OFFICIAL POLL: Domestic Minister Issue

[notyoueither]

I think that the problem will largely disappear once the Senate is able to approve a bill to grant the court approval to examine voter lists in these cases.

Also, how many more times will a tie be followed by Poly being down when the court has arranged to meet?

Conclusion: This was a freak occurrence followed by a freak occurrence, complicated by the Senate not really existing yet (combined with a tie in the first election for a super-freak occurrence). However, if people feel they need to go through an amendment process to account for another set of such events, feel free.

[Aggie]

I am wondering can ya'lls till do the recount to establish procedure and to see if it would help. I am curious if such a vote verification could help.
Aggie

[notyoueither]

The plan was to strike any non citizen votes and see if the new total gave a result.

If not, then the court would most likely have cast votes to decide it. So in future it should take no longer than a day or 2 to resolve a tie in a two way race.

We would be open to suggestions as to how we should do it in a better way, I think.

[Arnelos]

notyoueither,

My problem isn't so much that the Court was faced with a freak occurance and that the issue took so long to resolve.

My problem is that I believe THE COURT is entirely the wrong institution to be breaking the tie. Given the Court an automatic ability to examine the vote to determine if there really was a tie is something I'm comfortable with. But what happens if the Court finds no irregularites and that all voters (as I belive was quite likely in this case) were indeed members of the democracy game? I'm NOT COMFORTABLE with the Court deciding to break the tie in that situation or coming up with, on their own, the method for doing so. I'd be comfortable with the other elected members of the cabinet deciding or some other executive/legislative body making the call. I just don't think it's appropriate for the Judicial branch to be breaking ties in a vote... that entirely perverts the Court's proper role.

[Togas]

I have a few "tie breaker" ideas, but the idea that I think is best is this:

There are four elected offices. If there is a tie with only 2 parties, the court has 48 hours to review the votes (remove the necessity for the Senate to approve this).

If there are no voter irregularities, or after the irregular votes are removed it is still a tie, the Ministers-elect (Whomever of the Pres, SMC, FAM, and DM isn't tied) vote to resolve the tie. There would be three of them voting so no further tie.

In the bizzare chance that there are TWO tied elections and a voter check doesn't resolve the tie, the two ministers-elect AND a member of The Court (whomever is next up to preside over an issue) vote to break both ties.

In the uberbizzare event of THREE ties, well, there's only one actually elected Minister and the lucky guy would break all the ties.

Should all four elections be tied it is a sign of the Apocalypse. We should quit playing immediately and start saying our prayers.

--Togas

[notyoueither]

Could do that. Except, didn't we plonk the tie breaker on the court to avoid politics from entering the equation? The lesser of two evils, or something like that...

I would be happy with leaving as it is, or changing it as Togas has outlined.

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Could do that. Except, didn't we plonk the tie breaker on the court to avoid politics from entering the equation? The lesser of two evils, or something like that...

And there is the source of the problem... Giving a political decision (the final vote in a close election) to the Court doesn't avoid politics, it politicizes the Court.

If it's really a tied election, then by definition the electorate is split on the issue. If Justices of the Court are casting the final vote and thus everyone knows how the Court voted, you don't think that MIGHT overly politicize Court appointments in the future? Which, I believe, would actually be politicizing it MORE rather than less...

The Court is supposed to be impartial and non-political - it's critical to having everyone respect their decisions. Giving them political decision-making powers entirely perverts that purpose and greatly erodes the credibility of the Court's "impartiality".

[notyoueither]

I do not disagree with you Arnelos.

However, would you prefer 3 people belonging to parties deciding a race involving party candidates?

It is a dilemma.

Aside from that, the court is allowed to decide such a contest 'in any manner of their choosing'. The decision could be made by a flip of a coin, or a Rock, Paper, Scissors contest. The fact that I mentioned the court voting on it should not be seen as conclusive. It did not get that far and the court never decided definitely to vote on it.

We will be meeting soon. The debate going on now is very productive. Hopefully, some of the issues will be better defined by this discussion.

[DAVOUT]

May I suggest a quite stupid but not political way to break the tie ?

Since there is no totally satisfying rationnal for the elected ministers to decide (in the Togas solution), why not choose an objective criteria such as : seniority in the game, seniority in office, date of candidacy, etc, after all checks have been made?

[notyoueither]

Earliest statement of candidacy? Could be good. It's as good as any other, and it is not open to interpretation (much).

[adaMada]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Earliest statement of candidacy? Could be good. It's as good as any other, and it is not open to interpretation (much).

Need to read the rest of these statements later, but what about cases like me and Arnelos? His post hit the forums first, but we posted in the same minute (same timestamp). Obviously, that could just be considered my "bad luck" -- but it's not as clear cut as it could be.

Will read the other ideas here and respond later.

-- adaMada

[E_T]

I like what Togas has outlined for future tie breaking. Mostly the fact that the ministers-elect will be the ones who will have to work with the person, they should be the ones to break the tie.

E_T

[UnOrthOdOx]

PAPER ROCK SCISSORS!!!

Fair, unbias, fast, and it works.

Both candidates PM the entire court their choice, the Court posts who won. Simple.


And can someone show me where in the NewCon it states that only members can vote in an election? Even if we remove the neccessity of a poll asking permission, how long would it take to get those results from a gOd?

[jdjdjd]

Aggie, I think you should post the thread as you mentioned - PreAmendment Discussion. Since its of national importance I leave it to you, if you want I will gladly do it.

To all,

I go back to DAVOUT's suggestion and elaborate...

1. First tie breaker is Date Registered as listed in the user profile. The most senior member of the website is the winner.

2. As a back up in the strange event both joined the website the same day, then its number of posts/day. Thats listed in parentheses next to the Total Posts in the profile.

These tiebreakers are unbiased and uncontested, and can be viewed and the tie decided in seconds instead of days. And this can apply to all ties, two-way, three-way, and so on.

One last statement -

This molehill has been made into a mountain. When the Court was created, it was to decide disputes, mostly centering on validity of polls or interpretation of the CoL- not to decide what we can or can not say in a post (I had to sneak that one in there) or who is to win an election in the case of a tie.

I'm not blaming the Court for events that have transpired, they did what they felt was necessary. I also know that it is not easy for five people (or even three) to get together and resolve this kind of an issue quickly. I think all of us must take a step back sometimes and look at the whole forest, and not just our own little tree. This is after all a Game, and is supposed to be fun.

People should not be quitting over these kinds of things and these kinds of things should not get so blown out of proportion.

Enough lecture...

DAVOUT's plan I elaborated on above is simple, uncontested, unpolitical, unbiased, and fast. I say we move forward with this Amendment at once. Again, Aggie I await your lead, but will move forward if you so wish.

[Randolph]

Two civs, elimination, tiny map, accelerated production, simultaneous mode