Hold up -- I think we're missing the problem with early campaigning, though.

I'm not personally offended by it, but it comes with issues. Such as, in this past election, Henn was under the impression that his nomination was in, when in fact, it wasn't. Likewise, since his thread was opened in the Assembly, it was a matter of making sure it moved to the proper forums, etc.z

This isn't a problem for one thread. This is a problem for 10. We can't expect the EC to be digging through Assembly treads, figuring out which ones to move or whatnot. Moreover, if there's a delay or a missing thread of whatever, it opens up the election to changes of impropriety.

Again -- the problem with early campaigning isn't simply a distaste. It's the holes in the election system it opens up.

I do agree that it's a bit extreme to criminalize early campaigning. But I also agree with Tsu that it caused too much trouble in the last election, and I personally do not want early campaigning to become the norm. I think it ultimately harms early campaigners anyways, as the early campaigners last election got the least attention during the actual election period. Also, I can envision a scenario where a front-runner announces early and starts campaigning, and creates a "chilling effect" on others to get into the race.

Instead of criminalizing it, I would support an Assembly resolution disapproving of the practice. This would help, in my opinion, to create a norm against early campaigning, while not making it illegal and punishable by law.

Quote:Also, I can envision a scenario where a front-runner announces early and starts campaigning, and creates a "chilling effect" on others to get into the race.

We're seeing this occur right now in The North Pacific - McMasterdonia and SillyString have announced their candidacy well early and few candidates for delegate have popped up, it's kind of just accepted McM will win (SillyString has received a bit of early competition).

This suggests that if the candidate is highly competitive (a highly valued candidate), their early candidacy has a chilling effect, because other candidates are scared off.

And if there candidate is less competitive, their early candidacy has a bandwagon effect, because other candidates try to "catch up".

Personally, I'm concerned about a chilling effect (we've had players in the past with the same kind of 'omni-credibility' as McMasterdonia) and I don't really care about a bandwagon effect. I think the fear of a "never-ending campaigning" is overstated and mostly being played up by the American posters here - a bandwagon effect might start campaigning a few weeks early especially if someone's final term is getting quiet/dull, such that it rejuvenates our democratic process, but no one in their right mind would campaign for months at a time.

I suspect Glen-Rhodes is concerned about both the chilling and the bandwagon effect. 

I'm not necessarily against his proposal, but I'm concerned about the authoritarian implications of the Assembly "telling people what to do" through resolution mechanisms. This could be a way for the Assembly to nascently impress a lot of expectations on the individual. During the end of the Hileville era, we saw court justices ruling decisions based on "norms" and several leaders condemn players for breaking "norms" which were essentially non-laws that they still tried to enforce. Oftentimes these were identified as "westminister norms", which is odd because we're not really a westminister parliament, we have no political parties - so applying the norms of party discipline to individuals was more of an authoritarian practice than it was a democratising one. I think these kind of "norms" are anti-democratic and intrude on the rights of individuals in a free, fair and democratic society. 

One of these norms which still exists and is still often socially enforced in The South Pacific is the westminister principle of Cabinet collective responsibility. The purpose of this principle is to strengthen a central mandate and it effectively improves the "ease of governance" for leaders; I would consider it undemocratic and as a principle it undermines transparency, deliberative democracy and the individualism of cabinet ministers.  We're not a westminister government - our ministers are elected officials with their own mandates and therefore should not abide by some kind of overriding collective responsibility - and even then, the principle is just trying to keep members toeing the party line. 

Short campaigning seasons are also a westminister "norm", which is why I am worried here we're returning to an old way of "legislating" through "non-legislating". 

NOTE: I'm using the term, "authoritarian" is the (rather alarmist) academic sense, not the "Francos Spain Rarrh rar rah" / Fascist sense. 

The scariest thing ever just happened. I just read a post from Unibot and found myself nodding my head in agreement.

Oy. I'm not jumping into this high-minded academic drivel since it seems like a convenient way to miss the point.


Making sure there are rules in place to guarantee proper acknowledgement during elections is not again individualism or free speech. And -- regarding either the "chilling effect" or the "bandwagon effect" -- this already happens informally through IRC or other channels.

How about we just add this to the Article 1 of the COL?

