Home / Rules 38
Rules Proposed USA Parliament Rules (AKA rules #s 1-34)
Proposed Rules:
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.
* * *
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. Those who receive the top two vote count shall be elected as President and Vice President to four year terms.
The vote count of all the cast (e)ballots received shall be conducted annually on August 6th. Each name receiving 1/1001ths (or .999%) 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.
* * *
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 US
Senate candidates names, elected or unelected to state offices, a
certain dynamic which can change
according the President and Vice President's rankings.
* * *
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.
* * *
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.
* * *
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.
* * *
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
can be organized more quickly before the 100 self-appointments level.
* * *
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.
* * *
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.
* * *
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.
* * *
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.
* * *
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.
* * *
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.
* * *
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.
* * *
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.
* * *
16. SPACE FOR THREE OR MORE WRITE-IN choices must be provided on
each and every ballot, in all elections.
* * *
17. EBALLOTS are ballots cast via email. EBALLOTS must be emailed to vvc@usparliament.org, 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@usparliament.org as a subscriber
by sending the message "subscribe" to vvc@usparliament.org.
* * *
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.
* * *
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.
* * *
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.
* * *
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), only the top fifty ranked names of 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.
* * *
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.
* * *
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.
* * *
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 election year.
* * *
25. The USA Parliament will never hold any election in a single
winner district where a single winner decision or name is elected
per any single winner district.
* * *
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 (except the planks on the platform - see rule #29). Rule #3 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 must be live, real people and no avatars or anonymous
names may be used by the elected executives other than their real names.
* * *
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. The executive committee
of the US Parliament shall be by rules, elected for life based on their
commitment to the goals and efforts,
and can only be removed by stepping down or by being booted off the
executive committee by a unanimous vote of
no-confidence of the rest of the executive committee.
* * *
28. EXECUTIVE ELECTS THE SIXTY FULL CABINET MINISTERS: The US Parliament's national, super-state, mini-state and 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 duplicate ministries with lower ranked names 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 Cabinet Ministers must be live, real people and no avatars or anonymous names may be used by the elected Cabinet Ministers other than their real names.
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 runs the parliament's efforts
free from political conflict or bias.
The executives do not control who gets elected to the general assembly.
* * *
29. THE VOICE of the Parliament will be the president and vice president.
* * *
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 on or before 4/20/2016.
* * *
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 elected members and staff, at any time except when applying guidelines to party/category labels/names.
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 Anarchist 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.
* * *
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 elect the directors of the All Party System through ranked choice voting in waves where only one director is permitted to be elected by each executive per wave of voting.
Contact the US Parliament via telephone (415) 686-1996 or the web
site at http://www.usparliament.org
for obtaining more information.
* * *
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.
* * *