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Rules 2013a Proposed on 10/30/2013

1. RANKED VOTING ONLY: All voting and vote counting shall be in the form of ranked paper ballots only (and eballots when practical and verifiable). Consecutive numbers beginning with the #s 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. etc. must always be used when marking on (e)ballot of all alternative decisions or names.

Deviation from this rule will disqualify the ballot, and the ballot will be marked spoiled.
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2. NATIONAL PARLIAMENT, PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT: The US Parliament's elected national assembly shall consist of up to 1000 consecutively ranked names elected to "seats" for four year terms. The top vote-getter shall be elected as President and the second highest Vice President to four year terms and all other vote-getters as consecutively ranked names as back-ups.

The vote count of all the cast (e)ballots received shall be conducted annually on August 6th. Each name receiving 1/1001ths (or .0999%) plus one vote of the votes cast, is elected as one member of the parliament, or "MP". Once elected, the President and the Vice President at #1 and #2 serve as the leadership council for the eventual and ongoing formation of a ruling coalition, which is then empowered TO approve / modify a set of rules by which to operate for four years.

The role of the elected President and Vice President of the national USA Parliament is to LEAD AND ASSIST AND RANK all known US Senate candidates in every state on a ballot. The RANKINGS cast by the President and/or Vice President will be SET FORTH AS RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE ENTIRE PARLIAMENT / STATE PARLIAMENTS AS A TWO-MEMBER DISTRICT, where the two US Senate candidate elected BY STATE PARLIAMENTS are the ones receiving the highest number of ranked votes FROM THEIR STATE PARLIAMENT.
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3. US SENATE AND STATE CANDIDATES: The elected US Senate candidates will also coordinate with the USA Parliament's nationally elected President and Vice President during both the presidential and state elections from the date elected on or after August 6th, through the first Tuesday of November. In their state's partisan at-large candidate districts elections, additional teams of candidates will be elected at-large by ballots cast by all the ballot qualified partisan candidates themselves, within each state's at-large elections.

The USA Parliament's President and Vice President may improve or change their ranked ballots for one or more of the state US Senators at any time during their term, thus giving the actual team of U.S. Senate candidates' names, elected or unelected to state offices, a certain dynamic which can change according the President and Vice President's rankings.
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4. THE SAINTE-LAGUE PARLIAMENT SYSTEM for seat allocation in all multi-seat districts:

Divide the election's total number of votes by the number of seats. This is the 1st quota.

Divide this quota into each candidate's votes, and round off to the nearest whole number. That's that candidate's seat allocation.

If, due to rounding, this awards a number of seats different from the desired number of seats, then adjust the quota slightly up or down, till, when paragraph twp is carried out, it will award all seats.
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5. THE PARTY LEADER within the USP is a label for the highest ranked name, categorized under each party. Party leaders are responsible for the distribution of all ballots and rules to the members of their party/category and lists.
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6. CATEGORIZATION AND PARTY NAMES The first and most important criterion in determining the nominee's party/category is the nominee's most recently requested or declared party/category in US Parliament matters. The second most important criterion in determining the nominee's party/category is determined by the nominee's state's records, as written by the member while registering to vote. Appointed members may be categorized with any party/category that they wish, and the party/category of all members is considered to be the true one. Elected members may decide to change or switch their party/categorization at any time by proclamation. Members automatically qualify for the ballot in the next election cycle under the party/category of their choice.
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7. STATE AND COUNTY ELECTIONS: States and county subsidiary elections will be conducted in all the states, counties and territories of the US, by being organized into twelve POPULATION BALANCED districts with twelve population subsidiary districts, referred to as the super-states (states and groups of states) and the mini-states (counties and groups of counties). Counties are to be known as county micro-state parliaments except in counties which are already classified as mini-states. No existing state or county boundary lines drawn and recognized by the US Government will be breached by any boundaries drawn up to form the 12 super states, 144 mini states and county micro-state parliaments within the US Parliament's boundaries. All super-states and mini-states will have the same rules and dates as the national parliament until/unless new rules are approved by said elected bodies. Super-state election dates and cycles will fall on the even years between the national US Parliament/US Presidential Election cycles every four years and mini-state election dates and cycles will fall on odd numbered years, except for specially called elections such as the founding election which usually begins shortly after 100 self appointments are achieved. Elections may be organized more quickly before the 100 self-appointments level.
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8. Once ELECTED, ALL NOMINEES and write in names may vote as a member of national parliament (MP), member of super-state parliament (MSP), member of mini-state parliament (MMP) or member of county micro-state parliament (MCMP), to elect the three prime ministers, two secretaries OUT OF THOSE CANDIDATES WHO STEP FORWARD TO BE ELECTED, and ANY MODIFICATIONS TO THE RULES AS SUGGESTED BY MEMBERS OF THE PARLIAMENTS.
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9. US CITIZENS ONLY: All adult voters must either reside within the United States of America, or be a US citizen residing outside the US. Violation of this or any other rule will automatically disqualify a ballot.
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10. BALLOT VERIFICATION requires only a name of the voter or a witness when no name is used. IF THEY DO NOT GIVE THEIR NAME, THEN THE VOTE WILL BE NULL AND VOID.
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11. BALLOTS MUST be post-marked and received between April 20th and August 5th in the year's election. Any US resident, nominee and/or proxy may observe the counting of the ballots. Volunteer counters will conduct the vote counting. Choices marked on paper ballots are guaranteed to be confidential, yet openly viewed by all observers.
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12. PAPER BALLOTS will be made confidential to the highest level possible. Choices marked on "eballots" are posted for public view and are not bound by confidentiality under the behavior of officers of the Parliament.
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13. BALLOTS AND EBALLOTS: All US residents are eligible to vote in US Parliament Elections during the time between April 20th and August 5th. Such ballots may be retype set or altered to specifically identify their select nominees' correct name and party affiliation. All ballots released to public use by the USA Parliament's elected secretaries shall count as a legitimate ballot and shall be presumed to represent the correct and most current candidate name information.
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14. BALLOT: ORDER OF NOMINEES of all names in the parliament elections and subsidiary parliament elections will be determined by the results caused by the voters' ranking of the nominees on the previous election's ballots. This is known as the correct consecutive order of nominee.

