Herschel Yamamoto
Agent-Orange
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Posted - 2009.09.26 16:08:00 -
[32]
Originally by: Foolish Bob good point well made, but at the same time I'd counter with this - an MP is elected to represent his whole constituancy - even, and one could argue especially, those that did not vote for them. There's a point about voter participation here too with regards the ability of alliance power blocs to guarantee a seat at the table, but that diverts somewhat from the central issue, which is that if they are not properly representing us, then they're not doing their jobs. As individual members you can't get away from the point you made this is true, but this is why I explicitly framed the proposal in terms of the whole CSM. Collectively they are here for us. In terms of timing, I'd be happy for there to be longer limits if that was what was required, but I see no reason why start to finish the whole recall / re-election couldn't be completed within a month.
Incidentally most of your concerns (the goon problem et al.) are fixed by increasing voter participation, and in the absence of party political broadcasts before the 9 o'clock news letting more people know what the candidates stood for before the election, giving people a chance to recall once the candidates are in place would give people the feeling that they can make a difference in this process - even if all we're doing is electing an advisory board. Make the average Joe in his pod feel like he's part of this, and he'll be more likely to take an interest. Thus do we get something that actually works as opposed to infantile dribblings we're getting at the moment.
I take your point, but as much as representatives have an obligation to represent people who didn't vote for them, they're not on the council because of constituents who supported other candidates. They're on the Council because a sufficiently large number of people(~1000) decided that they liked them as a candidate, and wanted them to advance a particular agenda to CCP. For example, if 5% of players want a moddable UI, 95% don't, and the 5% had elected me to the CSM last term, I would be perfectly justified in ignoring the 95% and continuing to advance my principles, because that was the platform I ran on. The other eight could and would say I was crazy, but that wouldn't change my position, nor would it change my responsibility to advocate for it.
Ultimately, a recall vote is justified on the grounds that while the representative might have been supported by a plurality when the election happened, later developments destroyed that support, making them no longer a valid representative of the populace's opinions. With a voting system like the CSM's, how can you possibly tell when this had happened? There were about 30k votes cast, and Meissa won 9th place with 1132 votes. Can you envision any sort of petition system that could reliably tell you whether the 4% who voted for a given candidate had lost faith in that candidate's ability to represent their views, versus just having annoyed the other 96%? It'd be like saying that because you should be able to recall your own MP, you should also be able to recall somebody else's. Not to mention the procedural difficulties - you'd basically have to re-elect the entire Council from scratch to recall one member, or else the replacement will always be a Goon. I can't imagine canceling the whole CSM for a month, out of a six-month term, to maybe replace one member, is worth it at all.
As for voter turnout, we live in a world where half of all eligible voters choose not to cast a ballot for who will be the most powerful man in the world. Do you really think there's any circumstances whatsoever where we'll get high turnout for a player advisory council?
Originally by: Foolish Bob every member of the CSM could be my own personal love slave and I'd still want this.
If I had nine Eve players as love slaves, I'd probably be more likely to support recall.
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