proj-branchDemocracy-theLongVersion

Note: a summary of this document may be found at The Short Version.

Note: this document is only a summary of the bylaws -- for clarification or in case of dispute, the actual bylaws, not this document, take precedence.

Temporary note: actually the previous is not yet true: in case i get hit by a bus, this version was written later than the bylaws and other overviews and is meant to replace them, but i havent gotten around to modifying them yet. Also, this "short version" turned into a long version because i added a bunch of details about the upcoming changes.

todo: write a TOC here

The Branch Democracy Rules are a set of procedures to allow a group of people to make collective decisions, elect officers, and resolve disputes.

Benefits of the system:

These rules can be used for groups of any size. For very small groups, note that if we say, for example, that there are seven members on the Board, three Judges, and three Chairpeople, this doesn't mean that 11 people are required; for example, a single person could hold two Board seats and also all three Chair positions and all three Judge positions.

Positions created by the system include:

A proposal that passes in the Forum or the Board is called a "Resolution". A Resolution that is not vetoed, or which overcomes the veto, is called an "Act". An Act is considered to be a valid collective decision of the group.

Forum

The Forum is a public bulletin board. Any voter can create a proposal for the Forum. Voters are encouraged to air their proposals informally before posting. Before being posted, each proposal is vetted by Juror Committee and, if relevant, a Standing Committee (see below).

When enough (see Voting Thresholds, below) people have voted 'yes' to a proposal, it passes. Or, when enough people have voted 'no' to a proposal, it fails. A proposal also fails if it has been sitting around for one week without passing. Except in special cases, a proposal cannot pass or fail until it has been standing for at least a week.

Anyone can also propose an 'Alternative' to an existing proposal. The group uses Score Voting (see How Score Voting Works, below), to choose between Alternatives, and then has a final yes/no vote on the winning Alternative.

If there are a lot of proposals, then there is a continually running reweighted score voting pre-vote to determine the 'top three' proposals "on the Floor" (e.g. under consideration) at any one time. Only these top three are then voted on.

Voters can 'proxy' their vote to another voter. This allows their proxy to vote for them. Proxies can themselves be re-proxied, e.g. Alice can proxy her vote to Bob who can proxy both his vote and Alice's proxy to Caroline. Proxies can be taken back at any time before a vote. Proxies are given per topical area (see Topical Areas, below).

Voters can post comments under proposals.

If the proper infrastructure exists to make this feasible, comments can themselves be voted on using Score Voting, and are ranked, to allow other voters to choose to read only the most important comments.

Committees

The function of the Committees is to filter and to improve proposals before they reach the Forum Floor.

A Committee examines the proposal and may make suggestions to the proposer to improve it. The Committee may take four possible actions with respect to a proposal: the Committee can reject a proposal, or send the proposal on to the Forum Floor, or add an Alternative to the proposal, or add a Report to the proposal. All actions are by >=75%. The Committee has one week to consider each proposal. If they take no action after one week, the proposer can remove the proposal from Committee and send it to the Forum Floor (although they can also choose to leave it in Committee for longer so as to further improve it).

Each proposal is examined by a Juror Committee in the relevant topical area before reaching the floor. A Juror Committee is composed like a Court (see below); it is randomly selected anew for each proposal from the pool of jurors eligible for the highest appeals level in that topical area so as to satisfy the board-coloring rule (see below). Each Juror Committee is assigned three judges, who also vote.

If the voters wish, they can create one or more Standing Committees (see below) by passing a resolution to that effect in the Forum. A Standing Committee may be created for each topical area. At the time of creation, a Standing Committee is elected within the Forum (e.g. with the usage of proxied votes) using Score Voting. Once selected, the Standing Committe stays the way it is until the Forum passes a resolution to reconstitute it (at which time there is a new election for that committee), or to disband it. If there is a relevant Standing Committee in place, the top five proposals to the Forum (according to the pre-vote) are placed before the Standing Committee as a second filter before reaching the Floor. Standing committees function in addition to, not instead of, Juror Committees.

