Here’s an amendment to the Legislator Committee Act. It feels simple enough that I’m probably missing something, but here goes:
I guess we could technically have a series of votes spaced a minute apart or something, but I don’t know how we’d reach that point and not call it bad faith 
And yeah, I think this would also apply to competing votes as well, but I don’t think I really mind that.
So, what does this actually change?
Under this amendment, the six votes (CN2305) we just had would be counted as one “voting period.” You would need to vote in half of the month’s voting periods, rather than individual votes, to be compliant.
Ah, seems reasonable
I read the text slightly differently. As I understand it, the six votes we just took constituted two voting periods, one for EmC’s appointment as OWL Director and one for all other Cabinet ministers.
Here’s why I say that. Though the Legislative Procedure Act doesn’t expressly define the term “voting period,” it does use that term in a way that suggests a temporal definition. In other words, a “voting period” is the time during which a particular question is at vote. On the other hand, it doesn’t seem to have a subject-matter based definition, e.g., “all measures related to X issue.” So since EmC’s appointment was moved and put to vote one day later than the other Cabinet appointments, I understand that to constitute a separate “voting period,” despite the fact that it was on the same subject as the other appointments. But perhaps I am misreading / missing something. Thoughts?
In order to count as having voted in a voting period, do you need to participate in all votes under the period, or just one?
From my personal point of view, I believe that if one was to cast their vote in only one vote out of multiple. That should still suffice as them having participated within that voting period.
That’s also a fair interpretation. @Pronoun I think we found what you were overlooking.
If you vote in one of the multiple votes that take place in the same period, I’d think you could do them all.
The requirement should probably be voting in a majority of the votes held within the same period. If you do, then you are counted as having voted in that one period. If not, you don’t get credit for voting during that period.
By that same token, shifting the voting threshold to how many voting sessions you vote in rather than the total number of votes you cast would make more sense.
The ‘voting period’ terminology was intentional — that term is used in 1(2)d. of the Legislative Procedure Act as well. I think the idea that the voting period is the period of time during which something is at vote is pretty self-explanatory?
Isn’t this what the amendment currently would do?
Yes!
My response was mostly directed toward this, but then I lost myself in my own typing 
If I remember correctly we used to originally use a definition similar to this, before going to votes to simplify things as we couldn’t come to a consistent definition of a voting period. The example that Welly gives of the confirmation vote on EmC was the kind of thing which caused difficulty.
We could always clarify the definition of a voting period
Linking with the Legislative Procedure Act makes sense to me, which is what I assumed you were trying to do in using that specific term. But just to clarify how you understand it–if this amendment had become law prior to the recent Cabinet appointment votes, how many “voting periods” would have occurred, one (for all ministers) or two (one for EmC’s appointment and one for all other ministers)?
In the abstract, I think this makes the most sense. But it would require more tinkering with the Legislative Procedure Act, perhaps including a definitions section.
I also might try to fold this proposal into an updated voter registration draft, which I hope to complete tonight.
Two. I’m curious — how are y’all reading it as one? To me, if two votes start and end at different times, then they are, by definition, at vote for distinct periods of time… am I missing something here?
It’s because of how close together they were, and how the OWL voting period was very similar in subject to the Cabinet voting period
I can’t help but wonder if this amendment would be fundamentally necessary. Legal requirements to maintain legislatorship aside, we already have a mechanism described in law to handle potentially unreasonable situations that might arise, especially if they fall into violating the spirit of the law, if not the letter too. We saw that happen just now, with the Legislator Committee not removing legislator status solely for failing to vote. Our efforts should be directed towards the discussion on voter/legislator reform.
Plus, they were grouped together in the same voting thread and given the same overall designation (CN2305). I agree with your reading @Pronoun, but I can also see the logic behind Cryo’s reading. If one were to focus on the structure of the actual vote in the Assembly, it looks like all of the Cabinet nominations were considered in one voting period.
Fair enough. I gather that HS’s point (on behalf of the Legislator Committee) in the SoA thread was that this situation would come up regularly now given the appointed Cabinet system, hence a long-term solution was needed. But I am all for focusing on voter reform.
It wasn’t explicitly stated, but I think Cryo would likely issue a warning vice recommendation for removal now, given this comment. I think warnings would be a reasonable policy moving forward in the interim, vice constitutional amendments.