Heeyyyy... so yeah... I might have made a typo.  Anyway, it's fixed, but for a week and a half, nothing was going through.  I would have caught it earlier, but I've been away from my desktop.  It's fixed, and I just confirmed applications are going through as normal on both accounts, though.

I feel confident enough that I will now be giving the login info to His Majesty, and from that point on, no one in the Government will have access to it.  It will be a secure backup.

My country pioneered MMP in 1949, ask me anything as well.

As much as I think the system has served Germany well, it is a bit difficult to understand at times, especially with regards to overhang seats and independents.

For instance, in the German way, independents who win a local seat do not constitute an overhang, and instead reduces the total number of seats taken in account for top-up purposes by one, i.e. if an independent wins their district in a 20-seat Cosă, the total number of seats stays at 20. However, because independents don't affect the party-based distribution of the remaining seats, people who voted for a winning independent have their party vote ignored, lest they have double the influence on the result as other voters. This step is necessary because otherwise, local candidates could all choose to run as independents while the party vote stays unaffected, transforming Mixed-Member Proportional into Mixed-Member Majoritarian à la Japan.

My country has used Mixed Member Proportional for more than 30 years and I think it works pretty well, ask me anything.

The simplest way to work it in Talossa would be to have one Cosa seat elected by each Province (8 seats) then the other 12 seats "topping up" to proportionality. So: say a party wins 2 provinces, but 40% of the vote. 40% of the vote entitles you to 8 seats. So: they also get 6 seats from the top of their party list.

There is a quirk called "overhang" which happens if a party gets *more* local seats than their party vote would justify - for example, if an Independent who didn't have a party won a province. Then that local seat is ignored when the party seats are handed out; which means there end up being "extra" party seats, in our case, more than 20. Not a big problem IMHO.

The only real issue I see here is that if you want to keep the Senäts as is, then you have each province electing an MC *and* a Senator, which seems otiose and redundant. The clear compromise here is: elect the Senäts differently. The best alternative I've hard so far is Lüc's suggestion of electing 4 Senators from the whole Kingdom at large every term.

If possible, I'd like to open up some discussion on Ziu reform.  This has been a topic of perennial interest to many, and I think it might be smart to have a good-faith discussion about some possibilities that might be useful for us.  We just recently switched to a 20-seat Cosa instead of a 200-seat Cosa, but that doesn't fundamentally change that much.

A few things from my perspective, to begin:

• We should probably err on the side of preserving things like the Senats, as an important institution that has often been important to slowing down the pace of very significant legislation (without ever actually becoming an undemocratic block on it forever) and as a provincial representative.  So at least for me, I wouldn't want to make changes that would just be an obvious set-up to eliminating the Senats. 
• There are numerous good things we should try to achieve: proportionality, direct accountability, low barriers to entry, simplicity, intuitiveness, and ease of implementation.  Not all of these are equally important, but we should be honest about trade-offs.
• While we're a highly educated people, with 71% of our citizens holding some form of college degree, we have a majority of American-Talossans, and so most of our electorate is going to be familiar with our current system and then their own American one.  In recent elections, many people failed to use RCV even when directly and repeatedly instructed to do so.  Simplicity is going to be key!

Some people have been talking about Mixed-Member Proportional systems.  As best I understand it, this entails people voting for a candidate for their area and also for a party.  Each candidate wins based on the local vote, and then a big chunk of seats are divided up according to the national party vote.  Sometimes it's always the same number of seats, and sometimes it's a fluid number that varies depending on how many additional seats are needed to make the results very proportional.  There's also a version where the plurality party gets a "majority bonus" of extra seats.

So what are some ideas people might have about this system, or a different system that might work better?

S:r Secretary,

I'd also like to Clark the following: Sense of the Ziu: In Support of Decoloniality

Quote from: Mximo Malt on April 23, 2026, 12:08:11 PM

Quote from: Breneir Tzaracomprada on April 23, 2026, 11:30:28 AM

Quote from: Mximo Malt on April 05, 2026, 01:20:49 PMShould we make Potawatomi and Amazigh secondary official languages? It'd be very impactful.


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@Mximo Malt We had discussed changing this to a statute change rather than nonbinding resolution to make them secondary official languages. What do you think about doing it as a standalone bipartisan bill?

I favour it!


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Splendid, I will work on a draft for the standalone bill and contact you in Discord.

Quote from: Breneir Tzaracomprada on April 23, 2026, 11:30:28 AM

Quote from: Mximo Malt on April 05, 2026, 01:20:49 PMShould we make Potawatomi and Amazigh secondary official languages? It'd be very impactful.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

@Mximo Malt We had discussed changing this to a statute change rather than nonbinding resolution to make them secondary official languages. What do you think about doing it as a standalone bipartisan bill?

I favour it!


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S:r Secretary,

I am Clarking the following: The Sentient Rights Act

Quote from: Mximo Malt on April 05, 2026, 01:20:49 PMShould we make Potawatomi and Amazigh secondary official languages? It'd be very impactful.


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@Mximo Malt We had discussed changing this to a statute change rather than nonbinding resolution to make them secondary official languages. What do you think about doing it as a standalone bipartisan bill?

The call for bills for the May 2026 Clark (the fourth of the 62nd Cosă) is now open. You may post a link to a bill's Hopper thread underneath in the usual fashion, provided it has passed the Hopper according to Lex.H.2 and you are entitled to Clark bills.

ATTENTION: unfortunately we have yet another Clark beginning on a Day With Plans (New Year's Day, then two Sundays, and now May Day). This time around, my plans will prevent me from being able to make the Clark in the European morning of May 1st as I usually do, so I will have to receive all bills by the European evening of April 30th and assemble everything then.

Therefore, I will accept for Clarking any such bills (except for any that fall foul of H.2.7) that are presented between now and April 30th 11:59 AM TDT, or 12 hours earlier than usual.