View Topic

My fellow Wintreatheans,

I come to you today as a candidate for the upcoming term in the Underhusen.  For those who may not know me, Wintreath is a place that is very special to me, and my only wish is to see it grow and thrive endlessly.  Currently, I've done this in the role of the Chairman of the Overhusen and currently as the acting Jarl of Culture until our Jarl is well enough to come back to us.  Every decision that I make in Wintreath has been with two things in mind: Is it something the Monarch would approve of?  And is it something that will benefit the people in some way?

As it stands, there are many parts of Wintreath that are in disarray, and the only way to get much of that fixed begins in the Underhusen.  Such things such as lack of clarification in certain laws for example, leave our laws vulnerable and do nothing but hurt our region.  If elected, one thing I will promise is that I will do my part to make sure that these laws have clarification instead of being left up to interpretation.

I also promise that I will bring as much legislation as possible to the Underhusen.  I strongly believe that no change can happen unless there is progress in our legislation.  If we have new proposals that are sitting there, then we're stuck at a stalemate...and that's something that cannot happen.  So please propose away, and you will be heard.  What you say will always matter, because the first step in bringing positive changes to Wintreath comes from listening to you, the citizens.  And no voice will be left unheard.

Next, while I will still be conferring with the Monarch on certain issues, I promise that every decision, every vote that I make will be for the benefit of the whole, not the one.  While I do understand personal reservation/agenda, I don't agree with such practices in a role that is supposed to represent the entirety of Wintreath.  The underhusen represents all of you, and the decisions that they make should reflect what will benefit everyone, not just a single person.

I promise that on top of all of this, I will not waiver in finding new ways to bring exciting new games/contests/events to Wintreath and hopefully continue to keep Wintreath's cultural side thriving.   In fact, as of writing this, I already have a few new ideas of what else I would like to bring to Wintreath to keep things fresh and interesting.  Likewise though, I will always welcome ideas from other members on what they would like to see on Wintreath, and will do everything in my power to help support those ideas.

I'd like to add something else to my campaign promise list.  Throughout my speech, I've spoken making decisions and votes with the mindset that it will benefit everyone on Wintreath in some way.  I realize that this alone is not enough.

If elected to the Underhusen, I promise that I bring forth an act to create a new concept called the Poll to the People, which will gather your own thoughts as to the best course of action on acts that would impact all of Wintreath.  While the Underhusen would be debating each act, a poll would be added for you you to discuss your own thoughts and whether or not you agree with the act.  That way when voting time comes, we would have the input of the citizens to help with our decisions.  As I said your voices matter, and I believe this would be a huge step into making that an even more truthful statement.

If there are any questions that you have for me, I will be more than happy to answer any and all of them.

I thank all of you for your time, and I hope that you will vote for me to be in the Underhusen for this coming term.

Let's get the important stuff out of the way first. What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?

Well it depends, would you happen to mean an African swallow or a European swallow?

You mentioned that there are terms in certain laws that are lacking in clarification. Would you be willing to state one of them and how you would clarify that/those term(s)?

Thank you for the question Sapphiron.

To throw out one glaring example, it would be the concept of Abstain votes.

As it stands, there's absolutely nothing on what to do with an Abstain vote, and it's purely up to the Speaker's discretion as to what to do with it.

At a glance, this doesn't seem like a horrible thing, but up close it's quite the opposite.

To throw out some recent examples, I assume you all remember the Omnibus Judicial Repeal that failed.  It was an act that the Speaker strongly opposed and voted against.  There was one person that abstained from voting completely, and three people that voted FOR it.

Because of semantics, the Speaker chose to use that vote as an AGAINST and because of those same little semantics, the Repeal failed.

Now, that would be alright if it was a consistent process, however...

In a similar instance shortly after, the Speaker himself brought forth the Judicial Offices Omnibus Amendment Act.  On its deadline, the Act ended at 1 vote FOR, 2 votes AGAINST, 1 person abstaining, and then one vote after the deadline FOR.  So after the deadline, it was a complete tie with one abstention.

If the Speaker had followed his earlier course, then that Abstention should have failed the amendment, but instead he used it to pass it, even though it was a tie and even though one of those votes for it came after the deadline.