By majority vote, any proposal on the Forum Floor may also be Referred to Committee. There are two forms of Refer to Committee; in one form, the proposal is sent back to the Standing Committee for the relevant topic, but with more time given to consider the proposal and create Alternatives and/or a Report. In another form, a Special Committee is created just for this proposal; an election is held immediately to constitute the Special Committee. A Refer to Committee motion always specifies a time limit for the committee; if this time limit passes, the proposal returns to the Forum Floor. A Committee considering a Referred Proposal may not reject it, but may only take the other three actions (add an Alternative, add or modify a Report, send it back to the Floor).

Definitions

"rules": Any written rules that actively govern the organization, including the organization's Declaration or Articles or Charter or similar document establishing the organization's purpose, if it has one, these Bylaws, the Acts, any Ratified Contracts, any Judicial Procedures, and any Regulations.

"rights": In this document, "rights" refers only to procedural rights or to negative rights, not to positive substantive rights. For example, a proposal to provide health care to all members would not, in the language of this document, be referred to as a "right to health care," and could not be passed via Found Rights, nor would a proposal to stop providing this be subject to the higher voting threshold to restrict rights.

"unanimity": in this document, unless explicitly specified otherwise, unanimity means after removing abstainers, e.g. if one or more voters abstain, but everyone who does vote votes for the resolution, then the decision is unanimous

Voting Thresholds

There are different voting thresholds depending on the type of measure.

A veto (see below) requires greater than 50%.

A measure to deficit spend (or borrow money), increase member dues, or to restrict the rights of the members requires at least 63%. A measure to decrease spending or to decrease the power of the organization with respect to the members requires greater than 50%. An ordinary measure requires at least 60%.

A measure to Ratify a contract with another entity requires at least 2/3s. A measure to expand the franchise (that is, the set of voters) requires at least 2/3s. A measure to expel a voter after they have been convicted in a trial of an expulsive offense requires at least 2/3s. A measure to make a Temporary Exception to the Bylaws requires at least 2/3s. A measure to amend the Bylaws is special, see below.

TODO: mb change to 2/3s and 3/4s for the Board, so that the ordinary measures are really a supermajority

No cost to vote

No cost, fee or penalty, either direct or indirect (such as increased chance of jury duty), which may discourage eligible members from voting, shall be attached to voting.

How Score Voting Works

Each voter submits a ballot which, for each candidate, indicates a score of either 0, 1, or 2 (0 is the default, used if they don't express anything for some candidate).

Each ballot is given an initial "weight" of 1.

Repeat the following P times, where P is the number of winners to be chosen:

1. The weighted scores on the ballots are summed for each candidate, thus obtaining that candidate's total score.

2. The candidate with the highest total score (who has not already won), is declared a winner.

3a. For single-seat elections where there is an incumbent, or for votes on issues in which there is a 'no action' choice (which we treat as a virtual 'incumbent'): if the winner is other than the incumbent, hold a runoff between the winner and the incumbent (note that you may not simply reuse the vote counts from the initial voting, you must actually hold a runoff, unless of course the incumbent and the winner were the only two candidates in the first round). In order to unseat the incumbent, the challenger must get >=60% of the vote.

3b. For multiseat elections: When a voter "gets her way" in the sense that a candidate she rated highly wins, her ballot weight is reduced so that she has less influence on later choices of winners. To accomplish that, each ballot is given a new weight = 1/(1+SUM/2), where SUM is the sum of the scores that ballot gives to the winners-so-far (if one person won multiple seats, they contribute multiple times to SUM).

In case of a tie in a single-seat election, the incumbent wins, unless the incumbent is not one of the tied candidates, in which case the incumbent chooses which of the tied candidates become the successor. In case of a tie in a multiseat election for the last seat, the incumbent wins, unless none or more than one of the tied candidates in an incumbent; if more than one, then the chair choose among the tied incumbents, if none, then the chairs choose among the tied candidates.

