[Demosthenes]

Yeah, 100 = 100 is exactly what we are trying to get away from, I agree totally. Not sure about 1/3 = 1, but I'm open to anything right now, as long as we can make a decision quickly, that at least the majority can agree with...(by simply straw poll)

Also, does anyone know which thread has Clausewitz's original constitution in it?

[Zyx]

No idea on the Clausewitz.

I think that we ought to have multiple issues on the ballot, so that the ballot not only acts as a cast for a party, but also as a survey.

That is--people can say whether they are interested in party A,B,C; interested in participating (by being an MP*); interested in a certain constitution (A,B,C); and interested in a certain game ruling scheme (A,B,C--proposed modification.) Naturally, they can abstain from either vote or vote for something and suggest improvements, but this would probably be the best way to hammer things out [assuming that we'd all participate.]

[ingliz]

3 votes equals 1 seat is good enough for us with the proviso 1 seat is added if we come out at an even number

[Oxymoron]

Let the people vote for the parties which will tell everyone how many members it has. Thus if the people want to give 3 individuals 10 votes who agree with their ideology that should be ok, if people want to give 1 vote to 10 individuals that should also be allowed. I think that is pretty fair and democratic.

[ingliz]

Article 1. Elections


The Clerk of the Parliament must administer a responsible election and its results must be tabulated and certified by the Clerk no more than one month after the preceding election's results were certified.
A simple majority in Parliament has the power to dissolve the government, demand a new election, and/or constitute a new government.
Elections shall be conducted, tabulated, and certified by the Clerk of the Parliament, who will be designated by any successful act that forms a government.

Article 2. Convention of Parliament


Parliament will constitute 100 seats in a single house apportioned by the D'Hondt method according to the results certified by the Clerk of the Parliament.
At the moment the results are certified, the Party Leader holds all the seats apportioned to his party.
Each Party Leader after that point will have the option of assigning its apportioned seats to Party members. Party members may be assigned multiple seats. Whether and how such seats are distributed is left to the determination of individual parties.
All current Clerks of the Parliament shall maintain, certify, and report the assignment of seats from the parties in good faith.
Once the Clerk of the Parliament certifies that a seat has been assigned an MP, that seat may not be estranged from that MP until the next general election conducted by the Clerk of the Parliament, except by the express and public consent of the MP (certified by the Clerk of the Parliament), or by a 2/3 vote of the Parliament to impeach that MP.
This document guarantees no relief or arbitration for disputes within parties. Relief and arbitration would need to be sought through further Acts of Parliament and amendments to this document.

Article 3. Legislation


Legislation may be introduced by any Party Leader that received seats in Parliament, or any MP assigned a valid seat by his party. Every piece of legislation will be a separate thread.
Any piece of legislation that receives more than 1/2 the votes of the Parliament becomes the law of the land.
Votes will be placed in the thread as for, against, or (optionally) abstain. Abstaining votes are counted as votes against the legislation. Seats, until spoken for, are presumed to abstain.
Party leaders may declare the vote of their party on a piece of legislation. Seats assigned to the party leader and seats assigned to members of his party that did not report their position in the thread will be presumed to vote with the party leader.
MPs (that is, people assigned seats in Parliament by their Party Leaders) have the right to break with their party leader if they so choose over a piece of legislation.
Legislation may be withdrawn by its author, in which case no further votes on that legislation are recognized.
No further votes will be recognized on any legislative thread originating with a previous elected parliament after the election that followed it has been certified by the Clerk of the Parliament. This means that all pending legislation dies when election results are certified.
Amendments to this document must receive more than 2/3 of the votes in Parliament to become law.
Laws inconsistent with this document (and any successful amendments to it) are prima facie invalid as inconsistent with the basic law of the nation, but this document guarantees no relief or arbitration if a law is challenged on a constitutional basis. The Parliament may ordain and empower bodies which have the power to grant relief and arbitration in disputes as to the constitutionality of legislation .

