Vetoed Proportional System Return Act

[Real42]

A
BILL
To
Amend the Electoral Act​

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 'Proportional System Return Act'.
(2) This Act shall be enacted immediately upon its signage.
(3) This Act has been authored by Representative TheReal42Person.
(4) This Act has been co-sponsored by Rep. Bezzergeezer.
(5) This Act has been requested by State Secretary Mhadsher101.

2 - Reasons
(1) The newly added Single Transferable Vote System is not a good system for voting.
(2) The system is overly complex and creates more work for Electoral Officers.
(a) The system would work better if more people participated in elections.
(3) The old system, Proportional Representation, works better and is more fair to parties.

3 - The Electoral Act shall be amended as follows:
“6 - House of Representatives Elections
(1) Voting System. Elections for the House of Representatives shall be conducted through a system of proportional representation as outlined in this Act.
(2) Activity Requirements. In order to run for and maintain their seat in the House of Representatives, citizens need to meet these requirements:

• Has 6 hours active monthly playtime
• Has accrued 24 hours playtime prior to declaring their intent to contest the election on the forums.
• Is an active participant in the community, in-game, on discord, and on the forums.

(3) House of Representatives Duration. 2 Month Term
(4) House of Representatives Election Months. January, March, May, July, September, and November”

“8 - Single Transferrable Vote (STV) System
(1) Voting Process. Voters rank candidates in order of preference.
(2) Vote Threshold for Election.
(a) In order to be elected, a candidate must reach a specific vote threshold, calculated by: dividing the total valid votes by the sum of the number of seats to be filled plus one, and then adding one to the result
(disregarding any remainder or fraction):

(total number of formal votes / (number of candidates to be elected + 1)) + 1

(b) If a candidate surpasses this threshold with first-choice votes, they are elected.
(3) Surplus Votes. If a candidate receives more votes than needed to meet the threshold, the surplus votes are transferred to the next preference on the voters' ballots.
(4) Elimination of Low-Scoring Candidates
(a) If a candidate has fewer votes than the threshold, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated.
(b) The votes of the eliminated candidate are then transferred to the next preference on the voters' ballots.
(5) Repeat Process. Steps 3 and 4 are repeated until all seats are filled.
(6) Quota Adjustment. As seats are filled, the threshold is adjusted to reflect the changing number of seats and the remaining candidates.
(7) Winner Determination. The process continues until all seats are filled. The candidate with the most votes after the final round of counting is declared the winner of the final seat.”

to:

“8 - Proportional System
(a) Once voting has concluded, all votes cast to candidates of the same party are pooled. Independents shall stand on their own and for all electoral purposes are considered a 'party'.
(b) The number of votes the party or independent as a whole received shall be divided by the total number of votes cast to determine the “Party Share”.
(c) The total number of seats being contested shall be multiplied by the Party Share to determine the party’s seats.
(d) All parties and independents shall be awarded a number of seats equal to the whole number determined in the previous step.
(e) Should any seats remain unallocated, the party with the next highest decimal seats shall be granted a seat until all seats are allocated.
(f) The order in which the seats will be distributed to candidates will be determined by their popularity in the election, with seats being awarded to the most popular candidate of the party first, then going down from most popular to least popular to fill all of a party’s seats. If a party wins more seats than it has candidates, its extra seats shall be reapportioned in accordance with point e.”
Note: Subsequent sections shall be renumbered to reflect these changes.

 

[End]

Nay

1. Single Transferrable Vote is a proportional system. It is otherwise known as proportional ranked choice voting.

2. STV is understood by academics to be the most fair system of voting you can have.

3. You are removing what is a very explicitly and simply explained system to reinstate a vague written law.

4. SNTV is block voting. If you want to change the electoral laws you need to understand what you are actually changing. How are you adding block and proportional voting systems to one chamber?

5. You are adding block voting to the House? The house has never been block voting.

6. Why would we revert our voting systems back and lose all of the progress we’ve made toward a fairer and more in depth voting experience.

7. We vote for representatives not parties. Why are we worried about fairness to parties when we should be worrying about fairness to individual representatives.

8. If there are issues with the plugin you are able to revert to forums anyway.

 

[Dartanboy]

Nay - This bill is a step backwards in Democracy and serves only to remove the people's will from elections. It has been long understood that Ranked Choice Voting and Approval Voting are exceedingly fairer than Single-Choice Voting/Plurality Voting.

 

[Dartanboy]

Need a tie-break from @SomeHuman

 

[Dartanboy]

Oh unless this is a Complex Change
(it isn't a complex change)

 

[GoldBlooded]

Veto

This bill has been vetoed.

Single Transferrable Voting already is a proportional system.

As pointed out by Sen. Dartanman and Rep. Endeavour, STV is the most equitable voting method possible. It means that your preferences have a direct result on the whole election, even after your first preference is thrown out. This law would be a regression of our democratic processes.

"We vote for representatives not parties. Why are we worried about fairness to parties when we should be worrying about fairness to individual representatives." - End

STV has been requested for four years and we have only used it for one of our elections. STV increases electoral RP and electoral officers will become acquainted with it as more elections occur.

The current law is written much more simple and clear than the previous law.

STV has only been tried once, it needs to be tried and tested several times to work out any issues the plugin may have.

If there are issues with the plugin the Department of State is already able to revert to forums and the Proportional System through declaration of Electoral Emergency.

A great investment has been put into this plugin via server ownership that should not go to waste.