In multiseat elections, in some cases the bylaws may specify that each candidate may only hold one seat. In such cases, in 3b, candidates which have already won a seat are removed from future consideration. Otherwise, they stay active.

(note: some of the wording in this section is taken from http://www.rangevoting.org/RRV.html ; note that in this document, the term 'score voting' in a multiseat context means what is sometimes termed 'reweighted score voting')

Electoral cycle time

The electoral cycle time is 4 years.

Chairs are elected for a fixed term of the electoral cycle time.

Delegates can face a recall election at any time, and in addition face an election whenever the time since their last election (including recall elections) exceeds the electoral cycle time.

A new budget must be proposed by the CEOi whenever the time since the least budget proposal, which did not end in a veto by the CEOi, exceeds the electoral cycle time.

Secret ballots

In the Forum, a hybrid public/secret ballot system is used to deter vote buying. Give each person two ballots: a secret ballot and a public ballot.

Everyone can see which way they vote their public ballot. If they hold proxies from others, the proxies' secret ballots follow their secret ballot and the proxies' public ballots follow their public ballot. The originators of the proxies don't ever find out which way their secret ballots were cast.

To tally the vote, for each candidate, you sum the secret ballots for that candidate, then you sum the public ballots for that candidate, then you multiply these two sums together, then you take the square root.

Topical Areas

The Topical Areas are used to allow Committees and Courts to specialize, and to allow proxy votes to be delegated per-topic.

Initially, the Topical Areas are:

This list can be changed via an ordinary Act.

Board

The Board is composed of seven Delegates.

Each Delegate represents a Constituency, which is a group of voters who have chosen to come together and select their own Delegate. Any group of members may join together to form a new Constituency; the organization may not constrain the formation of new Constituencies, or the joining or leaving of members from Constituencies. Some or all members of a Constituency might themselves be Delegates, re-delegating the votes that they themselves were delegated.

Constituencies have a limit on the number of members whose votes they can make use of. The more votes the Constituency is making use of, the less members it is allowed to make use of. This is because the individual members of smaller Constituencies have more power to hold their Delegate accountable, so we insist that Delegates who are being given a lot of power (votes) have small constituencies. This is intended to encourage chained delegation, forming a pyramid with larger constituencies at the bottom of the pyramid (which have many members), who in turn delegate their votes to smaller constituencies at the top of the pyramid (which, by virtue of their re-delegated votes, have more votes, but fewer members); contrast this system to the alternative of allowing massively popular Delegates to escape accountability by having very large consistencies. If a Constituency has more members than its limit, only some of the members, those with the most votes to give, are counted towards the Constituency's total. The formula for the member number limit is constituency_member_limit = 7^((1 + sqrt(1 + 8*(log(electorate_size/constituency_votes)/log(7))))/2), where electorate_size is the total number of voters in the organization, and constituency_votes is the total number of votes controlled by this constituency (see [1] if you are interested in why this formula was chosen).

Since the member number limit itself depends on the number of votes, here is the procedure for determining the number of votes controlled by a Constituency ('constituency_votes') (if this procedure is too much trouble, then a Constituency may claim however many votes it chooses, provided it can justify this number by exhibiting a set of members whose summed votes are greater than or equal to the claimed number, and whose size is less than constituency_member_limit using the formula given above; such a number will always be less than or equal to the number produced by the following procedure). Sort the members of the Constituency by how many votes each member controls. Then traverse the member list in order from most votes to least; as you visit each item on this list, add the corresponding number of votes to constituency_votes. At each item, also calculate constituency_member_limit using the formula given above. If constituency_member_limit ever falls below the number of members visited so far, stop, and subtract the votes corresponding to the last member from the total. Otherwise, continue until you have visited each member's entry on the list. After following this procedure, constituency_votes is the number of votes controlled by this Constituency's Delegate.

