[PROPOSAL] Voter Registration and Citizenship Rename

The Magisterium
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1

I am acting upon a poll in this:

in which a majority favored returning to the traditional Resident/Citizen naming convention.

Here is my Concordat amendment:

A transitory clause to supplement the Concordat, as was done here:

Here is my Citizenship Act to replace the Voter Registration Act:

Here is my Standing Orders of the Magisterium amendment:

Here is my amendment of the Public Official Disclosure Act:

Here is my Endorsement Caps Act amendment:

Here is my Delegate Elections Act rewrite:

This is a rewrite since adding BBCode for removing and adding each section indent would be exhaustingly useless. Actual changes to the text are highligted in green only for comparison purposes with the original text.

Here is my The Eastern Pacific Sovereign Army Act of 2021 amendment:

Here is my The Regional Officers Act amendment:

Here is my Regional Message Board Regulation Act, 2021 amendment:

And:

Here is my Punishment Justification Act amendment:

Functionally, the region will be unchanged. All this does is revert to more orthodox terminology everywhere at once.

1 Like
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My main issue with this is that it makes more sense to tie Residency to the individual rather than the nation in the region. That framework makes more sense since our laws tend to indirectly reference players and not nations, so it seems a bit disconnected to stick to the archaic definition of “nation” as compared to individual in Concordat Article E. Don’t really see why that was reverted when merely changing “Citizen” to “Resident” would’ve been fine.

I will also note though that your entire proposal has only three dots and none of the subclauses have six.

Otherwise I’m neutral on this

3

Changed.

My preference is three since six is difficult as it requires escaping each dot. The legislative template OP, which is what I am using and believe to be the current best way to structure legislation, still uses three.

4

made a note there

looks good otherwise

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I have no issues with this and intend to support it when it is brought to a vote.

6

i wonder if for the transition clause, we can just outright say that anyone who is a Registered Voter at present shall be considered a Citizen for the forseeable future unless/until they fail to meet citizenship requirements as stipulated by law? Since the requirements are the same and it’s just a name change - would prevent any accidental losses of “registeration” as it gets transferred back to citizenship.

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I’ve added a small sentence to achieve this effect at the end of the transitory clause.

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Note that this passing can make the Government’s job easier when it comes to the welcoming and integration of new players.

As Aurora stated in Discord, it’s much easier to have “hey wanna be a citizen” than “hey wanna be a registered voter”. New players aren’t always interested in voting or elections, but getting a fancy title they sure would.

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I say it’s more confusing if we change it again than if we keep it. I also think the name change we made was important in delineating how we considered residents. More than giving residents rights we want to acknowledge their place in the region through our culture and language. Citizen shows our respect and acknowledgement of them and their rights. Resident distinguishes them unfairly. Arbitrary lines, whereas Voter Registration and Citizenship are lines that make sense - Citizenship confers rights, Voter Registration confers privileges. The current terminology supports a culture where we accept and promote their place within the region. The proposed terminology supports a culture where we divide groups with arbitrary names that convey a sense of undue elitism. At least in my opinion. The name change was important in the residents’ rights drive because it signaled the shifting paradigm. I do not support this proposal for that reason, and I urge my fellow Magisters to consider this. Not to mention it will upend most of our laws and our current voter registration system by forcing us to change our approach the system yet again just for an aesthetic choice. Work that I will have to do, when I kinda really don’t want to ;-;. I’m kidding with that last bit, but my point stands.

10

Further to the disagreements already taken place in #government-plaza, I want to give additional reasons to disagree.

The naming change, I strongly feel, does not detract from the dignity of Residents. The preamble makes the distinction that the Residents establish the Concordat. All Residents would be granted the same rights and dignity of Citizens.

As far as I can see, the paradigm has already shifted. Resident no longer carries any stigma, nor will it unless we bungle the advertising of this new change.

The legislative changes should all be handled in this thread. I am certain I have done all the heavy lifting in this area. This doesn’t upend our laws. I have included all laws in need of amendments. If you check over them again, you will see that they don’t introduce any functional changes, only minor cosmetic ones. The handling of applications remains unchanged as well.

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I motion to vote.

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Seconded

13

Thirded

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Acknowledged.

Vote here: [OB-2023-39] Omnibus Bill - Voter Registration & Citizenship