Bill: Pending Modernising Referendum Requirements Act

[JunoAndrist]

A
BILL
To

Amend The Referendum Act to Modernise Electoral Requirements​

The people of the Commonwealth of Redmont, through their elected Representatives in the Congress and the force of law ordained to that Congress by the people through the constitution, do hereby enact the following provisions into law:

1 - Short Title and Enactment
(1) This Act may be cited as the ‘Modernising Referendum Requirements Act'.
(2) This Act shall be enacted immediately upon its signage.
(3) This Act has been authored by State Secretary Technofied.
(4) This Act has been co-sponsored by Rep. Kaiserin_.

2 - Reasons
(1) The old petition format was applicable when petitions were on DemocracyCraft forums, however in light of the transition to Discord and Citizens’ preference for freeform styling, petition formatting requirements should reflect that.
(2) To facilitate discourse in petition threads, the requirements to sign a petition should constitute a simple Aye reaction instead.
(3) To ensure valid voters are reacting to petition threads, a requirement to link in-game provides the Department of State with assurances they can identify and check appropriate requirements.
(4) The Department of State currently runs referendums, so the Act should reflect this.
(5) Noting the barrier to sign petitions is lowered with a simple reaction, the minimum signatures to trigger a referendum should be updated higher to reflect the change in convenience.

3 - Renaming
a) The Referendum Act is given the new name: “Petition Act”

4 - Amendments
(1) Section 3 of the Referendum Act shall be amended to:

“
(1) Petitions can be started by anyone against any matter of public importance.
(2) At 20 30 signatures the Speaker of Congress Department of State is lawfully required to make an official referendum on the topic.
(3) Petition Format:

Title: Petition for/against <topic>
Username:
Topic:
Why you are for/against this?:
Additional Information:

(4) In order to sign a petition you must respond to a petition created by a player with a declaration reasonably similar to "I, (username), agree with this petition."
(3) A petition must be posted as a petition thread in #petitions on the official DemocracyCraft Discord server, including a title and description of the topic.
(4) In order to sign a petition you must react to the petition thread with the emoji sourced from the official DemocracyCraft Discord server.
”

(2) Section 5 of the Referendum Act shall be amended to:
“
5 - Requirements
(1) Players must have a minimum of 6 hours of active playtime on the server within the last thirty days and be linked from in-game to Discord in order to initiate, or sign, or vote in a public referendum.