Quote:Article 1: Elections


1. Elections for all Cabinet positions shall commence on the fifteenth of every March, July, and November.
2. Elections for Court Justices shall commence on the first of every April, August, and December.
3. Terms for all Cabinet positions shall commence on the first of every April, August, and December, and terms for Justices shall commence on the fifteenth of every April, August, and December.
4. All elections shall consist of a pre-voting period lasting six days and a voting period lasting three days. Citizens shall have to declare their candidacy or accept their nomination within the first three days of the pre-voting period.
5. Runoff elections will begin within twenty-four hours of the initial vote closing and consist of a voting period lasting three days.
6. No one can run for or hold more than one Cabinet position, or more than one Justice position, or both a Cabinet and a Justice position at any given time.
7. Candidates for elections may self-declare or be nominated by another Citizen. Candidates must file a Conflict of Interest Disclosure at the time of their acceptance of a nomination or self-declaration.
8. Nominations may be accepted in absentia, as long as they are sent to the Election Commissioner at most two weeks before the start of the pre-voting period, and include a Conflict of Interest disclosure.
9. Conflict of Interest Disclosures must include current World Assembly Nation, all past and present aliases used, all past and present involvement in other regions and organizations, and all current positions held across NationStates.
10. The Delegate and Vice Delegate will run on a joint ticket and be elected by a majority vote. If no ticket receives a majority vote a runoff election with the two tickets receiving the most votes will occur.
11. Cabinet offices will be voted on separately and be elected by a plurality vote. Court Justices will be voted through a single ballot, with the three candidates who receive the most votes winning seats.
12. In all elections an option to re-open nominations will be included. For non-judicial elections, if this option receives the most votes the nomination period for that office will be restarted.
13. For Court Justice elections, if the option to Re-Open Nominations receives enough votes to be placed within the top four, then the nomination period will be restarted for all seats with lesser votes than this option. The candidates who receive the top votes will win however many seats are left to be filled.
14. In the event that no candidate runs for an available office the newly elected Cabinet will appoint a Citizen to fill the vacancy.
15. Vacancies in office occur when the office holder resigns, is recalled, or no longer holds citizenship. In the event of a vacancy in office a special election will begin within 72 hours of the office becoming vacant, unless the vacancy occurs in the month prior to the start of the term for the position in question; in this case the Cabinet will appoint a Citizen to fill the vacated position for the remainder of the term.
16. Elections will be run by a member of the forum administration staff or their designee. A designated Election Commissioner may be appointed if all members of the administration staff will be candidates in the given election, or if no administer is able to be an Election Commissioner.
17. While candidates may engage in early campaigning, candidates are still expected to adhere to election requirements as stated above; nor is the Election Commissioner to be held accountable for incorporating any pre-election campaigning into official election areas.

Tsu: should be "nor is" rather than "not is".

Beyond that, I'm fine with the above although not sure whether an amendment is really necessary.

And "stated" probably, rather than state.

I also think I'd prefer a specific campaigning period. Perhaps when the nominations begin, campaigns may also begin.

Oh yes, I missed that.

Fixed. Thanks to the copy editors.

I get what you're saying Unibot, but not all norms are legislating without laws. We use norms for a lot of things in TSP, particularly when it comes to expecting leaders to always take the more democratic option, even if it's not required by law. I find early campaigning a troublesome nuisance at best, and a damaging emerging pattern at worst. But I don't want to make it a criminal activity, and I think laws that don't make it criminal or create substantial roadblocks will simply be ineffective if the goal isn't to establish an actual norm against early campaigning.

You're not an EC and probably never will be one, so it's easy to not see the issues here. But the continued discrepancy between standard election practice, actual election law, and people campaigning early causes a lot of problems. There are administrative problems, where we have to decide where early campaigning threads go. That particular problem opens up a political problem, where we encourage a practice that's against the standards (and not considered by electoral law) by opening election forums early, or we appear to be violating the freedom of speech by sticking to standards and operating according to the law by not opening the forums until the election period actually begins. Then there are more substantive problems those discrepancies create, like we saw with people forgetting to follow proper procedure when declaring their candidacy, because they thought campaigning early made it clear they were nominating themselves.

I do not support changing our election laws, mostly because the only obvious change -- expanding the election period -- will only shift early campaigning to an earlier date. Other changes will be ineffectual or actually anti-democratic. The only long-term solution is for TSP itself to decide that early campaigning is something we just don't do, and that in other words is just called creating a norm.