[Congress Debate] Removal of additional 12 voting hours
UNL Congress
Greetings, citizens of Netherlands,
A new debate has been opened at the request of President Janty F:
Dear members of Congress,
as all of you are very well aware, voting, whether on in-game laws or out-game proposals, takes 24 hours. Nothing more, nothing less. It is a custom since the beginning, and every politician by now has managed to familiarize to it. All in all, people usually log in to the game atleast once per day to do their daily chores, so the 24 hour period seems reasonable. HOWEVER!
While in practice everything takes 24 hours, on paper in our Lawbook, we have numerous exceptions, where additional hours might come to play. Never heard or seen these exceptions before? You are not alone “
😉” And that's because they describe such rare cases, it is next to impossible to encounter them. So if we got rid of this oddity, which is in conflict with in-game voting (and we should strive to follow the in-game principles to make our internal regulations more realistic)... nothing would really change for our daily political lives. And we would unionize all methods of voting, making it less confusing for everyone, and making it follow the in-game example.
Therefore I suggest to change the belowmentioned parts of the Congress Law (Article 4 and 7) from:
4.3. The candidacy period will last 24 hours. If there are no candidates, this period will be extended by an additional 12 hours.
4.4 A candidate with the majority of votes is elected Chairman of Congress. In case of a draw, the voting period of 24 hours will be extended by an additional 12 hours.
7.5 A voting round lasts 24 hours. If the quorum is not reached, the voting will be automatically extended by 12 hours.
to:
4.3. The candidacy period will last 24 hours.
4.4. A candidate with the majority of votes is elected Chairman of Congress.
7.5. A voting round lasts 24 hours.
Yes: 12
No: 6
Neutral: 0
Proposal accepted.
El Gorro
Chairman of Congress
Comments
@4.3: If there are no candidates? Afaik this 12 hour is a repeatable extension, to provide an extra short(!) delay for voting if it's hard to find CoC candidates. So I would be against this change.
@7.5: What to do if we get to the old case? Probably 7.4 and your proposed 7.5 should be swapped, and a small addition should be made to the current 7.4 that if the quorum is not met, the proposal is rejected.
Your proposed 4.4 looks correct. If no single candidate has a majority the rest of the lawbook fixes the issue.
@4.3: One would argue that CoC should be active enough to log in daily, meaning any serious candidates should not have any problem applying during 24 hours (especially since the term of this application is very well known and given by the Law)
@7.5 Swapped how? You mean the order of them? CoC can solve that as for consistency of the law. Also, it is kinda logical that if quorum is not met at the end of the voting (no matter after how many hours that end is), the proposal is rejected (or more specifically, it does not take immediate effect)... atleast that's how I believe the law works even now, if we ever had such a situation
@4.3:
Our current CoC only decided to run after several other candidates were rejected by Congress. If these other candidates had not been there, he probably would have also applied eventually, but probably not in the first 24 hours. After all, he only ran because there was nobody (with a chance of being elected) who seemed to be interested.
@7.5: I can't find the effect of the quorum anywhere in our lawbook anymore. Regarding the swap: I think it makes more sense to have "a voting round lasts 24 hours", and then "The quorum is ..." if the extension is scrapped.
The current order only makes sense because of the extension option.
@4.3: If not 12 hour, the law probably needs to be specific that another 24 hour candidacy period starts automatically if nobody applies. I think just removing it creates a weird hole.
@4.3: Well, the situation about last CoC election was not solved by additional 12 hours, as all candidates running were able to apply in 24 hours of the appropriate candidacy period. We just had more candidacy periods due to the reason you have mentioned. And the weird hole technically exists as well, if nobody applies during 24 + additional 12 hours (because your assumption the +12 hour period is repeatable is also not written anywhere, meaning I personally would assume after 24+12 hours pass, new period will be started anyway., as "none of the above in article 4.5 is applicable, which is a reason for new candidacy period. All in all though, the result is the same, and people can still andidate themselves, no matter under what provision of the Law).
@7.5: The effects of the quorum could theoretically be reminded by 7.6 " In the case of a simple majority AFTER REACHING A QUORUM, the proposal will take immediate effect." But if quorum would have no effect on proposal not being accepted, if not reached, then its existence would actually be... pointless to begin with.
@djirtsdew correct, I only applied to service Congress as there weren’t any candidates that would be elected. I didnt had problems with the 24 hours period.
I don't read that clause as meaning that there can be indefinite extensions (and also not sure that ever did occur). It seems to me it just, at most, makes a candidacy period 36 hours. Also, if this is to be considered a 'repeatable extension', then why not just scrap the provision and make it based on normal 24 hour periods which then in practice would have the exact same result in the case there are no candidates for such a long time.
* Furthermore I also believe the quorum should not be taken so much into account, as it is almost impossible to have such a situation again in which it is not achieved (only if there's abuse of the instrument, and that's exactly what the bad part of it is). It is also not consistent any more in the way we have played for the last two years. The exact same proposal (i.e. a war agreement) can be voted down in a meta Congress vote, but accepted in actual eRep proposals with the exact same results..
But that's perhaps a discussion for another day 😉
Agreed. The 12 hour extensions seems awfully artificial and not fitting to the game we are playing foremost, and above all unnecessarily confusing - when in all such cases (which barely occur to start with) it can be logically solved by the re-start of the ordinary period.
It might be rare nowadays, it does no harm to have a failsafe. The 12 hr however seem unnecessary and might cause confusion. Haven't looked thoroughly in it but can't we do something like:
4.3. The candidacy period will last 24 hours. If there are no candidates, this period will restart.
Not sure about voting period extensions. If other mechanisms already point to a new candidacy or voting that might do. I'm missing a part where if more than 2 candidates apply and it's a draw for the win the one with the least votes is removed and voting starts over on remaining candidates.
4.3. The candidacy period will last 24 hours. If there are no candidates, this period will restart."
That would indeed solve the problem discussed above.
"I'm missing a part where if more than 2 candidates apply and it's a draw for the win the one with the least votes is removed and voting starts over on remaining candidates."
That is solved in article 4.5, which is not a subject of this proposal.
"If there are more than two candidates and no candidate has reached a majority, taking into account Article 4.4, a new voting round will be opened with the two candidates that received the most votes. If this is not applicable, a new candidacy period will be opened. "
Then I'd say with the addition of the restart it all seems fine.