![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Popular Ratification: Resolving Conflicts
Mar. 25th, 2024 03:49 amWhile I'd originally planned on submitting Version 2 of Popular Ratification today, I've been persuaded by a couple of people that there is a potential problem that is worth adding more words to the proposal to handle: what happens if Constitutional amendments conflict with each other.
Although it's bad practice, the Business Meeting has been known to give first passage to proposals that conflict with each other, kicking the final decision on which version to adopt to the second year's Meeting. The resolution I propose is that if conflicting amendments pass the Business Meeting, only the one that gets the most votes in favor is ratified.
While thinking of that, I realized that while it's highly unlikely, it is possible for multiple amendments to tie for the most number of votes in favor. Rather than deadlock the ratification process entirely, I threw the final decision back to the Business Meeting of the Worldcon conducting the ratification election. The second-year meeting, if faced with a tie at the Site Selection Business Meeting, could pick from among the conflicting proposals, but could not reject them and could not amend them. This is similar to how the Site Selection Business Meeting also can decide the results of Site Selection if None of the Above or no eligible bid wins, and you could consider it as the meeting having "reserve powers" to be exercised when all of the ordinary processes fail.
I think we'll need to keep the discussion open for another week. If you are one of the people who agreed to co-sponsor the amendment and want to withdraw your sponsorship, let me know.
Although it's bad practice, the Business Meeting has been known to give first passage to proposals that conflict with each other, kicking the final decision on which version to adopt to the second year's Meeting. The resolution I propose is that if conflicting amendments pass the Business Meeting, only the one that gets the most votes in favor is ratified.
While thinking of that, I realized that while it's highly unlikely, it is possible for multiple amendments to tie for the most number of votes in favor. Rather than deadlock the ratification process entirely, I threw the final decision back to the Business Meeting of the Worldcon conducting the ratification election. The second-year meeting, if faced with a tie at the Site Selection Business Meeting, could pick from among the conflicting proposals, but could not reject them and could not amend them. This is similar to how the Site Selection Business Meeting also can decide the results of Site Selection if None of the Above or no eligible bid wins, and you could consider it as the meeting having "reserve powers" to be exercised when all of the ordinary processes fail.
I think we'll need to keep the discussion open for another week. If you are one of the people who agreed to co-sponsor the amendment and want to withdraw your sponsorship, let me know.