Article 4. Formation of Government

At any time, a piece of legislation may be introduced by a Party Leader or MP which forms a government. This legislation, like any legislation, will succeed if it receives the support of 1/2 of the members of Parliament.
An act which forms a government will designate, at a minimum, a Prime Minister and a Clerk of the Parliament. The act of government may designate as many other ministers as it likes. Those ministers will have the power to introduce legislation pertaining to their portfolio, and also the liberty to interpret the legislation passed by Parliament.
The first Clerk of the Parliament is The Right Honourable Dan of the Conservative Alliance. The first Parliament will be convened upon the moment of his certification of the election results.

Clauswitz's interim document

[Gnote]

3 votes equals 1 seat is good enough for us with the proviso 1 seat is added if we come out at an even number

That is agreeable. Superior, even.

[Demosthenes]

I actually like that as well, but please clarify the extra seat?

You mean if you receive 18 votes, you get 7 seats, instead of 6?

BTW- I gg for a bit, be back in a few hours.

[Gnote]

No, Demo. Like this:

Suppose 90 votes are cast. That would work out to a total of 30 seats, which is an even number, and is problematic for forming majorities. So 1 seat would be added to bring the total to 31, and then those seats would be apportioned based on the vote percentage garnered by each party.

[Zyx]

ingliz's 3 votes 1 seat makes sense, but this 'proviso' is nonsensical.

Does he mean non-divisible by 3 [as "even" is non-divisible by 2] and what if one party were two over a number divisible by three, say 17, is that 2 extra seats [7 total] and one removed if they get another vote?

I mean, I think that ingliz means to say that 3 votes equal one seat and everything is rounded up. That I can work with.

--

Gnote's idea is worse than what I had interpreted of ingliz, IMO.

--

Oxymoron, your idea doesn't fly because it apportions seats well after people vote for a party. That is, a party leader can control suffrage after establishing power--so it's not really a contract that one is engaging in when voting for it.

[ingliz]

Oxy:

"It is unknown to a strictly deliberative assembly, and is in conflict with the idea of the equality of members, which is a fundamental principle of deliberative assemblies. There can be but little use for debate where one member has more votes than another, possibly more than all the others combined."

[Gnote]

Zyx,

I think you misunderstood him. He simply doesn't want the TOTAL number of seats to work out to an even number.

[Zyx]

What's the purpose of the total number of seats not being even?

Further, that makes seat apportioning that much more difficult.

Once you add in that 1, all the percentages are reduced and seat representation becomes an argument of fractions.

That is, what was twelve seats becomes 11.84 or something.

[Like, to use your example, if I, say I were a party, had 30 seats of 90 and then I had 30 seats of 91 . . .]

[ingliz]

Zyx, you are talking rubbish as there are two simple mathematical formulae I know of that are used by many real life legislatures to apportion seats fairly.

Gnote, you are correct.

[Gnote]

That's a fair point.

We would have to come up with some convention that would break ties on votes, then.

If we end up with a 30-seat parliament, we run the risk of a tie occurring. We'd need some process for breaking that tie.

[Zyx]

Well, according to ingliz I am off the mark.

Still, there are a few things.

For one, what does even have to do with anything?

As to the tie-breaker issue, shouldn't the PM have some sort of an advantage here? {or more importantly, isn't half nay a no.}

[Gnote]

Ingliz,

I think I am seeing Zyx's point.

3 votes = 1 seat is a very simple way to set up the parliament. If we add an extra seat, that formula will be thrown off.

Perhaps we could agree on a simple mechanism for tie-breaking.

Perhaps all bills need 50%+1 majority, and therefore a vote of 15-15 would not pass?

[Zyx]

Yeah, I was thinking that a 50%+1 would be best.

That makes a lot of sense.

How do the Europeans do it?

[Gnote]

I'm not sure how the Europeans do it. The Canadian mechanism would be too complex (speaker of the house doens't vote unless its a tie, in which case he breaks it, but we aren't likely to have a speaker).

[ingliz]

You are still going to be left with fractions of seats I thought we'd use the d'Hondt formula or the other one to sort that out.

[Zyx]

I think that we should just do the 3 seats per vote and a rounding up.

So that 4,5 and 6 votes equal two seats.*

Hmm, maybe that's unfair?

*Maybe 5 and 6?

Just to make things easier?