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SFP PRESS NEWS FEED
Day 1169 of New World

Winners of "Reform the FEC" Contest


In our last issue, we announced a contest with cash prizes for ideas about reforming the FEC (Federal Elections Commission).

Four responses containing reform ideas were received, all of which are summarized and then reprinted in full below.


And the winners are...



Agreement on the Number One response was unanimous.
First prize of 8 gold is awarded to Rheinlander von Phalz.


The judges ended up in a tie for the which responses came in 2nd, 3rd and 4th, so the award for 2nd and 3rd place were split evenly, with 2 gold each awarded to:
* ssomo
* Samuel Seabury
* Bruce Sommer


Several people responded very briefly that the FEC should simply be done away with, a sentiment echoed in today's edition of Josh Whitehead's WWW;Newspaper, in an editorial title😛 Get Rid of FEC.

To those respondents, we awarded a one gold prize each:
* smily132
* jorgejorge97




The ideas put forward by the 4 main prize-winners are summarized briefly below, followed by the full text of their responses.


Quick Hit Summary





Rheinlander von Phalz reviewed the history of the institution and called for a restoration of the November 2009 FEC.

ssomo put forward the legal argument that the FEC has already been disbanded.

Sam Seabury suggested turning it into a clearinghouse for small party and independent candidates.

Bruce Sommer made a number pragmatic proposals for rules governing behavior of FEC-sponsored blockers.


Thanks and congratz to all who participated.

Let freedom ring!



Now, here in full are...


The Responses





Bruce Sommer



Follow some sensible rules


This only addresses one aspect of the problems with the FEC, listed FEC Blockers soliciting votes, but I thought it was a good place to start.

#1 - Require FEC Blockers to have Avatars on Election day that specifically advertise them as Blockers.

#2 - Do not permit FEC Blockers to solicit votes.


#3 - If an FEC Blocker refuses to abide by #1 or #2, the head of the FEC will ask that individual to resign, will publish the individual's name on an "Not recommended by the FEC for Blocking" list and will be prohibited from acting as an FEC Blocker in the future.

#4 - If the individual refuses to resign his position in Congress, his Senator designation will be removed from his eusaforums account, revoking any write access in the Congressional boards.

#5 - It would be important for the rules to apply to all violators in a consistent fashion. These days, if you are a legendary elite and violate the rules, it is okay as it is ultimately good for the eUSA. If you are a newfag, you get reamed




Samuel Seabury



Lend a helping hand


Turn the FEC into a clearing house for small parties and independent candidates to run for office, rather than to support the blocking tactics of the Top Five. This ought to encourage the Top Five to recruit and run their own candidates.




ssomo



It exists, but it doesn't.

My suggestion: Make Congress confirm that the FEC has lapsed.

Backgroun😛 Under a proposal passed last session by Congress, due to the loss of the eUS forum in early December, any prior Congressional action not either found (& republished) or re-authorized by Congress is null and void.

Seems to me that includes the appointment and setup of FEC, since it is claimed Congress first set up the FEC. No law was passed last session reauthorizing them or reappointing Rod as their head.

So technically, I think the FEC has already been abolished. If we care about things like forum failures, and Congressional action and inaction.




Rheinlander von Phalz




History and logic from the Sword of Azrael


My proposed way to restructure the FEC can be summarized as simply as “restore it to the November 2009 FEC.”

The Federal Elections Commission, which today has a chairman and is essentially a part of the executive branch, was not begun as a Presidential or even government initiative. The movement started gaining momentum in September 2009 when it was observed that some regions had only relatively weak Congressional candidates and others had at least two well-qualified candidates lined up. This was a problem even before the Invasion. In time for the October 2009 Congressional elections, the major political parties began behaving differently.

The major players, which did not yet use the name FEC, were Emmanuel Cruise and I of America’s Advancement Party, Devan Kronos of United States Workers Party, citizenslave of the Federalist Party, DanielCD of the Libertarian Party, and Cromstar and Evry of the Conservative Party. The purpose was simple – we would prevent two excellent candidates, both of whom should win, from running against each other. The way parties decided who their top candidates were was up to their democratically-elected party president or someone appointed on his behalf. This yielded some uncontested elections and made cross-party endorsements commonplace. It consisted of nothing more than a shared Google spreadsheet and communication between people who did not necessarily hate each other just because they affiliated with different parties. Some may accuse this old system of interfering in the democratic process to a degree equal to or greater than the current one, but we produced the best Congresses the country ever had.

That’s not to say that things started perfectly or that friction was removed altogether. United Independents Party, who had recently been relegated to sixth-place, was not included that month, and a few personal issues needed to be resolved. The name Federal Elections Commission was first applied to our group, which may or may not have been a cabal deciding elections in a dark IRC channel away from the public eye (we were actually pretty transparent if anyone cared to ask about us), in November. I believe citizenslave proposed the name, and the Federalist Party was like the chairman of the organization that month. That is to say that they started the sheet and gave the other parties access; the Libertarians did that the next month.

Things did get better for the most part, and the Christmas election in 2009 was pretty chill. There were still competitive races and democracy, but you wouldn’t find that in sydiot’s state or Cromstar’s state or ligtreb’s. Each party revealed well in advance who their serious candidates were (back then random people would still appear on the ballot, and occasionally win, but were not an organized PTO threat that demanded government action and universal blocker coverage) and where they would be running and generally conducted themselves honorably.

January 2010 came around and appeared to be a normal election until the most significant 30 minutes in eUnited States political history. An organized political take over of the country, which would last for a year and be the motivation for the FEC today, began. While some relatively unknown candidates led for most of the day, a couple by a wide margin, multiple overlooked people on the ballots gained leads with a half-hour left until rollover.

No one ever had to ask, “Is this guy a PTO?” There was no need to debate. All the information was contained right there in the shared FEC document, and it was freely available. We knew, for example, that in Alaska, Maxx Johnson was an endorsed candidate from America’s Advancement Party, and no other parties were putting forward candidates. When Zeddicus ZZ (who holds Hungarian citizenship today) suspiciously gained votes in concert with other suspicious candidates, all of whom had no contacts in the party they were running in and were not indicated on FEC, he was immediately identified as a PTO.

Every month after that, every region needed either candidates or blockers on all five tickets. The United States lost five seats of its Congress, and citizenship was granted to people who clearly wanted to overthrow the community – a political takeover by definition. The FEC went into gradual decline, or should I say evolution, to what it is today. The awesome people who initiated it moved on, and new politicos more interested in advancing their careers than the country made a platform out of not cooperating with FEC. It became a government-mandated function, rather than a party-led initiative, which is why the Jedi Council of a generation before failed.

Here are some principles a working FEC should live by:

1. FEC should be a voluntary association of the party leaderships to produce the strongest Congress for the country by identifying and coordinating approved candidates.

2. Each party should communicate the approved candidates it is running in a way visible to the other parties.

3. Blockers, provided by the party they are running under, another party, or a non-party entity (the military, the executive) must have an alibi with a trusted, individual contact associated with FEC.

4. Voters organized by the executive should be directed by the party leadership (such as when a candidate for party president is not a member of the party).

Candidates need to be identified and communicated well in advance of the election, because when they do national security threats stand out. Political parties need to take back the political landscape with their own organization and autonomy. The national culture, not a political appointee, needs to reward productive parties and candidates and scorn hurtful ones. Intervention, especially in Congress races, should be the exception, not business-as-usual.









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