Here's a possible solution to the whole monarchy mess.

Have whoever became citizen (of Kingdom or Republic) first be the King/Queen.

First time we do this: offer the position to the most senior citizen (in this case Gjermund). If they say no or don't respond within a week or are no longer a citizen, move on to the next one, until someone accepts.

Next time the King/Queen retires or is removed, go with the next one on the list. Only if we get to the bottom of the list and nobody accepts we start at the top again.

If it takes many weeks before somebody accepts we can still have a regency in the meantime.



Advantages:

- The monarch isnt selected by the hype of the day.
- We don't need a big partisan war every time the King is absent because the procedure is just set
- There's no point in campaigning to be King and there's no point in becoming a citizen for that reason cause you won't last that long.
- We always get a King who's experienced, knows Talossan culture and has a track record of sticking around
- Monarchists might like that there is a set order of succession
- Republicans might like that it's non-hereditary, you need to have at least achieved something to become King and it might be easier to remove the monarch for inactivity if there is a replacement procedure

I know I said I wouldn't do anything as Senator, but I have decided to do a thing anyway, which is to propose an OrgLaw amendment which sets the deadline for election night at a time which is much more reasonable for Cézembre (midnight instead of 2:30 am)

Cézembreans are very much encouraged to have a look and provide feedback. I am interested to know if there is support for this change within our province.

https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=3108.msg25629#new

9 to 5 Amendment

Whereas Cézembre is an integral part of the Kingdom of Talossa and citizens of Cézembre are full citizens with equal rights to those of the other provinces, and

Whereas election night is considered one of the main social events for Talossans, with activity and participation often spiking and the reveal of the election results often being combined with other cultural activities, and

Whereas the election deadline is set at 19:30 Talossan Standard Time, and

Whereas 19:30 TST is 02:30 am in Cézembre, and

Whereas many Cézembreans and citizens of other provinces living in Europe work 9 to 5, what a way to make a living, and

Whereas this schedule does not allow Cézembreans to stay up past 2:30 am on weekdays, and

Whereas bringing the deadline forward 2,5 hours would allow more citizens to experience this magical feast of democracy, and

Whereas this would set the election at 17:00 TST, which is the end of business hours and not at all unreasonable for those living in the GTA or elsewhere in the western hemisphere, and

Whereas El Lexhatx refers to some non-existent tradition of keeping the polls open until midnight, now

Therefore Article V, Section 2 of the Organic Law, which currently reads

QuoteAll elections to the Cosa are to be conducted during a period beginning from the fifteenth day of the calendar month following the dissolution of the prior Cosa until 11:59 p.m. on the fourteenth day of the subsequent month. All ballots must be cast by 7:30 p.m. on the first day of the subsequent month. The first day of this period is called "Balloting Day", the first day of the subsequent month is called the "Election Deadline", and the final day of the period is called the "Certification Deadline."

 is amended to read as follows:

QuoteAll elections to the Cosa are to be conducted during a period beginning from the fifteenth day of the calendar month following the dissolution of the prior Cosa until 11:59 p.m. on the fourteenth day of the subsequent month. All ballots must be cast by 5 p.m. on the first day of the subsequent month. The first day of this period is called "Balloting Day", the first day of the subsequent month is called the "Election Deadline", and the final day of the period is called the "Certification Deadline."

Furthermore, provided the amendment to the OrgLaw contained in this bill is a approved and ratified, Lex B.10., which currently reads

QuoteNotwithstanding the purely traditional practice of "keeping the polls open" till midnight of the last day of an election (or of a month, for Clark purposes), the Secretary of State is hereby instructed to keep a sort-of conventional "business day" where the deadline for any official business (ballots, Clarks, etc.) is set at 7:30 p.m. of the day in question.

shall be amended to read

QuoteThe Secretary of State is hereby instructed to keep a sort-of conventional "business day" where the deadline for Clarks is set at 7:30 p.m. of the day in question.

Uréu q'estadra så
Glüc da Dhi (Sen, Cézembre)

There's a slim, but greater than zero chance the MRPC accidentally gets more than 6 seats in l'Etats, whereas I can only assign 6 seats to myself. Should that happen I'd like to be able to fill these seats, if possible, in accordance with the constitution.

For the moment, the MRPC basically wants two things:

- Rules for provincial elections should be set by law and not be made up on the spot

- Considering the current levels of provincial activity it is probably best if senate elections are conducted by the chancery for the time being.

