Discussion: 2 Presidents. Prior to an Official Poll

notyoueither · July 16, 2002, 02:41

There is controversy in the land.

Our poll for president has been called into question.

The candidates have agreed to a solution.

The VP apparent is polling to invalidate that solution.

What solution do the people of Apolyton desire?

This discussion will last 2 days. I will post an official poll if one is still required by that time. That official poll will be based on this discussion. That official poll will last 4 or 5 days (the minimum for an official poll). That official poll would be posted at about 1am MST July 18 (48 hours from now).

Torkkeli · July 16, 2002, 03:00

Well I dont see a problem as at the time I'm writing this Ninot is in lead by one vote so Ninot is to come the president. In no way can the candidates themselves declare the president

But if the votes are equal when the poll is over then I think this is a job for the ministers to decide. (or maybe the court? Is there one yet?)

disorganizer · July 16, 2002, 03:51

a repoll hase to take place if the poll is not conclusive.

and idea to prevent this in future is to skip the seperate vice-president election. if me make the runner-up in the presidential election the vice, we maybe have 4 candidates for this position in future. if we then have a tie between 2, we give only those 2 a second election phase.

Timeline · July 16, 2002, 03:53

I agree.

Candidates can't decide who the President is, only the people can. So whoever wins the poll, becomes President. If it is a tie, then the Ministers should vote on it.

Simple as that. Go vote here.

notyoueither · July 16, 2002, 04:41

BTW. I am thinking a show of hands type of poll might be the best for this 'official' poll. If it is needed. The voters might be limited to those who were citizens as of the commencement of the controversy (they posted in the join thread).

What do people think?

Spiffor · July 16, 2002, 07:07

Actually, you can't hinder Trip and Ninot for collaborating : as anybody can have aides (remember : what is not in the constitution is implicitely allowed), you can have the official winner take his opponent as an "aide" and share power with him.

I normally favour the "power to the majority" thing, but the presidential election is so close that a mere DL can have made the difference. That's why I think Ninot's and Trip's decision is wise.

"show of hands". NYE, do you mean a thread which is not technically a poll, but a place where people say openly who they voted for ? In this case, it might actually be the best solution.

Papa Chubby · July 16, 2002, 07:15

Yet they are not talking about one of them being as aide, they are talking about co-hosting the presidency, two presidents with equal authority and power. Another thing is that in our Code of laws, which by the way don´t state what is needed to win a position in the government, clearly states that the executive branch should be made out of a president and a vice-president. The emphasis should be on the singular. There is also no consensus, at least to the best of knowledge, on whether ministers and presidents are allowed to take aide´s,clerks or secretaries, whatever you want to call them.

NYE idea is probably the best way to do elections from now on, simply counting the votes (Papa shudders at the thought of Florida).

civman2000 · July 16, 2002, 09:01

I agree with Timeline. Of course if they want the can make the other their unofficial aide, but hten some constitutional questions come up if the aides do any of the jobs that belong to the president

Epistax · July 16, 2002, 10:05

Presidential candidates can't decide who becomes president? Excuse me? If Ninot concedes, he therefore chooses Trip. If trip concedes, he therefore chooses Ninot. If they both concede, and there was a 3rd person with just one vote, then that person would become president. The candidates have the FINAL say as to which of them become president.

Now can two be president at the same time? I do admit that is very tacky, and copresident doesn't look good on a resume, but we have no provisions for this scenario. Due to the ambiguity of the election (non members voting) we are left with the possibility of either a tie, or either candidate being ahead, we can't tell.
These are the only options

1) Copresidency
2) Reelection (Same thing will happen)
3) Background checks on voters (teehee)
4) Someone concedes

Every method except #2 is quick and painless.
#3 is my non-PC idea of removing ballets cast by nonmembers, and taking the result at face value. If this is a tie, then we'll have to use another option.

mtgillespie · July 16, 2002, 10:55

There is no evidence of wrongdoing. If you take the letter of the law, there is nothing which says you have to be a citizen of Apolytonia to vote

Therefore, accept the results of the poll. The duly appointed president will make election amendments his first first order of business (and boy do we need them!). We then have a month to get them right.

And no offence to Trip, who tried to get the ammendment through, but ran out of time. I think a rushed version would be as bad as no version (although i'm sure he'll disagree

)

Lets accept this poll, realise we'll have an able leader whoever wins (thank the banana

) and move on. Anything else either leves us rudderless (or with 2 rudders, which could be worse), or is outside the constitution, which we MUST hold sacred, at ALL costs.

jdjdjd · July 16, 2002, 11:16

Very difficult situation, but the fact is we need to let the poll run its course, if its a tie, then sharing may be fair. There is no provision in the constitution, so its not barred from happening. As for it being close but not a tie, then a winner is chosen, if he chooses to have the loser assist him, or aid him, fine. But, the VP still is the back up to the elected President, that is in the constitution and so long as this co-pres does not overstep bounds and do jobs, only Pres, VP or Minister can do, then let him do whatever he can. Just need to make sure that the loser does not violate the constitution by assisting.