Ties in order of new nominations for the ballot will be broken through alphabetizing the names.

New nominees will be placed on the ballot in the order that they were nominated and new names will fall below the higher ranked elected members and will be grouped within the group of similar party/category. The date of the original nomination may determine the placement in order on the ballot.

If an elected member switches party/categories at any time, then their name will be placed in the new party/category below all other nominees already listed.

The final order of the parties/categories on the final prepared ballot will be determined by the nominees' party name/category and the parties/categories will be listed on the ballot in alphabetical order.
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15. TIES: Ties will be broken by holding a runoff election only when called by one of the two national secretaries. In all other cases, all the names/items in a tie will be included in the results and will be in a new "tied" category, even if the size of the assembly or agenda list must be expanded beyond normal size set forth by these rules.
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16. SPACE FOR THREE OR MORE WRITE-IN choices must be provided on each and every ballot, in all elections.
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17. EBALLOTS are ballots cast via email. EBALLOTS must be emailed to vvc at allpartysystem dot com, a private email address used by the secretary and observers for receiving such eballots. No reply email will be sent to voters who cast eballots, unless the voter indicates that he/she wishes to be self appointed to the USPaliament, or when a question regarding verification is raised by a volunteer vote counter.

Volunteer vote counters may be added to the exploder email address vvc at allpartysystem dot com as a subscriber by sending the message "subscribe" to vvc at allpartysystem dot com.
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18. ONLY ONE SINGLE PARLIAMENTARY BALLOT, IS PERMITTED TO BE MARKED BY EACH U.S. RESIDENT: All U.S. residents, and U.S. citizens living abroad, may vote one time and only one time, during each US Parliament (USP) election cycle. In cases where a second ballot (or more) is cast, only the latter of the ballots will be counted, the former will be marked spoiled and regarded disqualified.
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19. ARCHIVES of all records of every ballot cast since the USP was founded on August 6th, 1995 when recognized by the US Federal Elections Commission, are to be kept as proof in the USP's archives.
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20. NOMINEES' STATEMENTS for the "USA Parliament Elections" must be post-marked and received before April 15th of each election cycle. Late statements shall be included when possible and may be placed on the All Party System or US Parliament's site.
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21. NOMINATIONS: Any resident of the United States of America living at home or abroad, may nominate up to 100 names for either member of parliament or for president or vice president. The full name of the nominees and nominators will be recorded, made public and will be available through the US Parliament's secretary's office. Nominations mailed through US Mail or email, must be postmarked and received between February 1st and March 31st in each election cycle. Pacific Standard Time (PST) shall apply in all time relevant cases, on all election matters. First and last names are preferred, however all names nominated will be permitted on the ballot as well as the party/category of the nominee. If party/category is not known, the label "[Info. Not Avail.]" will be used. A nominee's name (and thus identity) may appear on the ballot only once, so fusion voting is not allowed. Other than the "automatic nominations" (see next rule #22), all new nominees within each party /category will qualify for the ballot, to be ranked below all other names on the prepared ballot. The order of these names will be determined firstly based on the rankings of "nomination ballots", and secondly by chronological order of the dates that the nominee's name was received.
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22. AUTOMATIC NOMINATIONS OF ELECTED MEMBERS' NAMES IN 100 and 1000 MEMBER DISTRICTS: All elected names of all the 100 and 1000 member districts, plus the five executives, the full cabinet ministers and elected president and vice president, automatically qualify for the ballot in each of that district's election cycle.

