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Councils are deliberative small groups composed of a representative mixture of different factions. They make decisions through consensus.
Councils do not exist until the group is in Size Regime Large.
There are two types of councils, base-level councils, and delegate councils.
Each council shall be composed of 7 people, such that there is one (possibly indirect) constituent of each of the P Delegate Boardmembers.
The base-level councils are composed of voters who are not delegates. The delegate councils are composed of delegates of the same level in the delegate pyramid. Boardmembers may not serve on councils. Other high officials may serve on councils.
People must voluntarily sign up before they are assigned to a council. If councils meet online, people may specify a requirement to be placed on a council that meets offline, although doing so may prevent them from being placed at all.
If unequal votes are used, then people are assigned to councils in a way that attemps to put people with similar voting strenghts together.
When signing up, each voter may specify how often he or she would like to go to council, and people with similar frequency preferences may be placed together.
Everyone who volunteers and who can be assigned must be. Due to the required compositon of councils, it is likely that not all people who apply to be on a council can be assigned. The choice of which people are and are not placed, and with whom, must be made randomly, without reference to any distinguishing information between individuals besides their delegate boardmember representative, whether they require an offline meeting, their frequency preference, and their voting strengh.
A council has the powers of a virtual person in the Forum. When there is consensus, a council may vote or place tokens in the Forum.
Unanimous consensus (the consent of all members of a council) is required for that council to take any action. The votes of base-level councils are private. For councils of intermediate layers of delegates, attached to each action must be a public list of signatures of each consenting member, along with the name of the delegate boardmember for which that member is a constituent. Council deliberations, however, are closed and private. By agreeing that the council may cast a vote (not a decision to spend a token), a member also votes their votes (and delegated votes) in the Forum on that issue in the same way that the council does.
The total voting strength of all councils is 1/3 of the Forum votes.
The total voting strength of all councils are first divided evenly among the levels of the delegation pyramid, including the voters, but not including the delegate board. For example, if there are voters, and delegates, and 2nd order delegates, and then the councils of voters (the base-level councils), the councils of delegates, and the councils of 2nd-order delegates are each allocated 1/3 of the council votes, which means 1/9 (1/3 of 1/3) of Forum votes. Next, for each level, these votes are evenly distributed amongst the councils at that level, if one-person-one-vote is used; or they are distributed in proportion to the summed voting strength of the members of each council, if member voting strengths are unequal.
Note that these votes are distributed to the councils whether or not they use them. For example, if, on some issue in the Forum, most councils do not reach unanimity, and hence do not cast a vote, then the sum voting strength of those councils that do vote will be much less than 1/3 of the Forum.
Voters are not officials or agents of the organization merely by their service in council. They are not said to have a close relationship with the organization or subjected to any of the restrictions or oversight requirements of officials.
No rules shall apply to voters acting in council that don't apply to them otherwise. They are not elgible for special scruity or intrusion like executive or legislative officials when in council or because they are members of a council.
A council may not schedule a session except by unanimous consent.
A member who misses a scheduled council session may opt to give their consent to whatever the others decide during that session. Any member who misses more than 3 council sessions without good cause (sickness, emergency, etc), and without giving consent to decide in their absence, is removed from that council, and replaced by someone else on the wait list (unless there is no one from the required (indirect) constituency who is waiting to be placed).
A person is ineligble to be a candidate delegate of a constituency, or an Elect Director, if they have not attended most sessions of a council in the past electoral cycle duration; unless, during that cycle duration: they applied to be in a council, with no offline restriction, but were not placed; or less than 7 people in their constituency currently meet this criterion; or they were a boardmember or delegate; or the council(s) they were placed on (cumulatively) had less than 7 sessions.
When one-person-one-vote is not being used, a minimum voting strength threshold for council participation may be set by a statutory act. This threshold is taken to be 0 by default, and may be raised by a measure with a 2/3 threshold for enactment. In no case may the minimum vote threshold for councils be raised so high that is would be projected to exclude a set of voters who hold 1/3 or more of the total votes. The threshold may be lowered by simple majority.
