Also, with regards to this clause, detailing that Legislators meet for two ‘sessions’ within the term of a Chair. Can legislation and other assembly business only take place within the three month period? Or is legislation and other assembly affairs able to take place at any point, either within a session or outwith one.
Thanks!
The Assembly is, strictly speaking, always in session. The Chair is elected for 6 months, and their term is split into two 3 month sessions. There’s never a time when the Assembly is out of session.
I motion this to vote. The discussion seems to have, for the most part, ended.
I see, so normal parliamentary business can still be conducted.
Thankyou for clearing this up! 
Can I go against?
If I can, I wish to go against this.
That’s what voting is for, if you’re an eligible participant.
There have been plenty of other proposals where the discussions could be described as having “ended” and I’m disappointed by the decision to move this to a vote rather than addressing concerns from that discussion that haven’t been addressed.
Perhaps those of us who feel ready to support this proposal could help clarify to me why they don’t share some of the same concerns I do. In particular:
I have to agree verbatim with what Pronoun posted above. Especially with their concerns regarding the moderation team, the Dean, and RON.
My biggest concern is regarding RON and how we, if this omnibus bill is implemented, are requiring voters to vote in an election to keep their status. In many cases there are going to be times where voters do not like the standing candidates and would prefer to put down RON on their ballot. Are we forcing people to vote for someone?
I also think the Dean is not the greatest of ideas presented in this bill. In description of the Dean, Pronoun wrote that it was a “unaccountable, unelected, and life-tenured position.” Why can’t the Election Commissioner run elections for the Chair?
“Elder figure” aside, asking the Assembly to handle its business internally is not that big of a stretch, I think. There was an idea to get rid of the idea of legislators all together (see here), but I don’t have the energy to write that out at the moment.
As for performing the duties of the Chair, I don’t really care who does it in the absence of a duly-elected Chair. You could define it as any willing legislator and I’ll be happy with it.
If I were to put RON down as an option, is my vote still valid (and is my voter status going to be removed) just because I didn’t list any of the candidates? I would think so. There’s nothing stating that valid votes are only those which use the options provided by the election commissioner. Not including a clause about keeping RON around isn’t a dealbreaker for me, but I would still rather not have to define everything now.
Legislator status is lost because it’s intrinsically tied to voter status, through the security check process. I’m not sure where you’re pulling “invalid vote leads to status removal”, but any voter can appeal decisions made by the election commissioner to the High Court if not otherwise resolved between them and the commissioner.
Applying to be a voter over, and over, and over, and over again, and failing to vote in the elections we have, does not inspire confidence in me that that particular individual cares to participate in our democracy. It’s not a hard requirement that repeated removals means that they can no longer be a voter, and that’s where the Security Council and/or LegComm-replacement can work with them to determine motive and intent of actually wanting to be a voter here.
I’m not inherently opposed to this, but an unaccountable, unelected, life-tenured position is a stretch for me. I mean, the Election Commissioner is an official chosen for voters to preside over their elections. Would you favor having the longest-serving voter preside over those elections?
I personally feel that questions like what candidates should appear on our ballots are very much worth answering now. If we want to require voting in elections for continued voter (and legislator) status, I think it’s worth the effort now to figure out how we want those elections to look, and not define them so broadly that copy-pasting the same ballot in every election, or automating the process entirely, would be sufficient for satisfying that activity requirement.
The currently proposed Voting Act specifies that voters should be removed if they “failed to cast a vote in the most recent election.” I would imagine that if someone casts an invalid ballot such that their vote was not counted, then they would have failed to cast a vote.
I’ve agreed with this line of reasoning before, but I’m still not sure why “repeated removals due to inactivity” needs to be specifically singled out. I would think that its potential relevance would be apparent for precisely the reasons you’ve just laid out and would therefore be taken into consideration anyway.
My bad — that’s a fair point. This is what I intended to say 
(emphasis mine):
I wouldn’t mind that system either. Nonetheless, some additional language clarifying that the Dean’s role is primarily ceremonial (with an administrative role as well) has been included in the draft. The Assembly is collectively responsible for resolving matters of judgement.
What do you want to define an invalid (or valid) ballot as?
Language has been added.
The timing of changes to the proposal after a motion to vote is a little awkward, but regardless —
I’m still somewhat averse to the creation of new roles in our government, given that I agree with many other areas of this proposal where those roles are being cut down and streamlined. If we want the Assembly to handle its business internally, why can’t it handle the business of deciding how to carry out these ceremonial and administrative functions internally?
Well, for starters, I think we should define what the ballot should look like — for instance, it should list all candidates who declared their candidacy within the declarations period, plus the option to vote for a Re-Open Nominations ‘candidate’ that, if victorious, leads to a repeat of that election process.
In order for a ballot (in an instant-runoff vote) to be valid, it might need to, for example, avoid assigning the same rank to multiple candidates or avoid listing a candidate multiple times. I know that the Election Commissioner can use their reasonable judgment and that decisions can be appealed to the High Court, but that only goes so far if we make a point out of keeping our legislative provisions minimal and vague so as to force the Election Commissioner to make their own guidelines and to leave the High Court with few provisions of law to meaningfully interpret.
With that said, I’m not sure if the activity requirement needs to be specifically linked to valid or invalid ballots. I’m personally not that bothered if someone accidentally ranks a candidate twice in a particular election, but I’m sure that repeatedly casting invalid ballots could reasonably be considered bad-faith participation and lead to the removal of voter status at a certain point.
Honestly, if it’s not even a new role, then I’m even less sure why a new title is needed.
I’m personally fine with just requiring ballots rather than votes, as I wrote in the alternative omnibus — it’s possible to abuse that system, yes, but at some point, a pattern of casting invalid ballots just to remain a voter falls under bad-faith participation. One might see that as a judgment call or a subjective interpretation but I don’t see how it’s more subjective than the judgment calls or subjective interpretations of “bad faith” we already apply to voter registrations.