The national parliament's ballot will always consist of the 1000 elected names and ballot qualified MPs, all aforementioned names outlined in the previous paragraph and in addition, all president and vice presidents from each of the 12 subsidiary super-state districts shall also be included on the ballot.
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23. RESIGNATIONS. When any elected member, executive or minister, stands down, resigns, retires, or dies - the transfer of the name for the office will be presented to the 2nd preferred choice on the same voters' marked ballots (STV) for that seat, as garnered by the votes for the voter's 2nd choice in each previous election.

When a candidate who has chosen to stand down then wishes to return to the position which they had departed, then they must first be re-affirmed by all the voters who had previously cast a vote for them by proving that the MP has indeed agreed to continue awarding the MPs vote/ ranking.
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24. NOMINATION SEASON DORMANCY: All votes of confidence and elections of executives or cabinet members shall pause during the nomination period from February 1st to March 31st during the Parliament's nomination period in election years.
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25. The USA Parliament will never hold any election in a single winner district where a single winner decision or name is elected.
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26. THE TRIPLE PRIME MINISTER/DUAL SECRETARY SYSTEM will be always used in the USA Parliament. The executive decisions will be made by the five (known as "the five executives"), in a majority rule vote of at least 3/5ths of the three prime ministers and two secretaries. Only three of the five executive members are needed to implement actions by the executive as a whole

The Sainte-Lague parliament seat distribution system will be the voting system used for election of the three prime ministers and the two secretaries as a three member district (three prime ministers) and as a two member district (two secretaries). The two districts combined are the elected five executives.

All executives and Cabinet Ministers must be live, real people and no avatars or anonymous names may be used by the elected executives other than their real names.
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27. VOTES OF CONFIDENCE for the Prime Ministers (also known as "Taoiseach"s), secretaries and/or rules, may be collected at any time, by any member of the US Parliament and in subsidiary parliaments.
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28. EXECUTIVE ELECTS THE SIXTY FULL CABINET MINISTERS: The US Parliament's national, super-state, mini-state and county micro-state parliament assemblies shall elect up to 60 unique Full Cabinet Ministers and up to 60 Deputy Cabinet Ministers. Each of the five executives agree to rank all names nominated by each of the other four executives, thus guaranteeing that each of the five executives elects 1/5th of the 60 cabinet ministers or eleven new nominees. The top sixty names elected as ministers with lower rankings shall be elected as deputy ministers, and all nominees ranked below a #120 ranking who are not elected shall be grouped as ministers awaiting higher rankings by executives. Once all sixty full ministries are elected, the executives shall take turns nominating new names to the cabinet, unless the PARLIAMENTARY GO-AHEAD is given, at which time all new nominees automatically receive all other four executives' #1 rankings.

All USA national Cabinet Ministers must be live, real people and no avatars or anonymous names may be used by the elected Cabinet Ministers. Only real names can be used and verification of the member's true name may be requested when such verifications are of interest to the five national executives because of violation of an approved rule.

THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE controls itself and recruits as many people as possible who will work in the Cabinet to run the efforts, elects the planks and run the parliament's efforts free from political conflict or bias. The executives do not control who gets elected to the general assembly.
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29. THE VOICE of the Parliament will be the president and vice president.
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30. PLANKS OF THE PLATFORM: The elected executives (AKA executive committee) shall elect a party platform with a series of "planks". The elected President and Vice President serve as an advisory council to the executive committee, and act as the voice of the parliament to suggest direction and changes to be made over time, and the executive committee is expected to respect their views and can as needed call for full parliamentary votes on specific planks as needed. The parliament's planks will be used as a guide and road map towards things to be accomplished once elected in governmental office by any given candidate and each plank shall be listed in consecutive order beginning with the #1. Only the planks that are ranked by all of the VOTING five elected executives (the three prime ministers and two secretaries) will be considered approved by the parliament under ranked choice voting and simple majority rule of the votes cast by the executives who choose to vote.

31. PERMANENCE. These Rules, intent, purpose and function, will not change once approved by majority vote by the elected members, or MPs, of the 9th USA Parliament. These rules shall apply to the 9th USA Parliament's Election and the subsidiary super-state, mini-state and county micro-state parliaments' elections, unless they are replaced by a bigger majority of voting members of parliament on or before 4/20/2016.
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32. NO PERSON MAY BE CENSORED, and no limits may be placed on free speech by/of any other person or nominee, including US Parliament's elected members and staff, at any time except when applying guidelines to party/category labels/names and parts of this rule which regulate antagonists.