Kuciwalker · July 16, 2002, 11:46

The President can designate someone to do official business in his name. Everyone knows that this election was screwed up royally.

Timeline · July 16, 2002, 12:10

Quote:

Originally posted by Epistax
Presidential candidates can't decide who becomes president? Excuse me? If Ninot concedes, he therefore chooses Trip. If trip concedes, he therefore chooses Ninot. If they both concede, and there was a 3rd person with just one vote, then that person would become president. The candidates have the FINAL say as to which of them become president.

True, candidates can decide the fate of their other candidates, but they cannot directly control if THEY win or not.

If someone really wants to win, they cannot MAKE themselves win. The people, with their votes, make the winner.

Aggie · July 16, 2002, 12:19

I think we need to do one of two things.
1) Let trip and ninot be copresidents
2) Count only the votes that were from citizens, Mark say this can and will be done if we want it to. Perhaps this is a solution. Yes the consitution doesn't explicitly say you must be citizen to vote, but this is part of common law(and common sense) and doesn't have to be stated.

Either solution is acceptable to me, however just using the results is NOT, since it will mean that noncitizens are dictating our president and that is the most undemocratic method of all.
Aggie

GodKing · July 16, 2002, 12:28

I agree with Timeline on this issue.

We should not have 2 presidents. If the one who does win would like the assistance of the other, they may do so provided a) they don't interfear with the rights of others (ie the VP) and b) the one person who did win is the one in charge. They have the responsibility of making sure that what is supposed to happen does, and the blaim if it doesn't. They cannot say "well my aid did that, so go yell at him....". Sorry, doesn't work that way.

In case of a tie, the judiciary should decide. With this being the case and without us having any judges yet, I say that Trip is still president UNTIL he appoints and has ONE justice confirmed. That justice will have to review the constitutionality of the situation, contact Mark G for the voting info, and make the decision. Once the decision is made, then the next president will be sworn in.

Kuciwalker · July 16, 2002, 12:37

GodKing -

Minor problem their. A Justice Trip appoints decides, directly or indirectly, who wins the election. Think about that.

Epistax · July 16, 2002, 12:48

thus my earlier comment that we should lay off the judges until there isn't a major issue, or else they will be chosen based on one opinion they hold.

Quickest resolve is for someone to concede. Trip has unofficially offered to do so if worse comes to worse, (aka petty bickering and people stalling. Look like this thread?) If he does, I'm sure he'll still be very influencial in getting things passed.

Captain · July 16, 2002, 13:52

I agree with mtgillespie and aggie,

we should run background checks and make sure only citizens are voting. even though the constitution does not explicitly say so, there are many other things we do that are not in the constitution and we accept them. I believe it is an unwritten rule that only citizens should vote.

now, the question is, if the background check is run and it turns out that the election results without non-citizen votes is still the same, then what do we do? what if valid citizen votes still tie or have less than 1% difference?

I am all for allowing an assistant or aide to the President, as long as this does not step over into the jurisdiction of the VP. Co-presidents may effectively eliminate the need for a VP. This seems counter to what our constitution says. In that sense, while it is not explicitly forbidden, the office of the VP has a strong case against the idea of a co-presidency.

So I believe we should have only one (1) President, as much as I like Trip and Ninot, this would set a poor precedent for future Presidential elections. If not 2, why not 3? why not a legion of Presidents? why not get all the DIA or UFC to field Presidential candidates, and then pool all their votes to get a majority, and declare they're splitting the Presidency amongst the 10 of them? But we could always pass future legislation to bar such actions.

However, considering that Historian is already a joint venture... we may already have a precedent for allowing co-Presidents. OTOH, dual historians do not conflict with other offices, a dual Presidency may.

Perhaps the first duty of the new administration, whoever that may be, would be to push through some legislation/amendments to clarify such issues.

As it stands, there is no current explicit requirement for a poll in creating an "aide". Public opinion at the time was supportive of unofficial aides. Whoever wins, can legally appoint the other to a special unofficial position, say called "Special Advisor", with duties not in conflict with those of other ministerial offices. Only if the position becomes official - or if it interferes with the existing power structure by overlapping or impinging on the powers and responsibilities of other already existing offices (mainly VP) - would such a position be in danger of being challenged.

Robber Baron · July 16, 2002, 14:16

ack. double post. sorry

Robber Baron · July 16, 2002, 14:16

Some semantic suggestions might be helpful here:
If the idea of "co-presidents" sounds dubious, think of the arrangement (however it may be structured) as a "unity government" or a "coalition government."