The Delegates of the seven Constituencies with the most votes are on the Board (in case of a tie, those Delegates participating in the tie alternate).

Each Constituency selects their Delegate by secret ballot Score Voting. A Constituency may set its own parliamentary procedure, except that it must have a secret ballot, and it must allow any member to resign from it, without permission, at any time, after which the member faces no punishment and owes no debt to the Constituency. Aside from enforcing those two rules, no entity outside of a constituency itself, including the organization itself, factions, political parties, or other constituencies of which the constituency considers itself a member, may attempt to influence a constituency's nominations, elections, voting, parliamentary procedure, or membership. No entity outside a Constituency itself may set limits on who may be selected as Delegate, or who may join any Constituency. If members feel that their Constituency's parliamentary procedure is not being followed or has been corrupted, they are encouraged to resign from that Constituency. The Organization keeps an public registration of which members are with which Constituency.

A Constituency may later Recall their Delegate by a majority vote, after which time a replacement election is held in that Constituency via Score Voting (the incumbent may stand in their replacement election). Delegates are encouraged to vote their conscience, and to represent all of the voters, rather than to feel bound to take the position which is favored by their constituents.

Any Delegate (including Directors and the CEO) must, each week, personally answer one question petitioned by any set of voters and/or Delegates (directly) in their constituency such these voters' voting strength is greater than or equal to one third of the voting strength of the target Delegate's Constituency. Any Delegate may send any message to their (direct) constituency at any time.

A Delegate may only represent one constituency. A person may not 'double-spend' their voting strength in multiple constituencies, but may join multiple constituencies and distribute their total voting strength between them.

The Board may create and pass proposals just like the Forum, except that proposals concerning external affairs may only be dealt with by the External Relations subcommittee, see below.

The Board is encouraged to meet frequently in informal, closed session and discuss the issues. When they are ready to enter into formal, open session on an issue (which is necessary in order to take a binding vote), they indicate such to the Chairs, who chair the formal session according to the rules of the Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure. In addition to voting, open sessions also allow Boardmembers to make speeches 'on the record' for public consumption.

The relation of the CEO to the Board is a special case of Delegate-Constituency. Board members' Board votes are weighted by the number of votes they control. The CEO must obey the Rules, but where the rules are silent, does not need to wait for explict direction from the Board before setting or executing policy or directing the organization's resources.

Executive Officers

The Board selects, via Score Voting, a Chief Executive Officer (CEO). This vote is taken of the Board Members alone, and cannot be extended to include the other lower-rank delegates.

The election of the Chief Executive Officer is continuous; all Board Members continually maintain their votes, and when another candidate Executive Officer wins the Score Voting, a runoff is held between the incumbent and the challenger.

Except for the constraints set by Acts, the CEO has full control over the setting and execution of policy and strategy, the operation of the organization, the management of the organization's employees, and the disposition of the organization's resources. If there is no Act speaking to some issue regarding strategy, policy, management, or the disposition of the organization's resources, they do not have to wait for an Act to decide it, they may decide it themselves without the consent of the Board or the Forum, although any later Act on the issue can override them. They may bind the organization to minor contracts by themselves, but Major Contracts must be Ratified, if there is a rule which defines which contracts are Major. Executives may not, however, impose rules or duties upon non-employee members of the organization, or punishments beyond loss of a job.

Executive officers have duties of good faith, care, and loyalty to the organization's purpose, as expressed by the membership in the rules. This does not mean that the executive officers must necessarily serve the interests of the members, or serve the interests of the organization, because, depending on the organization, the organization's purpose may partially or wholly altruistic. Executive officers must serve the entire organization, not merely the faction that elected them.

Upon taking office, the CEO appoints a replacement in case of their death or inability to serve. They may change this appointment at any time.