NO HATE WORDS AS PARTY/CATEGORY NAME: Party/category's labels/names may not be used in such a way that slanders or libels names of any person or other party/categories or individuals. Those that refuse to comply by continuing to libel others through their choice of party name will be categorized as members of the Censored Party. Elected members using a name or pseudonym rather than their actual name, which libels, slanders or mimics (such as incorrect spellings), shall have their name censored and instead will be known only as Anonymous.

Members of any USA Parliament entity who antagonize others more than once use through the use of profanity, slander, insulting or offensive vulgar language, harassing or chauvinistic speech, terrorizing threats, including the threats of lawsuits against other members/vote counters or volunteers within the USA Parliament or those who use actual physical force or violence, may be permanently or temporarily removed by the full Minister in that Cabinet Ministry, by any of the five national executives of the USA Parliament or by the USA Parliament's web page maintainer.

Appeals of the name's removal action may be taken to the USA national Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service Minister where rules for such appeals will be written, voted upon and approved.

Should any financial compensation be asked for or awarded after an appeal had been heard and a ruling had been finalized by the USA national Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service Minister which is charged with recommending such financial compensation, then the case can be taken to the All Party System Co.'s USA Bureau's Ethics & Grievances Committee of Four where a determination of the exect amount can be made and executed.
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33. DUTIES OF THE TWO SECRETARIES shall include overseeing the communication link between members. The secretaries call for new elections when ties occur and help oversee convening and recessing of each parliament assembly.

The three Prime Ministers and the two Secretaries of the USA Parliament will serve as "founding executives" on the unity business entity names All Party System Co. which is established in order to report on debates, business and financial matters, vote counting and results of vote counting.

Contact the US Parliament via telephone (831) 383-1409 or the web site at http://www.usparliament.org for obtaining more information.
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34. The constitution: The US Parliament shall commit to following constitutional law, and works to restore constitutional law and limits on the government both nationally and in the states, and the executive committee is charged with setting forth votes concerning amendments to the present constitution to continually work to form a more perfect union. Any and all proposed amendments to be voted on and approved by all registered members of the US Parliament with a required majority vote are to be considered ratified.

Hence the US Parliament will do what the present Federal Government refuses to do, which is to lead on a constitutional basis, and restore the true principles of a representative government with constitutional limits.
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35. Donors: New seats will be made available in a donor section of the USA Parliament's members of national parliament. All donors who contribute money to the political entity USA Parliament of $25. or more will promptly and automatically become a "donor member of parliament (MP)".

Members of the donor category will be referred to as the Donor Members of Parliament, donor MPs, contributor MPs, dues-payers, donor members or "MPs" and they will be members with all voting rights.

Donor members may hold only one MP seat in the national USA Parliament.

The donor fee is a one-time membership fee of $25. or more until these rules change.

Single "Donor BoD" seats, which are the board of director (BoD) seats in the USA Parliament's Cabinet Ministries and political parties, may also be allotted to donors which are to be ranked according to donation level.

Donor MPs and BoD seats are not elected during regular election cycles of the parliament's elections yet they receive all same voting rights plus special privileges which apply to the donation level of which the donor has achieved.

Should the donor be elected to the free half of the parliament's national assembly, BoDs or other political entities, then their name is removed as Donor MP or BoD in that assembly/BoD/political party.

The numbers of seats for donor members shall never be more than the number of free elected members in the national assembly on any political party, BoD or other entity in the USA Parliament.

Once the numbers of members in the national parliament reach saturation point and no seats are available for donors, then new donors with the lowest donation level (or the chronologically newer or more recent membership in cases of ties) will automatically spill over to a lower geographical region.

Should a Donor MP/BoD/political entity who had been elected to a free seat, then be unelected and their name is no longer an elected free member, then their name will be automatically reinstated as a Donor MP, BoD or committee member.

Once the donation/contribution is received, the donors' funds will be deposited into a bank account which is controlled by the five national executives of the parliament; the three prime ministers and two secretaries.

The Treasury Ministry is where specific records and agreements are posted for the public. The Treasury Ministry will maintain all records for donors and other financial records such as revenue inflow, donor rankings, savings and expenditures.

All donor members shall have access to all financial records for the USA Parliament. Detailed information which isn't available on the Treasury Ministry's web page will be made available to donors when a request is made to the Treasury Minister.

The Treasury Minister of the USA Parliament will be accountable only to the five executives of the USA Parliament through a vote of confidence.
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