1. Legislative Procedure
1. Any citizen of Taijitu may introduce a proposal before the Ecclesia. A proposal will go to vote after a mandatory consideration period of three days.
2. Following the mandatory consideration period, a proposal will proceed to vote after a motion to vote has been made by any citizen and seconded by any additional citizen.
3. Any proposal at vote before the Ecclesia will remain at vote for five days.
4. For time sensitive matters related to foreign or military affairs, the Citizen-Initiator may waive the mandatory consideration period or expedite the voting period, at the request of the Citizen-Delegate for foreign affairs matters or the Citizen-Sergeant for military affairs matters.
5. Citizens may vote Aye, in favor of a proposal; Nay, against a proposal; or Abstain, indicating a vote neither in favor of nor against the proposal but that one has participated in the vote.
6. Unless otherwise mandated by law, all votes of the Ecclesia will be determined by simple majority vote. The result of any vote will be determined by taking into account only citizens who have voted and discounting abstentions cast in the vote.
2. Election Procedure
1. The election period for any elected office will begin with a three day period for nominations and declarations of candidacy, followed by a seven day period for voting.
2. An election period will begin ten days prior to the expiration of an elected official's term or as soon as practical after an elected office is vacated.
3. Citizens may vote for one eligible candidate who has submitted candidacy, may vote to re-open nominations, or may abstain from voting. Abstentions will count only toward participation in an election but will not count for or against a majority.
4. If no candidate receives a simple majority of votes cast in an election, discounting abstentions, a run-off election will be conducted. If the option to re-open nominations receives a plurality of votes, nominations will be re-opened for five more days.
5. Should an election period extend beyond expiration of an elected official's term, the incumbent elected official will remain in office until the election period has concluded.
[st]6. Elections for Citizen-Initiator will be administered by the Citizen-Delegate. Elections for all other elected offices will be administered by the Citizen-Initiator.[/st]
[in]6. Any citizen may administer a regularly-scheduled election.
7. Any election not held according to schedule must be approved by an Ecclesia vote, after which it may be administered by any citizen.[/in]
[st]7. In the event that any designated election administrator is standing for office in the election they are designated to administer or the office of the election administrator is vacant, administration of that election will pass to the citizen who has maintained citizenship for the longest continuous period and who is available to serve as election administrator.[/st]
8. The candidate for whom a citizen has voted in any election will not be publicly visible and citizens will be permitted to change their votes while voting is ongoing.
I submit the changes above to the Ecclesia for consideration.
While I have much respect for the Initiator and all the work they do, I think leaving the administering of elections to them, or to the Delegate for the Initiator election, is unnecessary. Since the Revolution until the passage of this law, we always allowed any citizen to administer an election - even if it was the Citizen-Initiator traditionally.
Since our elections are run using the forum poll system, we don't really need to worry about election fraud or anything like that regardless of who starts the poll. I think it would increase transparency to do it this way, and give people more opportunities to do legislative work.
