[eNL] Referendum
Day 4,137, 11:59
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Published in Netherlands 
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by
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by UNL Congress
Greetings, citizens of Netherlands,
Congress decided to organize a referendum, to ask the opinion of eNetherlands.
Topic: The removal of referendums
Requester: Janty F
Proposal: Do you agree on removing referendums from the Lawbook (by removal of Chapter II, Article 10, and any other sections of law referencing to aforementioned Article)?
Relevant debate and vote: https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-congress-the-removal-of-referendums-2692760/1/20
You can respond by commenting Yes, No or Neutral in the comments of this article.
Only entries of people with eNetherlands citizenship and who are older than 2 days (based on the starting of the referendum) are counted.
You can vote until day 4,140 12:00 erep time.
Based on the 187 active citizens, we need at least 65 votes to make this referendum valid.
ElGorro
Chairman of Congress
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Yes
Yes
Yes
NO
Yes
Yes, but only if we introduce the social contract as an alternative in our country.
Does this one count as invalid or no? 😛
If this works like in Congress, it does. I have seen longer votes to be accepted 😃 .
Its clear enough to count.
It does? It seems to me that it'd be a no because the alternative is a seperate debate and therefore not inherently introduced upon passing.
so that would be a no from koning der zeeuwe. since even if i agreed with that social contract alternative it would never be implemented before the end of the referendum.
‘The Chairman of Congress is responsible for administrating referendums’
Dont need your help, odan
Indeed it is a NO but for now!
Why is this vote not sent out by PM like congress votes?
You're so hot n cold. I thought you didn't like PMs and now our beloved Monkey-CoC is appeasing you. No but really, how are people to vote reliably if not in public articles? It has always been the intention of in-game referendums to be held this way 😛
Forum referendums were always published both as an article in-game and as forum PM to all registered citizens, afaik.
This article being buried among other articles might not be a great success to get a high number of votes...
Is that a reference to your previous avatars?
If any active citizen has been unable to notice the topic of referendum, he must be living under the rock. The amount of articles, shouts and messages I have seen on the topic is frankly excessive.
https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-congress-the-removal-of-referendums-2692760
https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/iron-wine--2693093/1/20
https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/referendum-a-complex-experiment-part-1--2693108/1/20
https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/het-beste-alternatief-voor-het-referendum-het-sociale-contract--2693146/1/20
https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-enl-referendum1-2693158/1/20
https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-rel-the-revolutionary-1-2693174/1/20
https://prnt.sc/n0zlz1
To quote what odan once said to me, when I was wondering, why I did not get access to Congress automatically: "You are adult, we cannot hold your hand and do everything for you."
@Janty F: And how visible do you think these are for numbered citizens? The main reason why the number of active citizens is much bigger than the number of people participating in elections are these numbered citizens who only play in the app. Since they are included for the quorum, shouldn't somebody attempt to contact them in a way that they will notice? PMs would be such a mechanism, and they can reach articles from the app, if they go through the menus...
However, they probably will be in favour of leaving referendums in our laws, as that is the one way they can participate in politics (or is voting and running for CM possible from the app?)
Well, I would be surprised, if numbered citizens knew we had Law in the first place.
Either way, never tried app, and never will, so not sure about its limits.
@Janty F: Of course numbered citizens don't know our eNL laws. They probably also don't know about our government's programs etc. As such, the old system of forum referendums with a quorum related to forum-registered players made more sense to me. But that was also before the app, so those numbered citizens were not a problem for the quorum already.
With the shift to doing everything in-game, it is obvious why the number of citizens for the quorum was changed to be our in-game active citizens. However, that indeed makes it hard to reach the quorum, due to the existence of these barely active accounts.
To me, that is the best argument to remove the referendum. However, in my opinion it would be way better to change the quorum to be 60% of the people voting in the last congress elections, which guarantees that the quorum is attainable, and still a reasonable fraction of our population.
