Democracy

[Kaiser Ometeotl I]

Long pondered, now we ask. I know more options exist.

[Andreas the Wise]

I voted for "Let us open the Landsraad up to more citizens." By that I mean "more citizens than just Dukes, as long as those citizens are actually interested." I see little point in having citizens there who aren't interested; and lets face it, at any given time, there are a number of people not interested, except in the really controversial matters.

[Jacobus Loki]

I voted for "Leave it like it is."

My view of Shireroth is that it has always been fairly democratic, and that the absolute rule of the Kaiser was always with a "wink and a nod".

One Duke (or fill in the title) one vote is simple, and easy to administer. I'd let the subdivisions be as democratic or autocratic as they would like.

Landsraads tend to get sleepy, its the nature of MN legislatures everywhere. The Kaiser must retain the power to decree, but how that is might be restrained, I'm open.

[Gman Russell]

Everyone knows what I voted for. 'Nuff said.

[Harvey Steffke]

You know, in all big-pictureness, I wonder. When Nelaga was setting up a year and a half ago, we threw out a lot of ideas because we didn't want to be a Shireroth-clone. We didn't want to just to the same thing as Shireroth or any ol' nation was doing. I'm not honestly sure what we did all that differently, but the point is this: you don't want to be a Nelaga-clone.

Fact is, we're better at democracy than you'll ever be without ripping out nearly everything that Shireroth is. Other nations, like Nelaga, were designed and founded to be democracies. Shireroth has been a non-democracy for close to a decade and is similarly designed to be a non-democracy.

I don't think that it's the way to go. I think maybe I was wrong about a lot of things. I think maybe people never really wanted democracy in Shireroth at all; it was just me that did, and I'm kind of over it. Don't throw away a decade of building things up in another somewhat misguided attempt to be the best flavor of the month.

[Jonas]

No need to democratise. Like I said before: I preferred a system in which Kildare voted as one.

[Kaiser Ometeotl I]

So, people rather the 1 vote 1 subdivision system? I would like to at least open speech to all cits.

[Jacobus Loki]

Speech, sure, why not.

The peasants, er freeholders, lined up to read their petitions before the Lords of the Land......

Do away with the Front Gate?

[Shyriath]

If we wanted to avoid everyone having a vote, but still wanted a somewhat-more-democratic option, we could give each subdivision a number of votes equal to the number of inhabitants: proportional representation, in other words. Not quite as simple as one duke=one vote, but possibly not as cumbersome as letting everyone vote.

[Jonas]

Shyriath, you mean that every subdivision gets X number of votes to divide like they want it? I would like to propose, in such a case, that a subdivision is limited in the amount of people they can bring into the Landsraad (a maximum of 2 per Duchy for example who can actually vote and perhaps some merit votes to those who have done excellent work to Shireroth in general).

[Andreas the Wise]

Shyriath, you mean that every subdivision gets X number of votes to divide like they want it? I would like to propose, in such a case, that a subdivision is limited in the amount of people they can bring into the Landsraad (a maximum of 2 per Duchy for example who can actually vote and perhaps some merit votes to those who have done excellent work to Shireroth in general).

If we wanted to avoid everyone having a vote, but still wanted a somewhat-more-democratic option, we could give each subdivision a number of votes equal to the number of inhabitants: proportional representation, in other words. Not quite as simple as one duke=one vote, but possibly not as cumbersome as letting everyone vote.

No, Jonas, I think he's saying that we have just Dukes voting; but each Duke gets as many votes as they have citizens in their Duchy. So Kildare would get ~5 at the moment, whereas Greg would get 1 etc.

[Kaiser Ometeotl I]

A proportional vote based on population for the subdivision representatives to cast, might work.

[Jacobus Loki]

Worth considering

[Jonas]

No, Jonas, I think he's saying that we have just Dukes voting; but each Duke gets as many votes as they have citizens in their Duchy. So Kildare would get ~5 at the moment, whereas Greg would get 1 etc.

I'm not really in favour of it, that would give people the opportunity to invite inactive friends to join and to get more votes then they earn. And then I'm not even talking about the danger of getting one Duchy that overshadows the others.

[Kaiser Ometeotl I]

Maybe cap the number of votes a subdivision can get from citizens? Maybe at 5? Or make it No subdivision can have more then 5 votes over any other given active subdivision?

So if Yardistan has 1, Kildare has 6. That's fine. but Kildare would not be able to get 7 until Yardistan got 2.

[Jonas]

Aren't we making things pretty complicated this way? During the House system most of us didn't even know hom much votes we had, so I'm not sure this is a good idea.
Why should we become a democracy based on numbers? And why should it really matter: if a (con)federation is our goal, then most important matters are already in the hands of the local authorities.

[Kaiser Ometeotl I]

Then just give each subdivision a voting representative?