RA and Chancellor Election Regulations

Proposals for legislation and discussions of these

Moderator: SC Moderators

Post Reply
User avatar
Almut Brunswick
LRA
LRA
Posts: 202
Joined: Mon Dec 16, 2019 6:49 pm
Contact:

RA and Chancellor Election Regulations

Post by Almut Brunswick »

Dear fellow CDS Citizens!

Soon we will have another election campaign for the next legislature. Some of you may remember that I once started to create a CDS New Citizen's Guide https://docs.google.com/document/d/1j3P ... s8i7ag9ve . Unfortunately, the section how the elections are conducted is still incomplete and Lilith just left the comment: "Info about qualification to run for an office and vote are still missing"

You may agree that this is not really satisfying for any new citizen who would like to understand the procedure in general or even to run for office himself/herself in particular. Honestly I myself do not have any clue how to candidate. Apparently it is so self-evident that everybody of the senior residents knows it by heart.

I know about the acts related to the elections, but nonetheless I would really prefer to have a fixed Election Regulation somewhere on an easily accessible place where electing and candidating citizens can retrieve all needed information in a nutshell: How can I run for office? How does the qualification process take place? What do I need to hand in? Etc.

When there is already such a document or thread, then I beg your pardon and just ask for a link here. Otherwise this information should be provided as soon as possible.

Thank you!

Almut

User avatar
Rosie Gray
Forum Wizard
Forum Wizard
Posts: 2046
Joined: Sun Jun 06, 2010 9:47 am

Re: RA and Chancellor Election Regulations

Post by Rosie Gray »

Almut it's all in the code of laws.

For Representative Assembly election: https://cdsdemocracy.org/cds-constitution/

For who is a citizen, and who can run for office: https://cdsdemocracy.org/faqs/cdsl-16-0 ... hment-act/

For the Chancellor election: https://cdsdemocracy.org/faqs/cdsl-13-0 ... ction-act/

For campaigning rules: https://cdsdemocracy.org/faqs/cdsl-13-0 ... gning-act/

For if we require a by-election: https://cdsdemocracy.org/faqs/cdsl-20-0 ... dures-act/

Also, when an election cycle begins, the Scientific Council makes announcements that explain the procedure to everyone.

"Courage, my friend, it's not too late to make the world a better place."
~ Tommy Douglas
User avatar
Almut Brunswick
LRA
LRA
Posts: 202
Joined: Mon Dec 16, 2019 6:49 pm
Contact:

Re: RA and Chancellor Election Regulations

Post by Almut Brunswick »

Dear fellow CDS citizens,

the next campaign for new elections for the Chancellor and the Representative Assembly (RA) comes closer and we are currently experiencing a term with a chronical "short-handed" RA. After only three candidates had declared their willingness to run for one of the five RA chairs, only one of two yet vacant RA chairs could be filled with another candidate by a by-election. The word "election" was in all mentioned cases actually not appropriate anymore, because in the recent three terms, there were not more candidates than open roles to be fill with citizen willing and qualified per census. All candidates were simply been appointed. That alone is actually alarming enough.

All this led the SC in their most recent meeting (see https://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9717) to think about an adaption and amendment, respectively, of the Constitution and the Code of Laws that reflects the current situation better than the current legislation. As the RA Leader Pro Tempore, I take this as an obligation to make this an urgent topic of the legislative work in the RA, and I'm awaiting the SC's announced "to-do list" anxiously.

To (re-)open this discussion we once already had here when I was a "young" CDS citizen wonderering about the not-conducted elections, I propose to revive this thread for finding better, more up-to-date solutions to face the situation outlined above.

Rosie Gray wrote: Thu Oct 01, 2020 11:56 am

Almut it's all in the code of laws.

Rosie was so kind to post a number of links to the Constitition and the Code of Laws which exactly points on what we need to adapt, change or amend. This bouquet of legal texts, however, shows also how widespread the bits and pieces are placed whose sum makes up the election system of the CDS. Maybe an Election Act that clusters all these rules and regulations could be the way to make the election process more transparent especially for new citizens, because I can imagine that not everybody loves to examine not less than 5 legal texts plus the announcements by the SC right before and in the course of a running campaign. Even true CDS lovers and veteran citizens use to state their distance to everything that looks too "political" in the sense of troublemaking and time-consuming. So when there is a way to draw down the first step contributing to the political life in our community, we should really not only think about it, but also act accordingly as soon as possible.

However, that is more a structural question which cannot be worked off in short time and surely not in this term anymore. The point to start should be to focus on two central questions:

  • The conditions and amount of by-elections to be held by the SC when the regular campaign for an election has less candidates than roles to be filled, and

  • The minimum size of a RA which can be still regarded as capable of acting.

I'm going to start going through the existing laws and proposing changes here. Please don't stay back to contribute to this important discussion for the CDS's political life with your own thoughts and comments. Thank you!

Almut

User avatar
Sudane Erato
Forum Wizard
Forum Wizard
Posts: 1178
Joined: Thu May 25, 2006 8:44 am
Contact:

Re: RA and Chancellor Election Regulations

Post by Sudane Erato »

Lilith has suggested that I post this concern here, as it relates to the census and the election process that we go through every six months.

https://cdsdemocracy.org/faqs/cdsl-16-0 ... -purposes/, otherwise know as "CDSL 16-04", states that the census must be held at Noon SLT on the day specified. This has really never been possible. In the "old days" the census was done more or less by hand, by copying the list of tierbox holders and comparing that to the list of parcel owners revealed by an old scanning system we used. It took a few hours, so even if the data was collected at one time, the census was produced hours later. And, needless to say, it required that a person (me) be available to do that work at Noon SLT (3 PM New York time)... usually on a Friday. And I never was.

Since last year we have in place a blessedly better system, in which 14 scans are done early every morning automatically, and the results are complied into the census list. Rudeen gets an email on the completion of each scan, so that I can say with certainty that 99 days out of 100 the scans run and generate a proper list. But those scans could not run dependably at Noon SLT, as the are fairly resource-intensive, so they are set to run in a staggered fashion around the hours of 2 to 4 AM SLT. By 4 AM SLT each day we have a complete new census.

Anyone can view this census list at any time: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... =621790411

So... may I suggest that, perhaps following the forthcoming election process, the RA take it upon themselves to modify the CDSL 16-04 to incorporate the realities of collecting and publishing the census.

Sudane..................

*** Confirmed Grump ***
Profile: http://bit.ly/p9ASqg
Post Reply

Return to “Legislative Discussion”