@djirstdew - Weekstrom has proposed similar metric for quorum, albeit a bit more... reliable against sudden election spikes (taking data from 3 months, instead of one). If the referendums are supposed to survive, I hope the data from this one (which I plan to process in separate article) will help to figure out the right percentage for quorum, which will be done by this method of establishing the number of active citizens from number of voters during elections.
It's not the only problem, of course, but indeed the most obvious one.
No
NO
no
Yes
(You might want to read this before reading further: https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/paasversiering-2693154/1/20)
If the members of the office of Actua Contra had known what the plan would be about how Telg(Scion) would decorate the office they wouldn't have agreed to let him do it. But the other members DIDN'T know the plan. And because they didn't know the plan, they became angry at him when they entered the office the next day. That was the moment where they demanded they should have had a say in the plan. They demanded a referendum should have taken place. But Scion(telg) did offered a chance to create a plan with him. Nobody took that chance.
so
People mostly need a referendum IF the people in charge haven't made their plan very clear before they get elected in power.
thus..
Where does an eNetherland citizen find the party programs of all the political parties. If a citizen cannot read the party programs long before an election takes place then a country needs a referendum system.
If citizens CAN read all party programs long before an election takes place, then you don't need a referendum. You have selected people in office to do the governing for you.
Please provide me with a link to your party program.. especially if you are a member of a party and are about to vote against referendums.
thank you..
Party Programs are not truly a thing any more. For good reason, because every party would basically say the same.. I'd favour more to read specific articles by Party Officials that give a more realistic view. And comments on other articles. Although some are more active than others. You will get to know the parties over time that way For example:
DemNL:
https://www.erepublik.com/en/main/newspaper/shawty-s-perspective-304779/1
ReL:
https://www.erepublik.com/en/main/newspaper/breakthrough-253244/1
I&W:
https://www.erepublik.com/en/main/newspaper/free-press-association-250428/1
GPN:
https://www.erepublik.com/en/main/newspaper/bangladeske-263689/1
VN:
https://www.erepublik.com/en/main/newspaper/weekstrom-s-thoughts-291672/1
Of course you have very ''general outlines'' some have tried to compile like:
https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/congress-elections-pitches-from-your-political-parties-2680450/1/20
Neutral
No.
As explained under the debate article.
No
no
no
No.
Current turnout on the referendum is around 8%, where 35% is needed. Dont forget to vote!
As Chairman I also wish the people who are responsible for starting this procedure will be mature enough to treat this procedure seriously. Democracy is not a joke.
Neutral, it seems like a pointless intstrument. Neither keeping it in place nor removing it will change the existential crisis of the eNL.
No
No
No
It looks like we became prisoners of our own laws
For a rather lengthy time sadly. I'd say 7 years or more at least. But things are improving according to most. That's been tried several times but the current successful movement started about a year ago. Still not completely there but much better already. Well at least according to the ones that really play eRep and want a prospering and active community.
No
Neutral
No
no
So, 20 minutes before the ending perio😛
PROs of referendum:
- In terms of VN metric, half of population voted, so not that bad - this metric clearly works for quorums
- Out of all people voting, more than 1/3 of them were regular citizens without political position in Congress or government.
CONTRAs of referendum:
- Total amount of voters lesser than the actual number of Congress members.
- Total amount of voters almost equal to number of Cogress members, who voted on declaration of referendum.
- In terms of regular metric, only 12-13% turnout.
- Unnecessarily long voting period, as 3/4 of people voted during first 24 hours.
- Only members of parties with Congress representation voted. No non-affiliates or members of groups without access to Congress.
- Referendums can be used for stalling tactics to delay decisions, both relevant or minor.
Sadly, the CONTRAs outweight the PROs, so my vote is:
YES
An article with statistics will follow later - if anyone is willing to "reform referendums" despite their irrelevance, he can use those statistics to make his proposal good and fair.
Still a disgrace for DemNL how you did this.
If anyone failed at the referendum, it was ReL. For all the revolutionary talk, you managed to get entirety of 4 members to vote. Seems the revolution is going stale 😉 .
Yeah right o/
Referendum closed. Outcome not relevant as we had not enough people voting.