A suggestion regarding the Cosă

[Iac Marscheir]

So, it seems to me that Talossan politics is pretty fractured. The two main parties hate each other enough that one of them nearly formed a government with and gave a cabinet position to an antidemocrat.

These two parties won't be able to form a majority without some kind of reconciliation, which neither seems willing to do. Thus, however the deadlock gets resolved, I'd like to propose the following.

Whenever elections are next held, I propose that every currently extant party in Talossa agree to suspend their campaigns for a period of one Cosă term, with every person seeking membership in the Cosă for that term who normally does so under the banner of a currently extant party instead running as individuals, and every such member thereafter voting according to their conscience, rather than their party affiliation.

I am not currently a member of any political party and have nothing to gain from any party's accession to this agreement. I'm just thinking a reset of some sort wouldn't go amiss.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

I don't quite understand the logistics, but I'm open to the idea in general.

[Mximo Malt]

Doesn't seem like a bad idea.

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

Strengthening the role of individuals at the expense of parties in the Cosă is an interesting concept, but I'm not sure what you're proposing would necessarily get us there, simply because the current voting system forces voters to choose from pre-selected slates of candidates, and the fact that parties hand out slices of the Cosă to people of their choosing. What I mean by that is you can very easily end up with some candidate you really like on the same slate as a candidate you detest, with the prefered candidate receiving a much smaller slice of power than the detestable one, making it difficult to commit to that slate.

Individualising the Cosă would require some pretty hefty rewrites of the OrgLaw and election-related Lexhatx that would probably take several general elections and referenda to properly implement. But I am open to it on principle, and I have a bit of research and experimentation of my own into this stuff in the past... it's worth considering at the very least.

[Iac Marscheir]

The idea isn't so much strengthening individuals as it is to get new parties without pre-existing rivalries to join the Cosă, while giving the existing parties a chance to cool off and take a break from each other, if you like. That last bit is covered by excluding current members of existing political parties from forming or joining new parties.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

These two parties won't be able to form a majority without some kind of reconciliation, which neither seems willing to do.

Not true. The URL stands ready to accept any invitation from the Progressive Alliance to renewed negotiations on a confidence/supply deal. We are willing to let "bygones be bygones" re: the recent unpleasant election campaign. However, the recent "Leader's Statement" from the PA seem to indicate that the same does not go for them.

[Iac Marscheir]

Not true. The URL stands ready to [campigning]. We are willing to [campaigning] re: [campaigning]. However, the recent [campaigning] [campaigning] to indicate [campaigning].

Welp, I guess this idea's already dead.

[Mic’haglh Autófil, O.Be]

I think this is an intriguing idea in principle, but I also think Sir Marcel brings up some valid concerns.

Unless the idea is simply "everyone agree to run as 'individual parties' and you get the seats you get", in which case my big concern is: what happens if anyone gets more seats than they can legally hold?


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[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

Unless the idea is simply "everyone agree to run as 'individual parties' and you get the seats you get", in which case my big concern is: what happens if anyone gets more seats than they can legally hold?

Thats why I was saying that we would need to rewrite the OrgLaw if we wanted to vote for people independent of any party affiliation; in the Cosă as it exists right now, MCs function merely as custodians for party power, and not as individuals acting on their own behalf. A greater focus on individuals would require moving away from party-based elections as they currently exist.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

A greater focus on individuals would require moving away from party-based elections as they currently exist.

There's a way to get the best of both worlds, of which I'm a big fan.

Single transferable vote, or ranked-choice voting for multiple vacancies.

You could get a pretty good Real Cosa with 2 constituencies (four provinces each), each electing 6-8 MCs. Any more constituencies would be too high a threshold for small parties - and a single, nation-wide constituency would be a real bitch to count.

Fiova's use of that system keeps our politics (such as they are) non-partisan.

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

A greater focus on individuals would require moving away from party-based elections as they currently exist.

There's a way to get the best of both worlds, of which I'm a big fan.

Single transferable vote, or ranked-choice voting for multiple vacancies.

Oh, I'm aware. I'm personally a fan of approval voting since I think it's easier to explain and tally, and I linked a proportional approval voting calculator that I wrote myself earlier in this thread.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

I just ran the numbers, and I won't bore you, but given a 20-seat STV Cosa: whether you divide Talossa into 1, 2 or 4 constituencies, on the numbers of the previous election, in every case the quota to be elected on the first count would be something like 4-5 first preferences. So of course the single nationwide constituency would give small parties (without a narrow geographic base) the best representation, at the cost of making it near-impossible to count by hand rather than using a website. But, of course, candidates who don't get that would have an excellent chance of making it in if they get lower rankings from successful candidates.

The big problem would be the one revealed in the recent Maricopa Senäts election - most voters don't understand that you need to rank more than one choice to get best value out of your vote. (Eg., if you were a URL party line voter in this system, you'd have to vote every URL candidate 1-6.) One way around this would be an Australian-style system where you'd have to rank a minimum number of candidates for your vote to count, but that would probably just make people grumpier and more confused.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

For those really confused, here are possible ways of dividing Talossa into STV constituencies, given total population numbers.

Two constituencies:

North Talossa: KA+BE+FL+VD = 9 seats
South Talossa + Cézembre: CZ+FI+MA+MM = 11 seats

Four constituencies:

Northwest Talossa: BE+FL = 5 seats
Northeast Talossa: KA+VD = 4 seats
Southwest Talossa: FI+MA = 7 seats
Maritime Talossa: MM+CZ = 4 seats

[Iac Marscheir]

Another way is to just have everyone who would be running individually be on the same pseudo-party slate, with a maximum number of seats per person, totaling to a contextually-appropriate number, and the rest going unfilled. I'll even pay that pseudo-party's fee.

[Sir Lüc]

The big problem would be the one revealed in the recent Maricopa Senäts election - most voters don't understand that you need to rank more than one choice to get best value out of your vote.

As an aside:

I intend to write a post mortem on this election just as I did for the most recent Census, but I can already tell you I was surprised at the voting patterns in Maricopa and wanted to include a few lines about it. It's not that people don't know how to use the Database for ranked voting either; Belacostă and Fiovă both run provincial races with ranked voting and they turned out just fine, for two elections in a row even.

But at the Senatorial level, nada. Increased partisanship, difference in instructions provided, number and affiliation of listed candidates - I don't know why, but out of four multi-candidate Senate races in the two most recent GEs, only two voters ranked both declared candidates, one in CZ and one in MA.

(Aside over, and sorry for momentarily going off-topic.)