[DISCUSSION/PROPOSAL] The Undervoting Question Amendment

[Mic’haglh Autófil, O.Be]

Reposting the Right Honourable Consul's thoughts on the matter here for expediency:

What Sir Glüc is pointing out is exactly what I meant with my comment on the proposal thread - after poring over provincial statutes while I was building the database, I noticed our constitution exactly mandates three preferences rather than "up to" three.

Sadly my comment was very rushed and unspecific and I also completely forgot to follow up on the changes you made. I am not entirely sure how to proceed except that:

- The points based voting system clearly would hinder other candidates if one could only give three points to their top choice - many editions of TMT20 are a helpful reminder - and so if the system is to stay, casting exactly three choices would be fairest;

- Conversely, strict rules lead to potential disenfranchisment. The database could help ensuring voters do rank three choices via software checks and hint texts, ALTHOUGH in the last election it did allow leaving choices blank; voting publicly on Witt could be a more serious disenfranchisment risk should someone undervote due to missing or misunderstanding the rules for the provincial vote.

I vaguely think the first concern is most important because undervoting would unfairly distort our current voting system. On the other hand, I'm not sure if our elections are going to be so hotly contested that we're going to fight over every ballot and throw out all undervotes. In my mind, we can:

- Allow undervotes but lower the points given to each vote, so your lead choice can only get three points if you fill out your ballot (something like: 1 choice = 1 point; 2 choices, 2 and 1; three choices, 3 and 2 and 1);

- Allow undervotes but switch to a different voting system altogether;

- Not allow undervotes: proclaim the BUS and immediately amend E.2, potentially switching it to instead allowing for curing undervotes in a certain time limit.

For my part, I would argue that a system that allows undervotes but treats the first (and if necessary, second) choice as vacant is preferable; it balances a desire to avoid disenfranchising Belacostan citizens with concerns about how a "top-choice first" method of counting undervotes could distort electoral results. It could look a little something like this:

Prefatory text goes here

BE IT RESOLVED by the Best Provincial Assembly In The Land etc. that Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution of Belacosta, which currently reads as

The Provincial Council will be elected from among the citizens of the Province at each Cosă election, via a positional vote. Voters will name their first-, second-, and third-choice candidates. For each first-choice vote, the candidate shall receive three points; for each second-choice vote, two points; and for each third-place vote, one point. The three candidates with the highest point totals shall be elected to the Provincial Council, with any ties being broken by the number of first-choice votes received (and if necessary, the number of second- and then third-choice votes, with a coin flip being used past this if necessary). Provincial Consuls may choose to ceremonially represent any canton or sexteir of the Province, or to represent the Province at-large.

is hereby amended to read:

The Provincial Council will be elected from among the citizens of the Province at each Cosă election, via a positional vote. Voters may name up to three candidates, in order of their preference. For each first-choice vote, the candidate shall receive three points; for each second-choice vote, two points; and for each third-place vote, one point. The three candidates with the highest point totals shall be elected to the Provincial Council, with any ties being broken by the number of first-choice votes received (and if necessary, the number of second- and then third-choice votes, with a coin flip being used past this if necessary). Provincial Consuls may choose to ceremonially represent any canton or sexteir of the Province, or to represent the Province at-large.

There could probably be some way to better tinker with BUS.E.2 just to make sure it's doing what we want it to in a constitutional fashion, but I have a few things I've thought of since we moved the BUS to a vote that could probably be incorporated into an omni...bus...