Quote from: Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP on Today at 05:43:09 PMSeat limits are currently determined by turnout, so an election with fewer active citizens will already result in a higher seat limit, which sounds like exactly what we would want here.

Right, except that my party has a significant issue with this, and so will any other fast-growing party, and this proposal would make it much worse.

Under this proposal, a ton of Progressive seats would be deemed abandoned.  We had eight individuals on our list, and three had been elected to the Senats, leaving five.  Since two are incommunicado (one for reasons of health), that means that we'd hit our maximum seats immediately with sixty assigned seats, and then twenty-seven (!) would be abandoned.  Now, as we have continued to gain new people as we've gotten our feet under us, we may not have this problem in the future.  But any other fast-growing party might still be penalized -- and heck, if we achieved a majority in the next election, we'd still be in a situation where we couldn't afford anyone getting sick.

So any solution here needs to avoid making the problem worse.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on Today at 05:34:35 PMBut I think we might need to figure out some other solution here, because I feel like my concerns are valid too!

Seat limits are currently determined by turnout, so an election with fewer active citizens will already result in a higher seat limit, which sounds like exactly what we would want here.

I'll be honest, I think the current system of seat limits (made slightly more generous thanks to reducing the Cosă to 20 seats) and off-listers (made slightly less generous thanks to the same Cosă reduction) already gives way too much leeway to party leaders... in fact, this might be the first time in a long while, if not ever, that a party ran into problems satisfactorily filling their seats. Can someone fact-check me on that?

I agree that it would be undesirable to have someone assigning themselves all the seats. On the one hand, at least voters would know about that going into the election, but it's still a problem and not a situation we want.

But I think we might need to figure out some other solution here, because I feel like my concerns are valid too!

Maybe there's a way we could require a certain number of people stand for election for a party in order for it to be on the ballot?

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on Today at 05:17:44 PMMaybe I am misunderstanding something?

Well, it's simple: there is nothing stopping you from only having one person on the party list (in fact, not submitting any party list results in a one-person de facto list by default), who would then get all the seats for that party. We could end up with one person controlling a majority of the seats, and thus concentrating all the power of the Cosă into one person. I don't think we should want this.

All that the OrgLaw needs to say about seat allocation is that a party's seats go (as far as possible) to candidates named by that party at the election, in order of preference either named by the party or chosen by the voters. The actual mechanics should be in statute law for ease of tweaking.

This requires seat limits to make sure there is a party list. Otherwise you just get cxhn. Onemanband winning 51% of the vote and personally becoming half the Cosa. There seems to be an argument here that that would be perfectly fine if the Onemanband voters knew that's what they were getting. Again, I find the inequality between MCs repugnant, and I can handle a senior party member perhaps having 2x the seats of a junior member, but not 22x as is the current case.

I don't understand how this would be deceptive. Every single person who got seats would be one of the people named on the party list, which seems like it would be an improvement. Also, I will point out that if we don't do that, we're going to be doing exactly what I feared... in fact, we would be making the current situation even worse! Currently, party leaders are at least able to assign some seats off list. But under this proposal, that wouldn't be possible at all, right? Seats would be distributed among people on the list, and if they are holding a maximum number of seats, then that's it. The seats will be lost, presumably. That is significantly worse than the current system.

Maybe I am misunderstanding something?

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on Today at 05:03:15 PMMaybe in that case, we can also get rid of seat limits.

I find it disgraceful to try and trade one way of systemically deceiving voters for another, as it were. By which I mean, seat limits, same as party lists (EDIT: as long as apportionment depends on parties), ought to be non-negotiable.

Quote from: Françal I. Lux on Today at 04:26:48 PMAs long as the voters can choose who they want as their representatives regardless of party affiliation, I would be ok with an open list voting system as a compromise.

I still think the easiest way of implementing this, without any weird edge cases from trying to marry candidate votes and party votes, would be to implement a system in which party affiliation is listed on the ballot but irrelevant to the apportionment method.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC on Today at 04:52:32 PMThe rule (in statute) would be: the party list. The party puts its senior members at the top, in the case of a closed list; in the case of an "open list", the list ranking is determined by votes for individual candidates. Everyone on the list that is eligible going down gets one seat; when you run out, you go back to the top. The idea that one MC can have *multiple* times as many votes as another is something I dislike.

The issue with putting that in statute is that then you can just change the statute very easily.  So we just have to be careful, I think.  But this does make sense.  Maybe in that case, we can also get rid of seat limits.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC on Today at 04:52:32 PMWith respect, that's not an answer to my question. If this amendment were to pass, would you agree that the party list system as I have describe it would be organic and binding?

I'm not trying to be cagey -- I will pay especial attention to make sure that the language in a bill would include making sure the whole thing is Organic.  I did with the first version of the party list bill, long ago!  I just don't feel comfortable saying that for sure until we get a full bill together.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC on Yesterday at 05:20:14 PMORGANIC LAW REFORM AMENDMENT THREE: EXPULSIONS


I think we need to fix the language here so that we're not implying that this was a trial, which might trigger other protections.  But I support the basic idea here.


It's a copy-paste of the equivalent provision for the Senäts.

I believe you, but I also suspect that it could be a problem, and we should fix it.  Probably in the Senats version, too.

Quote from: Françal I. Lux on Today at 04:26:48 PMAs long as the voters can choose who they want as their representatives regardless of party affiliation, I would be ok with an open list voting system as a compromise.

There are several open list systems, but some only allow you to choose candidates from your preferred party list. I suppose you could have a system where you have a "party vote" and a "candidate vote", and your candidate vote could go to someone outside your preferred party; but that might have weird effects, like, URL voters making a concerted effort to push a Prog candidate whom they liked to the top of the Prog list, over the wishes of Prog voters. Would that be okay?