Vetos

Any proposal passed by the Forum (except for a Privilaged Amendment) may be vetoed by the Board, and any proposal passed by the Board (except for the selection of Executive Officers or Judges or other individual candidates for office) may be vetoed by the Forum.

Any Resolution passed by the either the Forum or the Board automatically and immediately comes up for voting in the other for veto. Using the same procedure as vetoing, either the Forum or the Board may refer a Resolution to the High Court for a test of its conformance with the Bylaws.

A Resolution which was passed with less than a 2/3s majority and which is vetoed fails.

A Resolution which was passed with >=2/3s majority and then vetoed is then voted on by the highest appeals courts in the relevant Topical Area. The jurors eligible to serve on Juror Committees in this area are randomly organized into as many Committees as possible given the board-coloring constraint (see below). Each of these Committees has one month to discuss the issue and attempt to cast a >=75% vote. The votes of those Committees which came to consensus and cast a vote are tallied and if the majority (>50%) is in favor of the Resolution, then the veto is overcome. Otherwise, the veto succeeds.

A Resolution which is not vetoed or which overcomes its veto becomes an Act.

Amending the Bylaws

To Amend the Bylaws, an Act to amend the bylaws must be passed twice, the first time with a >=2/3s majority in the Forum or the Board, the second time with the same thresholds as for a Temporary Exception, separated by more than the time period between electoral cycles, and must not be successfully vetoed in between (e.g. there is a standing motion to veto a pending Amendment the entire time after the first passage and before the second passage). Each passage is subject to the usual rules on veto and overriding a veto by the Forum, the Board, the Courts, and the Chairs.

If a change in procedure is desired more quickly, then in the interim a Temporary Exception to the Bylaws may be passed. A Temporary Exception may not have the effect of making it easier to amend the Bylaws or making it easier to pass further Temporary Exceptions or punishing a voter or voters or reducing a mandatory waiting period or quorum or other device to protect people not present or reducing the voting power or other legislative privilage of a voter, including Delegates w/r/t the Board, or making it harder for voters to meet or to vote, or affect the powers or elections of the Chairs. A Temporary Exception can be vetoed or repealed at any time by a simple majority, and can be declared invalid by the High Court.

A Temporary Exception cannot affect (even indirectly) the procedures regarding permanent Amendments or for Temporary Exceptions; those decisions must be made as if there were no Temporary Exceptions.

Privilaged Amendments

Privilaged Amendments are amendments doing nothing other than:

These amendments are treated as ordinary Acts for the purposes of passing them, and do not go thru the more difficult process of other Amendments. Furthermore, they cannot be vetoed by the Board.

Budget

Proposal

At any time, the CEOi may proposed a new budget (the term 'new budget' is synonymous with 'revised budget'). Only the CEOi may propose a new budget. The proposal must have at least ln(x) separate budget items, where x is the total amount of the budget divided by the median full-time employee salary paid by the organization (or a 'typical' median full-time employee salary, if the organization has no employees). The proposal is then sent to the Forum. Voters in the Forum who wish to (making use of transitive proxy voting and weighted voting as usual) then each create a budget that allocates up to the total amount in the proposed budget between the items in the budget. Each individual budget proposal is adjusted so as to fully fund mandatory spending, by proportionally reducing other expenditures in order to fund the mandatory spending without exceeded the budget cap, if necessary. The weighted average of individual budget proposals these is taken. The Forum's Budget is then said to be a budget whose allocation to each item is the lesser of the amount allocated to this item (i) in CEOi's budget, and (ii) in the weighted average.

The Forum's Budget then goes to the Board. The Board debates it and amends it but only as follows: the Board may reduce spending to any item by a simple majority, may increase spending to any item but not beyond the amount allocated to that item by the lesser of the CEOi's budget or the current budget, by a simple majority, may increase spending to any item but not beyond the amount allocated to that item by the CEOi's budget, by a >=63% majority, and may split items into many subitems by a simple majority. The Board then votes on the resulting budget, this voting having a simple majority threshold if the resulting budget spends less than or equal to the current budget, and a 63% threshold if the resulting budget spends more than the current budget. If the Board cannot pass a new budget, it can attempt to amend it further until it passes; if it never passes, the the non-deficit spending portion of the current budget is auto-renewed.

