Voter Registration Act and Amendments

General Archives Great Council
21

Could just put up two competing amendments and let us vote on which definition we prefer

22

A citizen has full rights. A resident does not.

23

To clarify what Kris is saying:

All residents of TSP are citizens currently. And under the proposed changes they would seemingly be “demoted” even though they are not in actuality. It’s about the perception of losing a more inclusive term.

At the last GC we debated the same wording and people get hung up over losing “their rights” v “being a citizen but not being able to vote” that’s why the term “legislator” was introduced.

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I think using the term Citizen (for all TSP nations -acting in good faith), Registered Voter (For citizens who vote in elections, etc.), and Legislator (for assembly activities) would suffice.

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24

This is also an issue we’ve run up against several times before, with people who don’t use the forums or skype/IRC/Discord/etc being offended by the idea that despite having been in TSP and involved in the region in other ways for years they aren’t citizens. The citizen/legislator distinction avoided that and any needless hurt feelings/unpleasantness.

25

I feel described :grin:

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26

And are we to have a committee to decide if someone who resides in the region is acting in good faith?
We have thousands of nations, it would be a logistical nightmare to decide who is acting in good faith and who is not.

27

No. That has never been on the table.

28

Frankly, yes.

A resident has the rights and freedoms afforded to them by the Charter, but is not able to vote. Citizenship’s primary defining characteristic that sets it apart from residency is the right to vote, as well as run, in our elections. The association of citizenship with voting is why almost every other GCR in the game does not automatically grant the title of Citizen to those with a nation in their region.

29

I don’t particularly care about what other regions do. I care more about what we do here, and making the implication that one isn’t a citizen sounds wrong.

30

The Court actually addressed this several years ago: Members of the Coalition

Everyone is considered to be acting in good faith, until such time as they prove to the contrary.

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31

The key thing here is that we either don’t use the term citizenship anywhere - that’s why we’ve been using “Members” - or we apply it in the broadest possible sense so that no one feels excluded.

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32

I have no qualms with excluding the term “citizen” to those who can vote in elections. That’s why I’ve defined it as such here.

I intend to move this to vote in two days, to coincide with the other Charter amendment.

33

Honestly, do we need a title for Citizens/Voters at all? Like, go call them whatever you want — citizens, voters, electors. In terms of legislation, why not just regulate eligibility directly?

I think the concern over titles reflects our attachment to our current system, where members can apply for a status that is then proactively verified and revoked by a commission. I’m not sure that way of framing the system is beneficial; I mean, who’d want to get their right to vote revoked? We’re creating an incentive for people who aren’t meaningfully engaged to do the bare minimum in order to maintain their status.

Perhaps we could just fold activity requirements into the eligibility criteria? For instance, the eligible voters for an election would need to, in addition to the other criteria, have voted in the previous election or have applied in the time since then. We could even make the renewal of eligibility explicit, with a checkbox on ballots for ‘renewing your voter registration’ or something so it’s an opt-in rather than opt-out system.

34

Why not also a residency requirement?

35

I’m suggesting this in addition to the eligibility criteria already in the current draft, which includes requiring a WA nation in the region or in service to the SPSF or SC.

36

I’m working on a rewrite of the entire eligibility section. Stay tuned.

37

I’ve rewritten a good portion of the act. The process has been redefined as registering to vote, but citizen is still my preferred term. I’ve also cleaned up some of the language concerning Section 2 (Eligibility).

38

I concur with Pronoun. I don’t see a need to refer specifically to citizens, and if anything I would find the use of that term to refer only to registered voters to be detrimental.

39

I intend to propose a few changes to the draft, time permitting, before the end of the week.

40

Some changes:

  • Residents who have registered to vote are defined as ‘voters’ to align with the language in the Elections Act. I didn’t find a need to refer to them as ‘voters’ or ‘citizens’ outside of the definitions.
  • Accordingly, the ‘Citizenship Commission’ is now referred to as just the ‘Voter Registration Commission’ to match the terminology of ‘voter registration’ as already included in the previous draft.
  • Re-approval votes for Voter Registration Commissioners are now set at every February and August so that counting different six-month cycles for each commissioner will not be necessary.
  • The language surrounding revocation of voter registrations has been tightened a bit.