CZ:Election July-August 2013/Referenda/2

Only the proposer of the referendum and Election Committee members may modify this page. Substantive modifications after the referendum has been formally proposed will invalidate it. Comments should be placed on the Talk page.

This page contains a proposed referendum question, the existing Charter article(s) or rule(s) which the proposer and any supporters of the referendum wish to change, and the proposed new text. A further section elaborates on the proposal.

Nomination and Election of the Managing Editor, July-August 2013

Proposed by the Management Council here (part 4)

A proposed referendum on part of the Charter follows. If it is voted on, Citizens can support or oppose the question by indicating 'Yes' or 'No'. Under Article 37, a two-thirds majority is required to modify the Charter.

Proposed referendum

The position of Managing Editor shall be elected through nomination of an unlimited number of candidates in good standing by the Citizendium community. Any Editor may stand for the position. All valid nominations that are accepted by their nominees shall appear on the ballot.

Elaboration

Problems

The current text of Article 26 of the Charter restricts the nomination process for Managing Editor by requiring the Management Council to control who appears on the ballot: up to four candidates only may appear. This is open to potential abuse, since valid accepted nominations can be rejected and the Council could allow only its own approved candidates through, because Council members are also Citizens who can make private nominations. In the event that only a single candidate were permitted to stand, it is also not clear whether an approval vote by the community which went against that person would block them from the office, since there is currently no explicit mechanism to deal with negative approval votes. (An 'approval vote' is one where voters are asked to indicate 'yes' or 'no' to one candidate, rather than choose between several.) The current election method is also inconsistent with how Council members are elected.

Proposed solution

For consistency and to prevent possible ballot manipulation, an unlimited number of valid, accepted nominees should be allowed to appear on the ballot, i.e. it should not be restricted to four.

Text

This referendum, if passed, would require a rewrite of part of the Charter. The following changes would be applied to the current Charter (i.e. this version).

Original text

Article 26 currently reads in full:

The Managing Editor shall be elected by a simple majority of the voting citizenry during the same election period as the Management Council. For this election, up to four candidates shall be selected by the Management Council, taken from a list of Editors nominated by the community.

Changes to existing wording

• In Article 26 of the current Charter, delete the words For this election, up to four candidates shall be selected by the Management Council, taken from a list of Editors nominated by the community and replace with Any Editor in good standing may be nominated for the position, and all valid, accepted nominations must appear on the ballot.

Other referenda

If one or more other Charter-modifying referenda are passed in the July-August 2013 special election, the changes to the Charter imposed by this referendum, if successful, shall be applied after Referendum 1. Wording changes imposed by other successful referenda may be modified only in the interests of overall readability and as long as new changes are not included.