These are problems that I want to address and fix, because they're somewhat glaring flaws that leave our laws open to interpretation and leave us vulnerable for loopholes.

Thank you for answering my question.

Interesting. So no system of precedent has thus far been followed? That is quite a glaring hole.

Interesting. So no system of precedent has thus far been followed? That is quite a glaring hole.

Indeed.  Though I plan on going through and looking for any other glaring discrepancies and correcting them.  As it stands at the moment, the Speaker has far too much power to do anything because of those discrepancies.

As a note, the speaker as a role also decides quite literally how all votes go. There are no rules for how many ayes a vote needs to pass and how many nays it needs to fail.
Focusing on abstains is weird when nobody really knows how laws get passed because it doesn't exist.

As a note, the speaker as a role also decides quite literally how all votes go. There are no rules for how many ayes a vote needs to pass and how many nays it needs to fail.
Focusing on abstains is weird when nobody really knows how laws get passed because it doesn't exist.

Thank you for bringing that up Reon.  This is what I'm getting at when I say the Speaker has far too much power right now.  As it stands, the Speaker is really the end-all-be-all power that will decide whether anything passes or not, regardless of how votes even go, and that's something that's completely inexcusable in something that is supposed to serve the citizens of Wintreath.

But my focusing on the Abstentions is purely one way of starting the process of correcting those errors.  I plan on finding and starting the process to correct most, if not ALL of those errors.

I will be making my campaign post later but my goals are a complete overhaul and replacement of the fundamental laws.
What do you think of this idea?

I will be making my campaign post later but my goals are a complete overhaul and replacement of the fundamental laws.
What do you think of this idea?

I actually support a complete overhaul and restructure of the FL.  At the time they were written they may have worked to an extent, but at the moment they're full of loopholes and areas that, as I said, leave us completely vulnerable.  If we had elected the wrong person to be Speaker and they had a personal Agenda, we'd never be able to pass anything except what they wanted.

Thank you. For the moment I am out of questions but I shall say that you are a very good candidate. You

Ahem, as speaker I feel like I should explain why the counting of the votes was different between the JOAA and the OJR.

The OJR requires 2/3rds Supermajority, or four votes out of five, to pass. The JOAA only needs 2/3rds Simple Majority vote, or three votes out of five, to pass. Now lets take a look at the votes:

JOAA:
Ayes: 2
Nays: 2
Abstain: 1

OJR
Ayes: 3
Nays: 1
Abstain: 1

Now the OJR lacks the Supermajority requires to pass, especially when not counting the Abstain Vote.

The JOOA lacks to have the required amount to pass, however Ayes and Nays are equal, especially when not counting the abstain. Therefore it wasn't a different way of counting if you ignore both Abstains in both cases, then you get this

JOAA
Ayes: 2
Nays: 2

OJR
Ayes: 3
Nays: 1

Both failed to get the required amount of Ayes to pass, however one had an equal number of both Ayes and Nays, thus it is tied, which procedure requires it to go to the Overhusen. The other one failed to get a Super Majority vote in favor, as required by the fundamental laws.

While it can be argued that the second Aye vote was illegal, I allowed it because of my power under the Procedural Rules allows me to define procedure, temporarily, in cases where there is none. While it stays open only seven (7) days, I failed to close it, and thus I failed to perform a duty as speaker. As such since I did I felt it was an undefined area in which there was, and is, no procedure and I felt that since it was my fault I should not penalize the late Skrifa, in this case Nox, because of my error.

Anywho I just felt like I should clarify

Chanku, in the end it's semantics.

3 people voted for, one against, one nay.

In the end, the 3 people that voted FOR should have won.  I don't care about the details since the details are completely left to the Speaker's interpretation.

What I do care about is that issues like that are the reasons why we're going to be hurt as a region.  You exploited a weakness in the system to FAIL an act you disagreed with, and PASS one that you yourself wrote.

Again, I don't care about the details of it, but that's a clear example of your own personal agenda overpowering the wants of the many, and it's things like that in which I don't want to see happen in an organization that is supposed to be about the needs/wants of the many, versus the needs/wants of the one.