Ziu Reform Possibilities

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

It's simple, but still leaves party leaders in total control of who gets to be on the list, doesn't address any of Françal's concerns as to why you'd want a candidate-based voting system to begin with (link), and still leaves open the possibility of one person controlling the Cosă singlehandedly thanks to the abolition of seat limits. I'm also not a fan of returning to the 200-seat Cosă, nor do I think that new citizen seats would would "fix" the problem of in-term replacements in any way regardless of Cosă size.

Hmm.  Yeah, valid concerns.

I do think that you're going to probably have to leave party leaders in control of submitting a list, subject to their internal processes, since I don't know how else you'd do it.  But I don't think you'd have the possibility of one person controlling things, since there could be a minimum length for party lists.  But maybe still a seat limit, but just raised significantly higher for the formula?

Do you not like the new citizen seats?  They've been very popular.

EDIT: Instituting a minimum length for party lists would also bar independent candidates. Do we want that?

No, you're right.  Hm.  That's a tough nut to crack.

EDIT 2: By the way, what's your verdict on SPAV?

I'll take a look.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

So with this SPAV, would each candidate get a fifty word statement?  Like how are people supposed to know who to vote for?

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

But I don't think you'd have the possibility of one person controlling things, since there could be a minimum length for party lists.  But maybe still a seat limit, but just raised significantly higher for the formula?

Imagine the minimum length was two. Now imagine a party with two candidates winning a landslide victory, and each candidate would get half the seats of that party. What would happen if one of the two candidates would immediately resign from the Cosă, or refuse to accept the seats to begin with? From what I can tell, without seat limits, all of the party seats would now go to the other candidate, who now controls the Cosă majority by themself.

What I'm saying is that I'd like some assurance that no single candidate could ever end up with a Cosă majority on their own.

Do you not like the new citizen seats?  They've been very popular.

I'm saying that new citizen seats cannot be a means to replace and replenish Cosă members. In the current implementation, NCs only have one seat each out of 200, meaning they are always politically irrelevant and cannot replace elected Cosă members who usually have 5 to 15 times as many seats assigned on average. At the same time though, if we were to increase the number of seats held by NCs, they would introduce overly large partisan swings and create majorities contrary to the election results, which is a complete no-go.

So with this SPAV, would each candidate get a fifty word statement?  Like how are people supposed to know who to vote for?

If they want to run as independents, they could get thir own 50 world statement. Otherwise, candidates could band together and have a joint 50 word statement, or run under a certain party name or ideological affiliation to help with voter orientation. The point though is that the way ballots are tallied is unaffected by how candidates wish to portray themselves, the math is the same.

As an example: if all candidates run under certain party labels, and all voters choose candidates based only on those party labels, the result would be the same as if there had been strict party lists. SPAV is a more generalised version of party lists, and allows people to freely vote across the aisle if they so choose, without any spoiler effects or loss of proportionality.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Imagine the minimum length was two. Now imagine a party with two candidates winning a landslide victory, and each candidate would get half the seats of that party. What would happen if one of the two candidates would immediately resign from the Cosă, or refuse to accept the seats to begin with? From what I can tell, without seat limits, all of the party seats would now go to the other candidate, who now controls the Cosă majority by themself.

What I'm saying is that I'd like some assurance that no single candidate could ever end up with a Cosă majority on their own.

That makes sense.  Maybe we still need seat limits, just higher ones?  Tweak the formula instead.

I'm saying that new citizen seats cannot be a means to replace and replenish Cosă members. In the current implementation, NCs only have one seat each out of 200, meaning they are always politically irrelevant and cannot replace elected Cosă members who usually have 5 to 15 times as many seats assigned on average. At the same time though, if we were to increase the number of seats held by NCs, they would introduce overly large partisan swings and create majorities contrary to the election results, which is a complete no-go.

No, sorry, those two aren't mean to go together.  The new citizen seats are just a way for new citizens to represent their "own" vote in the Cosa and get involved for fun, and they wouldn't be an effective method of replacing lost legislators (plus that would defeat the goal of ensuring everyone in the Cosa was elected to it).

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

The amount of copy-pasted invalid votes cast last election is genuinely concerning.

I'm less worried by the fact that there were a whole bunch of amount of copy-pasted invalid votes cast last election, than that most of those votes were for one particular party, the leader of which is doing his best to argue against reforms of that system. Those with very long memories might remember critics of a system where "I vote for whoever Ben says" was a valid vote, and King Robert I yelling at them as wanting to disenfranchise less-active or less-informed citizens. Or where the RUMP fought against the secret ballot for a very long time, and they were right (from a partisan viewpoint) to do so, because they lost their permanent absolute majority in the very first secret election.

I don't believe that AD is only raising quibbles about reforms to defend his partisan advantage out of a system where people vote for a "blank cheque" for a logo. But if the Point is: "The current system makes the Cosa unaccountable to voters" and the Counterpoint is: "yeah, but it benefits my party", I beg the Baron to realize how his opponents might react to that. It is a simple psephological fact that conservative parties benefit from low-cognitive-effort, leader-focused systems.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

I do think that you're going to probably have to leave party leaders in control of submitting a list, subject to their internal processes

In my country - and I believe others with closed lists - there is a law saying that a party's internal processes for creating lists have to be democratic and that party members have standing to sue if their leadership is drawing up lists arbitrarily. I would support that in Talossa.