A proposed budget must fit the constraints given by Acts, including any Mandated Spending (see below). If the constraints given by the Acts are, singlely or jointly, logically impossible to meet with any nonzero non-deficit budget, then the High Court must choose to remove one or more constraints until the remainder are possible.

The spending in the budget must not exceed revenue unless a deficit is authorized, see below. In the absence of a new budget at the end of a budgetary period, the old budget auto-renews, see below.

If it is desired to fund a new programme or increase funding to an existing programme in the middle of a budgetary period, a new budget must be passed.

The CEOi must propose at least one new budget each electoral cycle. If the length of an electoral cycle passes and no new budget has been proposed by the CEOi, then it is as if the CEOi has implicitly proposed the current budget, at which point the Forum and then the Board consider it. If the CEOi proposes a new budget before they have to (e.g. they propose a new budget before the current budget is implicitly proposed), they may veto the budget that results after the Board votes on it. However, if they veto it, than their proposal that time doesn't count for the purposes of this paragraph, i.e. the clock is not reset before they have to propose a new budget.

No need to renew

A budget does not need to be renewed -- the non-deficit spending portion of a budget auto-renews itself for each budgetary period until amended.

Required items

If these types of spending take place, then they must be broken out into their own budget items, although they may be broken into a smaller granularity (e.g. in place of 'High official compensation', an organization may choose to break out compensation per high official):

Deficit

A deficit is the portion of a budget financed by borrowing rather than by member dues, donations, and revenue. Deficit authorization require a higher voting threshold than ordinary resolutions. Deficits must be re-authorized each budgetary period. A budgetary period must be no longer than an electoral cycle. A deficit authorization must specify which spending items are financed by the deficit. This spending ceases if the deficit authorization is not renewed.

Mandated spending

By the same voting threshold required to Ratify a contract, an Act may be passed which mandates spending in future budgets. Mandated spending can be canceled in the future by an ordinary measure (but such a cancellation does not enjoy the lower voting threshold of a measure to decrease spending). Mandated spending may not be funded by deficit spending (and hence is not automatically cut if deficit spending is not renewed). Mandated spending must have a specific revenue source allocated to it, with a procedure specified which either cuts the spending or increases the revenue source if in the future the revenue source should become not enough to support the spending. Spending promised in ratified contracts is considered mandated spending.

Payment of debt according to the agreed-upon terms which the organization has been properly bound to by an officer acting within their authority, whether or not in ratified contracts, is always mandated spending and cannot be cancelled. Debt may not be defaulted on except by an Temporary Exception to the Bylaws.

Chairs

The Chair is the highest office of the organization; Chairs are protectors of the rights of the members and the keepers of the spirit of the organization. There are up to three Chairs.

The primary responsibility of the Chairs is auditing and investigating the organization, its officials (including the Board, the other Chairs, Committee members, and all Judges) and its appointees and employees. Their role is to protect individuals from violations of their rights by the organization, to protect minorities of voters by procedural violations by majorities, and to uncover and prosecute corruption.

The Chair is an office of individual conscience.

Chairpeople are elected for a set term. Each electoral term, all three Chairs are elected by the voters via Score Voting. The end of the Chair electoral term does not mean that other officials, such as Executive Officers or High Judges, need to be reselected as well.

The Forum may by simple majority make a resolution demanding that future Chairs must be independent of the organization. Such a resolution cannot be vetoed by the other branches and is immediately enacted.

Upon taking office, each chair appoints a replacement in case of their death or inability to serve. They may change this appointment at any time. If both a Chair and their replacement are simultaneously rendered unable to serve, there is a snap election as soon as possible.

