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That is a good question.

To be more specific, those who voted nay obviously had a reason for doing so, but they've tended to name "reasons" they discussed with other people, but not here. Criticise a specific part of this Act, and come up with an improvement. That's the only way this will work.

I wanted to come to a better understanding of the results, so I got a list of people that posted in the Convention before March 15th, shortly before this issue broke out, and color-coded it according to how each person voted in this Ratification...green/aye,yellow/abstain,red/nay,black/not voting. The results are below:

Raw Information

Laurentus - 112 posts
Wintermoot - 62 posts
Barnes - 36 posts
Chanku - 23 posts
Pengu - 18 posts
HannahB - 17 posts
Reon - 16 posts
Gerrick - 14 posts
Govindia - 9 posts
taulover - 8 posts
Point Breeze - 8 posts
North - 7 posts
BraveSirRobin - 7 posts
Bodobol - 6 posts
Emoticonius - 6 posts
Sapphiron - 7 posts
Aragonn - 5 posts
Weissreich - 4 posts
Wuufu - 3 posts
Daoine pacaiste - 3 posts
Joshua Bluteisen - 2 posts
RedRevenant/Sci - 2 posts
Samwise Gamgee - 2 posts
xXTheHydraXx - 1 post
VidiLune - 1 post
Aaron Specter - 1 post
Colberius X - 1 post
Hugsim - 0 posts
tatte - 0 posts
Commander_Zemas - 0 posts
X Renner Dynasty X - 0 posts
Lychgate - 0 posts
pertutania - 0 posts
Rasdanation - 0 posts

Obviously, with the exception of Chanku, Hannah, and Govindia, the Convention was dominated by people who would later vote aye, including people like North who originally opposed an open assembly. Why is that? Is it because they were involved in the process and felt like they crafted the best possible compromise? Is it because those that participated in the Convention felt there was a problem and those that didn't did not, so they decided not to participate out of support of the current system? I know that a few people oppose any open legislature, but that doesn't account for everyone. How is it that we got so far along the process before we heard what's apparently a significant resistance to this Amendment? Did people just not look into what the Convention and Storting were doing until they had to personally vote on it?

I'm full of questions, and these are questions about an important issue that goes beyond this Amendment, especially if we adopt an open assembly (which in many ways the Convention itself could be considered a precursor of).

My lack of involvement in the pre-voting debate was primarily because I hadn't returned to full activity. By the time I was fully active again most of the discussion had already been had, proposals made and it seemed as if a Bill had been settled on by the majority of the citizenry. I didn't feel it worth spending time trawling through thread after dead thread when the only active one was the Open Assembly proposal Moot wrote up, and even then I only made a few suggestions as it seemed like a foregone conclusion.

That said, I am in complete support for an Open Assembly, so for the most part I assumed that Moot's steady hand would have written up a proposal everyone was happy with. I'm not criticising your legislative ability, just to be clear Moot, but I certainly came into things with a predisposed "everything is fine" attitude I could have done something to rectify. It was only really in IRC discussions that I realised people had issues and decided to go back and try and collate every suggestion and complaint in order to ensure we ended up with the best piece of legislation possible

As I've said before, I went through a step by step process with creating the Amendment. First I asked what style of legislature was wanted, then I wrote it out article by article, asking for input along the way. When it was finished, it was taken up by the Underhusen, which went through much the same process twice-over and made their own edits to it as a result. This whole thing probably took the better part of two months and was probably the most open process we've had since the original Constitutional Convention. There was no lack of opportunity for people to voice issues, for sure.

As far as I can tell, the opposition is composed of three groups:

1) People opposed to any open assembly that had vocalized their feelings the entire time
2) People that participated in the Convention but fell quiet
3) People that never made their feelings known and came out of the woodwork during ratification

It's the third group that I'm most concerned about, because how do you get people on board for any major change if a significant portion of people aren't paying attention until the last minute? And that's what I think it came to...people that didn't pay attention to either the Convention or the Storting while they were debating this Amendment, and only became aware of it at ratification or from conversations stemming from the ratification vote. Considering the long, open process this took, I think it's a huge failure of the democratic portion of our government.

I'm worried that we're repeating it now in your topic and in others that have resulted from this issue. It seems to me that other than Hannah and Chanku (and including others that aren't participating because they oppose any open assembly), most of the people participating in these topics are the same people that supported the Amendment as it was. I honestly can't help but wonder if an amended Amendment would meet the same fate.

And I'm worried that we're repeating it now in your topic and in others that have resulted from this issue. It seems to me that other than Hannah and Chanku (and including others that aren't participating because they oppose any open assembly), most of the people participating in these topics are the same people that supported the Amendment as it was. I honestly can't help but wonder if an amendment Amendment would meet the same fate.

I understand your concerns with this last part, and especially your fears about the third group you identified, but I don't think it's justified as much as you might think. Even with only a few people actively participating, we've still managed to identify up to six areas for improvement and discussion in the thread I started. We've already come up with several additions and alterations that improve the Act as it currently stands.

Perhaps what it comes down to is a lack of promotion? I know there's a link on the Regional NS page, and at the tops of the forums, but I think that after a while people get used to them. Changing them up might be a good way to draw more attention, and I for one am going to go over to the NS page now and ask anyone with a forum account to get involved.

That said... Might it be worth tagging users active in the last week/few days in the threads relevant to debate? I don't want to seem like I'm pestering people but this is beginning to look like a chronic issue with either a lack of interest or lack of awareness...

As far as I can tell, the only concrete changes that seem to have consensus have been to add an activity requirement and to add a whip position, which doesn't even require changing the Amendment. Those are very minor changes, and I can't believe that people would vote down the Amendment because it didn't have those things in there.

Besides that, out of the people voting in your poll, 30% have indicated they prefer a bicameral legislature in its current or an altered form, which spells trouble for any open assembly proposal if that holds true to the general population.

As far as I can tell, the only concrete changes that seem to have consensus have been to add an activity requirement and to add a whip position, which doesn't even require changing the Amendment. Those are very minor changes, and I can't believe that people would vote down the Amendment because it didn't have those things in there.

Besides that, out of the people voting in your poll, 30% have indicated they prefer a bicameral legislature in its current or an altered form, which spells trouble for any open assembly proposal if that holds true to the general population.

In minor changes can be found the most staggering and unexpected of impacts.

That said, sure, they're minor, but they're rectifying concerns people had with the Act as it stands currently. It was already at ratification, and for the most part it seemed like people would have more serious concerns when I first started the discussion thread. I'm not demeaning the concerns people have raised at all, but I thought to try and find a way of improving the idea of an Open Assembly by talking to those who didn't like it and asking for their input.

We got that input, it's just that so far no one has been able to come up with an effective way of addressing the security concerns.

Also, that poll represents a grand total of about 15 members, so you're bound to get Chanku or whoever it is who prefers bicameral voting. It's like, 4 votes? Or 3? Compared to 8 for the Act with suggested changes and 7 or 6 for the Act with no changes. Pretty small percentage.

Nonetheless, it only takes 34% against to fail a ratification, and it's not at all clear that the poll doesn't reflect the general population, seeing as that's still around half of people who have voted in this ratification so far.