User:2011 Referendum

Voting for elections to the Management Council and for Referenda to amend the Charter begins on June 10, 2011 at 00:01 GMT and ends on JUNE 17, 2011 at 23:59 Pago-Pago, American Samoa, time (10:59 UTC, June 18).

The list of nominees for the Management Council election can be found here.

Voting in the Management Council election takes place here.

Referenda

At the time of this writing, four proposals to amend the Citizendium Charter have been submitted to the Citizenry by the Management Council, and one proposal has been submitted directly to this page by the Editorial Council. Each proposal will be decided by a referendum, in which all Citizens in good standing may vote between the times and dates specified above.

The five proposals are:

Proposal A

Modify the charter so sections three and four of Article 25 reads as follows:

Section Three: Elections
1. The candidates collecting the most votes shall be elected.
2. A Council member who becomes inactive or unavailable for a period of 90 days or more shall be replaced by election. A Council member who resigns shall be replaced by election.
3. A vacant council member seat shall be filled by election within 90 days of the vacancy. If a normal election does not fall within this period, the Management Council shall call a special election.
4. A special election is organized exactly as a regularly scheduled election, except the number of positions to be filled equals the number of Council vacancies.

Section Four: Council Size
1. Either Council may propose a change of its size by an even number of members; this proposal shall be subject to a referendum held together with the next election. If passed, the new seats shall be filled by special election.
2. A Council member may request a temporary leave of absence. Such leaves shall not exceed 120 days in a year. The temporary vacancy shall be filled with a citizen in good standing chosen by the Council. The term of this appointment shall equal the term of the temporary leave.
3. If, through resignations or simultaneous expiration of 90 day inactivity, Management Council membership falls below a quorum, seats on the Management Council shall be filled on a temporary basis by the following elected officials in the following order: Ombudsman, Managing Editor, then Members of Editorial Council in an order determined by the Editorial Council. The Management Council so constituted with temporary members shall be devoted to the task of establishing an elections committee for the purpose of holding an election.
4. If, through resignations or simultaneous expiration of 90 day inactivity, Editorial Council membership falls below a quorum, or upon the resignation of the Ombudsman or Managing Editor, the Management Council shall appoint an elections committee, giving it the task of filling empty seats via an election.

A discussion on Proposal A can be found by clicking here.

Proposal B

Modify Article 39 to read:

1. The role of the Ombudsman is a) to offer guidance on existing policy and its interpretation to help resolve disputes b) to advise the Councils and c) settle disputes, including imposing interim solutions pending relevant policy decisions. Throughout, the Ombudsman's guidance is expected to be in accord with the established principles and policies of Citizendium, and particularly with the Charter. The Ombudsman is available to mediate any dispute.
2. The Ombudsman mediates a dispute when requested by all involved parties or when requested by the Chief Constable. Agreements worked out through mediation shall be binding but may be appealed.

A discussion on Proposal B can be found by clicking here.

Proposal C

Modify the charter to replace the text indicated:

Article 29, Paragraph 2, shall be replaced with "No Citizen may serve in two elected offices at the same time, except that a Citizen may sit on an appeals board while holding another office."

Article 30, introductory clause shall be replaced with "Elections and referenda shall be organized by the Management Council and carried out by the Election Committee, with the following conditions:"

Article 34, new paragraph shall be added: "11. The number of Management Council members who are also members of a particular team managed by the Council may not equal or exceed a quorum. For example, the number of Management Council members who are Constables may not equal or exceed a quorum. The number of Management Council members who are Technical Staff members may not equal or exceed a quorum."

Article 38, new paragraph shall be added:

5. Any Constable serving on the Management Council is not eligible to vote on an appeal of a Constable action. If the number of Council members is reduced below a quorum by this restriction, then the Council shall appoint a citizen in good standing, whose only duty is to hear the appeal and vote on it."

A discussion on Proposal C can be found by clicking here.

Proposal D

Add to Article 29:

3. Any member of the Management Council or Editorial Council may resign at any time for any reason. The resignation may be made publicly or privately to the Councils. The resignation becomes effective the moment that the Chair of the Management Council or the Secretary of the Editorial Council accepts the resignation and announces the acceptance of the resignation in the official Council Forums. The moment that a resignation is formalized in that manner, that office is thereby vacant and must be filled according to the Charter.

A discussion on Proposal D can be found by clicking here.

Proposal E

Article 8 of the Charter shall be replaced by the following text:

Article 8: 1. Each Citizen is assigned a User space and user Talk space bearing his Citizendium user name.

• These pages are subject to the same copyright license as all other pages contributed to the project,
• their history shall be preserved and thus they shall not be deleted, but
• they are not released to be indexed by search engines.

2. Citizens may—within the limits set by the Management Council—freely edit pages in their user space as long as

• it contains the minimum of biographical information required by the Editorial Council, and
• the information needed for administrative purposes,

but inflammatory, derogatory, or illegal material shall be removed by the Constabulary.

3. User Talk pages shall be open to communications by other Citizens, but may be moderated by their owner.

• However, discussions of general interest that are not welcomed by the owner must not be blanked, but may be moved to a more suitable place.

4. A Citizen who wishes to retire from the Citizendium (whether for a period of time or forever)

• may replace his User page and his user Talk page by a page carrying only a notice of his withdrawal, except that
• Editors must retain the minimum information required by the Editorial Council.
• Exceptionally, a User page may be deleted rather than simply blanked on request if the Citizen has never been active on the project.

Instructions for voting in the Referenda

Do not vote until the voting period begins on June 10, 2011.

In order to vote:

1. Go to the E-mail this user page.
2. In the message box, type in the title of any of the proposals you wish to vote on - one on each line - and next to each proposal, type "Yes" or "No". For example:
   • Proposal W Yes
   • Proposal Y No
   • Proposal Z Yes

   NOTE: You may vote for or against as many proposals as you wish, but you need not cast a vote for or against all proposals. In the example above, no vote has been cast for Proposal X.

3. Click on the Send button at the bottom.

And that's it -- you have just cast your secret ballot!

Counting of votes in the Referenda

The total number of votes validly cast for a particular referendum shall be used to calculate both a majority (affirmative votes equalling or exceeding one half of that total) and a qualified majority (affirmative votes equalling or exceeding two thirds of that total).

All referenda shall be considered as independent questions and only the total number of votes validly cast for a specific referendum shall be used when calculating a majority or qualified majority for it.