If you agree with those two points and are willing to represent the MRPC in l'Etats alongside myself for the coming term let me know BEFORE the end of the etats elections.

So first of all many thanks to @xpb for organising the election.

And also thanks to the Cézembreans who voted for me. I know there was no other choice, but I appreciate the support anyway.

It's unfortunate that there weren't any other candidates, especially since I am not too motivated by current politics myself and I might not be the best senator at the moment because of that. @þerxh Sant-Enogat would have been a great candidate of course, even more because of his activity at the provincial level and connection to our island, but unfortunately in this case the limitations set by the Organic Law prevented that.



I am somewhat uneasy about the election however, because according to our constitution the election should be conducted by the chancery if no provincial statutes exist. This appears to have been the case. I think this is a good thing because the alternative is for the sénéchal to basically invent the rules themselves (as happened in this case by choosing fptp when both chancery conducted elections and previous statute-based elections used irv).

This is not to diminish the appreciation for the work xpb has done. He has put great effort into calling for candidates and setting everything up and I don't doubt his integrity. Also he has kept provincial activity going when nobody else could be bothered. However, I don't think it is correct for one person to unilaterally choose the election rules, which is what happens when there aren't any (valid) rules in place, which is why the constitution says the chancery should be requested to conduct the election in that case.

I apologise for being so late too voice this concern. I suppose I couldn't be bothered to argue about it earlier. For now it is probably a moot point and I dont think it would have affected the outcome with only one declared candidate.

For next time maybe l'Etats should maybe pass a bill to clarify that no laws are in place and therefore the Chancery should in accordance with the constitution be requested to conduct senate elections. (Or write a law to conduct the elections ourselves, but I personally wouldnt be in favour of that since Chancery elections have been well organised and tend to have higher turnout than provincially conducted elections. Provincial activity has been quite low for a while but Cézembreans still have an interest in being represented at the national level.)



For the time being Im assuming there won't be a court case to challenge the results so you'll have to do with me as your senator. As promised I intend to read and vote on every bill. If anyone has any questions about my views feel free to ask. Also if anyone has opinions on legislation before the senate feel free to contact me. I can't promise I will change my vote accordingly but I will always try to carefully consider the arguments made.

We're doing another TCAT watchalong tomorrow.

Come join us on discord, chat with fellow Talossans, watch your TCAT team climb some mountains (should be an interesting stage), maybe play another discord game if people are up for it...

Start: around 15:30 CEST maybe? (thats 8:30 am TST)

Finish: expected after 17:18 CEST (10:18 am TST), but if people are interested we might hang around for some time after that.

See you tomorrow.

YoU wOn'T bElIeVe ThE nUmBeR 1!  ::)

Anyway, as mentioned before, I started doing this a couple years ago and then didn't get very far. Im gonna try again and see how far we get this year.

Over the next months I will be ranking all Talossan elections (not counting 1981 and 1983) from meaningless to era-defining political shifts. Just because I can (maybe).
It's gonna be entirely subjective.
It will not be entirely accurate. I don't know all that much about anything before I became a citizen. I will base myself mostly on Ár Päts and the database for that, but both are not always entirely accurate. The various pieces of data also sometimes contradict each other. The perspective put forth by Ár Päts is very one-dimensional and should probably not be trusted as a historical source and I only did a quick reading of everything. Feel free to correct me if I've got it wrong. Feel also free to argue about the ranking.
I'm not considering Senate results in this, mostly there is a lot of data missing about earlier senate elections and it's very difficult to interpret these results without fully understanding the ideological position of the candidates. I'm just looking at the Cosa elections.

It's not necessarily a ranking of how suprising the results were. Results can be surprisingly boring or be a completely expected landslide. There's also no fixed rule about causality. An big change election might itself change the course of Talossan history or simply reflect major changes that happened earlier.

Obviously I'm a bit biased towards elections I've experienced myself, but I'll try to at least somewhat spread out the results over the different eras. (Of course some periods are simply more interesting electorally than others.)

Anyway, predictions, alternative rankings etc are very welcome.

Oh, and here is a poll to get a sense of what might the consensus view of what may have been the biggest political revolutions: https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=2155.0

Im thinking about redoing my series ranking all Talossan elections by how much they changed the Talossan political landscape (probably with a different name, as the old format might be seen as being in bad taste considering current events). More on that later (maybe).

Before I get to that though, Im interested to know what current views are on the subject. Obviously not everyone will have studied Talossan electoral history. That's fine. I'm just interested in which elections are currently viewed as landmark elections by the people interested in the topic. Maybe this will shift after Ive done my series, or not...