If that still sits uneasily, we could let one candidate take the tile of president (Ninot, probably, if the numbers hold), and allow the other join his Apolytonian "kitchen cabinet" (a very funny pun, BTW, from U.S. political history).

punkbass2000 · July 16, 2002, 14:39

I dislike the idea of ministers doing tie-breaking. It will add to the effect of parties. For example, in this election the presidential race is obviously quite close. Now, if you have not voted yet, you may go and vote for all the candidates who are in the same party as who you want to be president, in hopes that they will vote accordingly should there be a tie.

Epistax · July 16, 2002, 15:21

Well, aside from the local problems, I would like to see an amendment passing about elections, including saying that non-members are not allowed to vote, and if the results of a vote are contested, non-member votes may be removed (as told by the list).

This is not perfect, however, as those random people might add themselvest our membership simply to vote.

notyoueither · July 16, 2002, 16:51

There is much discussion going on in many threads about the nature of the presidential poll and what should or might be done about it. Here is a basic version of what I gather to be serious suggestions.

Nothing should be done. The vote should be accepted no matter how many questions there are about it. Action is only required if they finish tied.

Shared Presidency. As posted by Ninot, and supported by Trip, both candidates share the office of the president in a unity government. This is fairly self explanatory, however there may be some or many unforeseen ambiguities.

Alternating Presidency allowing 1 of the candidates to be president for 2 weeks, at which point he resigns and we accept the other candidate as president for the last 2 weeks of the term.

Recount based on information available to the administrators of the site. The count could be performed by Markos and announced, or we could request the log be released to a selected group of citizens (scrutineers) or we could request that the log be made fully public. The idea would be to find the vote total of only those citizens on the join list prior to the election and use that total to decide the matter. The recount would involve zero discretion. Either the voter was on the list prior to the opening of the poll and the vote is counted, or the voter was not and the vote is discarded.

Emergency Court should be quickly assembled to rule on the election. The court would be assembled with 3 members and would dissolve as soon as they decided a winner of the presidential election. The court would be empowered to request any information available to the administrators of the site and would keep this information confidential. The court would enjoy some discretion in how they arrive at their ruling (for instance, they decide whether to remove non citizen votes or not).

Ministers decide who is awarded the presidency. This has been proposed for the constitution in case of ties. Simply put, all newly elected officials (except the Historians) vote to decide who is to be the president for the next term.

notyoueither · July 16, 2002, 16:57

It might be helpful if people answered a few simple questions here in this thread, and of course add any comment or new ideas you feel appropriate.

Question 1. Should we accept the presidential poll (do nothing) or should we effect a remedy according to one of the suggested plans.

Question 2. Which 1 or 2 of the remedies do you favour as being acceptable. Shared, Alternating, Recount, Emergency Court, or Ministers? The choices are the first word(s) from each of ther options in my previous post. Other, with an explanation is good too.

disorganizer · July 16, 2002, 17:12

what do we need a president for anyways?

Captain · July 16, 2002, 17:13

1) Recount by someone trusted. I think ballots should remain secret to the public and to the candidates, even if some voters want to make their votes publicly known.

I trust MarkG, but any mod would be fine since they don't have a direct interest in the game and have proven trustworthy enough to maintain privacy. Gramphos would be great too, if he's around.

If, after discounting frivolous votes from non-citizens, it's still a tie:

2) Someone should concede.

3) If no one concedes, repoll. VP takes role of Prez until new one determined.

Unofficial power sharing is fine, officially splitting the Presidency is bad.

notyoueither · July 16, 2002, 17:19

Captain, do you think we should examine the presidential poll or should we leave it alone?

Moral Hazard · July 16, 2002, 18:00

First I'm glad things have calmed down since last night. I also don't really have strong opinions between the proposed options. ( I dislike Trip and Ninot's proposal, but it might work)

The important thing is that the decision is polled. And the decision is reached through a poll. So pretty much I'm all in favor of whats going on here.

notyoueither · July 16, 2002, 18:07

Moral Hazard. Do you think the presidential poll should be left as is, or should we do something about it?

Everyone. That is the really important question at this point. Is there a consensus? Should we even proceed with this process?

Moral Hazard · July 16, 2002, 18:59

I'll like the idea of only allowing citizens votes to be counted, but I am leery of requiring them to register before voting, as our numbers always rise substantial during voting. We gain new active citizens during this time, which helps our community.

Concerning the presidential vote, I think that the citizens' votes should be taken and that should be used. Which seems to be the general view, but just because thier is a consensus in this thread doesn't mean thier is an overall consensus (some people may currently be unsure, I'm not even 70% sure, and hence be avoiding the debate.) I still think a poll should be taken to decide this.

Another issue is whether the winner should be allowed to appoint an aide. He should; but the aide should not be able to play turns as that is the VP's duty outlined in the constitution.