Referendum: A complex experiment (Part 1)
Day 4,136, 23:36
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Published in Netherlands 
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by
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by Janty F
Greetings, citizens of Netherlands,
five days ago, I have decided to start a little experiment involving the power of "referendum". Due to the popular demand of certain individuals, who are trying to use this experiment as their way to frame Country President to be dictator (easier way would be to look at my profile, where I have several Dictatorship medals
😛), I now release the first update on this experiment, as it will be started soon by the Chairman of Congress.
Referendums in the current state are broken, they never worked, and never will work. Due to the limits of the game, the true referendums are only an utopia. That is sadly a fact, which some people refuse to acknowledge. Let's check Wikipedia for the basic definition of referendum.
A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is invited to vote on a particular proposal.
Long time ago, there was thing called "Forum". And two referendums were actually done on that Forum in the forgotten past. Some people are still reminiscent of them, and they would like to return to the long forgotten ways of Forums. However - referendums on any out-game platforms do not allow entire in-game electorate to vote. Players are not obliged to make accounts on Telegrams, Discords and Forums, so decisions requiring the entire in-game electorate should not be done in such places. That's why those two referendums were not really referendums in their true definition - they were just vote amongst Forum elite, but not amongst the electorate. The only way how to reach the entire in-game electorate is the game itself.
Thankfully, we now do things in-game, and thanks to the initiative of current Chairman of Congress, we are actually able to make referendums via means, which are accessible to all the electorate, just like Congress or President elections. However, we come to the second question, which I believe is badly answered here: When we can actually make a referendum? What issues are important enough for referendum? And how to make a referendum?
The Dutch solution? We can make referendums about everything, BUT it needs to be approved by Congress first. That to me sounds (well... dumb)... but also strange, as ultimately, Congress majority can simply lock the option of referendums away, whenever they are afraid the referendum would not end as they wish. And, what is even worse, referendums can be done about total banalities, which is also not great in my opinion, as referendum should be reserved only for the most serious occasions. Let's go through some of the proposals of the past, whether or not they are fit for referendums in my opinion.
- renting org - banal question, not worth of referendum
- changes of laws - depends - for Constitution, there should be referendum, for the rest, there should not be referendum
- Chairman of Congress elections - in theory, Law could allow to do referendum there... imagine the fun
- Motion of No Confidence - half of these are started simply out of spite and hatred towards certain individual, not related to their actual work. And since the impeachment Law itself is only reserved for Congress members, I would follow the in-game logic there.
- Training War or Real War - in theory yes, but it might contain sensitive informations, especially in the latter case
- Entry in alliance - heck yeah, but I doubt we need to do some changes there, as Orion is amazing
- whatever odan complains about this season - eh, can be solved with one comment on the Country Feed
So, now that I casually answered the question of: When it is worth to actually make referendums? I come to the other problem - a problem, which will sadly never be fully solved. The problem of referendums being threatened by high quorum, by freshly borned, ressurected or multi accounts, and by foreign influences.
The first problem is easy to solve - soon, we will learn, what percentage of population actually participates in referendums. I think we will be happy, if we reach 20%. The current quorum is 35%. However, low quorums also devalue the institution of referendum a bits, as minority of electorate decided about majority. Sadly though, unless the game changes their definition of "active citizen", not much can be done about it.
The second problem cannot be solved without breaking the definition of referendum I have written above. As sad as it sounds, even multi accounts are part of electorate (and we have seen that in last Congress elections). So is an account, who was just born during the referendum, or foreign citizen, who got accepted into the country during the referendum. Yet... it somehow feels wrong to me to allow them to vote. Hence why I propose some restrictions about length of citizenship and/or activity, just like we have in some of our government programs. Restrictions, which current referendum law does not even bother to mention. Possibly due to the fact the authors wanted to allow these manipulations? I hope not...
Oh, and 72 hour long period is also an interesting amount of time, which I am curious to observe... how many people will vote between hour 48 and 72? And how many of them will be non-active citizens, called from their graves to tip the result of the referendum? We will soon see
😉.
In the end, a message to all "defenders of referendum", who are boasting about democratic tools and about evil president trying to take them away: By my proposal itself, and by publishing this article, I have done more for institution of referendums than most of you. Instead of political propaganda or instead of turning my head away from the issue at hand, I have identified the problems of referendum, and I have asked Congress to allow a real referendum to show you directly some of these problems. Do I expect referendums to be removed? No, I expect they will survive. But they will survive in a form, which is unsustainable. And if nothing will be done, I simply have the option to repeat my proposal again... and again... and again... before the issue is fixed in one way or the other.
So I ask... do I need to fix referendums for you as well? Or are the "defenders of referendum" finally able to pick up the torch, and save the institution of referendum themselves? There is still plenty of time for these people to make a counter-proposal after the soon-to-be-started referendum about referendums ends
😉.
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Comments
First
o7
2nd
Running experiments on our citizens should be forbidden by the Law!
You have received the ''Community Media Project'' prize of 1 000 currency for your qualitative article - and if your article will be one of the best in the entire presidential term, you can expect another extra reward.
I have a habit of unnecessarily calling these
Maybe you could teach us a thing or two about them 😶 .
"Possibly due to the fact the authors wanted to allow these manipulations? "
you are one of the people that rewrote the laws recently.
with the old version of the law a referendum would have reached the turnout threshold.
and before you go oh but then people need to go to forum... irl for a referendum you also need to leave your house and put some actual work into voting on them.
Have I rewrote the referendum? Do not think so, else it would be gone 😛 .
And your Forum example transferred to RL would be something like this: "We have referendum. But only in this one building, and you need to have entry permit from Building Administration. Which is known to be biased."
Sounds like doing a referendum via article, and "put some actual work" by commenting YES/NO is actually a more democratic option. Unless IaW only wants democracy for Forum elites, that is 😉 .
So you are saying people never have to register for voting anywhere?
Well, if you cannot interpret written text, you might claim so.
have you ever voted irl? because doing that also requires work, making sure you have all the passes with you, otherwise you can't vote.
Oh dear odan, I am adult. Just as you, though only one of us behaves that way...
Also, RL voting is such a terrible work to do... I need to literally walk with my legs 300 meters, make a cross on the paper (sometimes even more crosses, what horror!), do not forget to put that paper in special envelope for secrecy, throw the envelope in one of the two gray bins, and walk 300 meters meters back. And say "Hello" to neighbours, who go as well. What a difficult procedure. Some countries even skip half of the procedure by letting people push a button on a screen, but we are thankfully not that lazy over here yet 🙂 ! Ah, democracy is soooooo hard...
(for IaW members - that is a sarcasm. Just in case you would not be able to interpret the text correctly 😉 )
''Having all passes with you / register for voting'' > Every Dutch citizen gets one automatically in the mail and it takes only that and identification to vote in a voting booth 5 minutes away. Bad and twisted comparison to somehow defend forum usage. This system we used would be similar to a RL system in which only the educated elite can vote after a lengthy registration procedure. We have representation in Parliament, no need to impose arbitrary limits on the general public as well 😃
@NoTie112
All citizens get pass in the mail? Like... all of them? All of them are invited to vote? And not only those, who are registered at IaWforum.nl and have account there confirmed by Geert Wilders?
From odan, I got the understanding, that your RL elections are much harder 😮 .
Might it not be an idea to abolish the idea of referendums in its entirety?
There will be a referendum on it soon 😛 .
Good to know Janty but a have a alternative (the sociaal contract of john locke)
Actually, does not sound bad, but Congress already can impeach President, and Presidents and Congress are usually not greatest allies 😃 .
o7