You can vote on 1, 2, or 3 options.

As the King Lüc Party (KLüP) will not be fielding a list for the Cosa this election, we have opted to formally endorse the Parti Tafialistà ticket and encourage all of our mindless pocket voters to vote PT.

why?

1. The status quo on the monarchy (including and especially the current Monarch not being called Lüc) simply isn't working. We realise Lüc isn't actually running for King, but a return to the Cosa has to be considered a good first step.
2. I don't understand el glheþ, which makes it easier to remain blissfully unaware of whatever bad ideas Marcel/the PT might have, whereas the bad ideas of the parties that prefer communicating in English are painfully obvious.
3. We are really worried if the TNC win again the FreeDems will again punish all of Talossa by pledging to vote against good bills. (Also the bribe we received from the TNC in the form of cryptocurrency lost all its value over the past 4 hours.)



The Parti Tafialistà is not responsible for the content of this advertising
(If that wasn't clear already)

WHEREAS it has been ten years (!!!), one month and 4 days since Lüc da Schir first posted on Wittenberg, and

WHEREAS it has also been more than a fortnight since Lüc first posted following his re-introduction, and

WHEREAS he has in that time demonstrated an active, genuine, and longstanding interest in Talossan life, culture, and language, and

WHEREAS the above pre-cooked sentence is a massive understatement, and

WHEREAS Lüc has always remained a Talossan in our hearts, and

WHEREAS Italy beat Wales 22-21 in the 2022 Six Nations tournament, and

WHEREAS Lüc has been instrumental in editing the wiki, recreating the oversteir, developing new witt, taking the Senate seriously, leading the country, working across party lines, Talomat, Curantoina, exit polls, why hasn't he been made King doesn't he have a knightood yet, and

WHEREAS it's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you, and

WHEREAS will anyone remember to Mick this petition?, and

WHEREAS Lüc desires to regain his citizenship in the Kingdom of Talossa, now

THEREFORE I, Glüc da Dhi, a citizen in good standing of the Province of Cézembre and of the Kingdom of Talossa, do by these presents petition the Secretary of State @Dr. Txec Róibeard dal Nordselvă, Esq., O.SPM, SMM  to issue a grant of citizenship to Lüc da Schir, as specified by law.


Petition submitted today, the 8th day of April 2022/XLIII.

_{Edit: pls tell me no one saw that...}

Whereas blah blah blah, and

Whereas in a distant future Talossa needs a King Lüc, and

Whereas that requires a mechanism to elect a new King, and

Whereas a plain elected head of state is only a president, and

Whereas some inbetween form is needed that preserves the dignity of the monarchy and allows the people the right to fix broken Kings, and

Whereas it's not clear what will happen to the LCC bill, and

Whereas it's not clear whether the current LCC can be supported in its final bill, and

Whereas it might be good to have a backup alternative, and

Whereas there is a good chance this bill will never be clarked and the KLüP will support the LCC initiative instead, but that sort of depends on where that bill is going, now


Therefore

an amendment to the OrgLaw that  creates a convocation to be called every 7 10 8.0833333 years

OR

whenever we are left without a monarch for some other reason

consisting of
all Justices of the UC;
all provincial heads of government;
all officers of the Royal Civil Service;
all Talossans who have been a citizen for at least ten years

which shall propose a new King according to some formal explicitly defined procedure

also fancy wigs and knee breaches requirements


Uréu q'estadra så:
Glüc da Dhi, MC - KLüP

S;reu Túischac'h,

I have a question for the Right Honourable Ian Plätschisch cornerning the budget for this Cosa.
Why has no budget bill been hoppered yet?

I was disappointed to see Danihel Txechescu not being assigned any seats, despite being on the candidate list. What happened?

Marcel makes a good point in discord.

I therefore nominate Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial as Túischac'h for the 56th Cosa term.

 Azul,

if you are a Cézembrean citizen you are entitled to participate and vote in the upcoming election for Sénéchal and should have just received an email about this. If you are a citizen of Cézembre and did not receive an email, please let me know!

The intent of this message is to inform you about the election, make sure the chancery has the correct email adress and call for candidates for the position to declare themselves.

Election dates.
The nomination phase of the election will start on 15 November (today) 23:59 CET. (UTC +1) and end on 22 November 23:59 CET (UTC+2).
Voting (if there is more than one candidate) will start on 23 November (exact time TBD) and end 30 November.

