2 votes. thats intended.

 

[Octavian X]

As always, dis, I remain completely confused