How to vote.
The election will be conducted using an online automated secret ballot. After the polls open you will receive an email containing further instructions on how to vote. The election will be conducted using a preferential ballot, which means you will be asked to rank the candidates. The outcome will be determined using the IRV method.

Standing for office.
All adult citizens (age 14 and over) of Cézembre are entitled to run in the election as a candidate. To register as a candidate, you can reply to the mail, send me a PM here or publicly announce your candidacy in this thread. This can be done at any time before the end of November 22nd. Candidates who have announced themselves publicly before the start of the nomination phase are considered registered unless otherwise mentioned(but are still advised to confirm their candidacy during the nomination phase).

Candidate representatives.
If you are running as a candidate in this election, you are allowed to appoint any citizen of Talossa to supervise the conduct of the elections. A candidate representative will have to request the Chancery for legal access to the Cézembrean electoral database. Candidate representatives are strictly bound by provincial (A8: The Sénéchal Elections Act) and national (El Lexhatx D 8.5 & 8.6) and are not allowed to communicate with anyone (including their candidate) about the email adresses of Cézembrean citizens or use these for campaign purposes. Neither are candidate representatives allowed to stand as a candidate in the elections.

The office of Sénéchal.
The duties of the Sénéchal include the conduct of votes in l'Etats, the conduct of elections and providing citizens with information about the province. Further information about the legal duties of the Sénéchal can be found in the Cézembrean administrative guide on the Cézembrean subforum on old Witt.

The Sénéchal elections act,
can be found here: talossa.proboards.com/thread/9093/etats-vote-a8

If you have any question or complaint about the elections
you can reply to the email, contact me on Witt or post in this thread.

Yours,
Glüc da Dhi, conducting officer for the April 2020 Sénéchal elections.

Voting is still open on the final, where we rank the top 15. Instructions here: https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=381.msg3686#msg3686 Edit: voting has closed now
I don't think there will be a broadcast so I will just post the results here. Comments/predictions are very welcome.

Also, the results will of course be listed on the wiki as well: http://wiki.talossa.com/Talossan_Music_Top_20

Yeah, AD can be annoying, and an obvious troll sometimes. I wish he said what he meant more often.

You all knew that when you asked him to be a CpI judge.

More recently I've mostly seen government members explode when he voiced concerns about the government or the state of Talossa. Sometimes valid, sometimes less so, but either gets the same reaction.

The wiki edit was somewhat petty, but also rather benign. It's a very weak excuse.

What worries me most is how groupthink in Talossa has become almost as bad, if not worse, than in the pre-reunision RUMP days. Apparently only those who don't criticise the government are allowed to be judges.

Quoting from another thread, because that one became a bit messy.

Quote from: DNVercaria on September 17, 2020, 05:25:45 PM
Maybe nasty arguments could simply be drowned in a multitude of fun topics, for instance by reducing the number of subforums of subforums.  The more every particular whimsy talk has to be taken to its own rarely frequented niche, the longer it takes to find all the pearls of the everyday talk of Talossans, and the more the heart of Wittenberg is just looking like a dry boring desert where nothing interesting is ever happening unless a wild uncontrolable argument is exploding like a shell.

Good point.

I've always sort of assumed that by putting too much stuff in the main forum people, especially new/prospective citizens, would just get lost in all the threads and that dividing up the forum helps direct people to the stuff they find interesting. Of course it's possible to overdo it. For example, I still don't really see the need for a separate armed forces board.

This post made me wonder if that whole idea was wrong though. Maybe if the main board is only used for boring administrative and controversial political stuff rather than special interests and projects people are not confronted with the fun stuff.

I'd be very interested to hear especially what newer and prospective citizens think of this...

Reading through old threads is something that all Talossans should do frequently (although please avoid the many threads where I say stupid things I now regret).

https://talossa.proboards.com/thread/7972/petition-happier-kingdom

To clarify: I'm not endorsing the original post.  I think political attacks are part of a democracy, and are fine, as long as people play the ball and not the person. I just think the thread is a very interesting read, for various reasons.

My etats calculator sheet comes up with the following division of seats:

FreeDems - 4
LCC - 4
Balance - 4
LA CORAZIUN SîNGICîNDS - 2 (presumably these will remain vacant, because I dont think anyone has a claim to this party)
Ian Txaglh - 2
Txosuè Rôibeardescù - 2

Party leaders, please assign/claim your seats
@Miestră Schivă, UrN @Ian Plätschisch @xpb @Ián S.G. Txaglh @Txosuè Éiric Rôibeardescù