No information possessed by the organization may be kept secret from a Chair, and all parts of the organization must comprehensively respond to any requests for information from a Chair (Chairs may be removed by the High Court if for flagrant abuse of this power to waste the time of organizational agencies). Each Chair may demand a separate audit, directed by them or their appointees, of the organization or any part of it. Furthermore, any Chair may unilaterally "declassify" any secret organization and share it with the voters (although they are not permitted to selectively declassify information and share it only with a few selected individuals). Any Chair has the standing to prosecute any official or appointee or employee of the organization for any failure to follow procedure, corruption, or any other offense against the rights of voters.

Note that no one may be made an official, appointee, or employee against their will (e.g. an ordinary voter cannot be turned into a Judge against their will so that they can be prosecuted).

If Judges are not selected, then the Chairs serve as Judges, also.

The Chairs rotate the duty of chairing the Board and its External Relations subcommittee. A parliamentary decision by any one Chair can be appealed to the other Chairs, who may overturn it by majority vote among the Chairs. Neither the members of the Board nor of its External Relations subcommittee may appeal these joint decisions of the Chairs in the realm of parliamentary procedure. The Chairs do not vote on the Board or its External Relations subcommittee, even in case of a tie.

The parliamentary procedures of the Board and the Forum are determined by the Bylaws. When the Bylaws are silent, the Board and the Forum itself may respectively legislate their own procedure, via a vote of 2/3s; such intra-body procedural legislation may not be vetoed by other legislative bodies or Chairs, but may be overruled by later Amendments to the Bylaws. The Chair merely executes the procedures specified by the Bylaws and the legislative bodies, although in the case of ambiguity, contradiction, or deadlock the Chairs decide how to proceed.

The parliamentary procedure of the Forum is determined by the Bylaws. When the Bylaws are silent, the Forum itself may legislate its own procedure, via a vote of 2/3s; such procedural legislation may not be vetoed, but it may be overruled by later Amendments to the Bylaws. The Chair merely executes the procedure specified by the Bylaws and the Forum.

A majority of Chairs, acting together, may pardon or commute the sentence of any individual (excepting high officials) for a crime or crimes.

A majority of Chairs, acting together, may nominate an entity for admission to the franchise as a voting member, or may nominate an entity for expulsion from membership, even if a censorship court had previously considered this entity and decided not to act; but this nomination must be confirmed by the High Court to satisfy the rules for admission or expulsion, if any, before it can be acted on by the Board or the Forum.

Any single Chair may veto any nomination(s) for admission to or expulsion from membership, whether the nomination arose in censorship or from Chairs.

Any single Chair may, when a court case has never been tried by a full court but only by a three judge panel, and that panel came to a 'preferred' and hence ordinarily non-appealable decision, appeal this decision to a full court.

All Chairs, acting together unanimously, may bestow any award created by an Act of the organization unless otherwise specified. The Chairs may not bestow an award upon a current Chair. The Board and the other officers and agencies of the organization are not allowed to bestow awards in the name of the entire organization, although they may suggest candidates to the Chairs. Any 'tenured' position is considered to be an award.

The Chairs, acting by majority, are reponsible for managing the infrastructure for counting votes, running the Forum, officially promulgating rules, etc, although they typically will delegate this responsibility to professionals rather than doing it personally.

The incumbent Chairs, acting by majority, sometimes resolve the occurance of exact ties in electoral voting for new Chairs and other offices. If the Chairs themselves tie during this vote, the senior Chair's vote is given more weight.

Any single Chair may veto or repeal any Temporary Exception.

(todo tighten up language here) All three Chairs acting together unanimously may veto any Proposal in the same manner that the Forum and the Board may veto each other. If the Chairs veto, in order for the proposal to pass, this veto must be overcome such that the total number of vetos over the Forum, the Board, the Chairs, and the Courts (each of those 4 having one 'vote') is strictly less than the number of supporting votes (for example, if the Forum passes a proposal, the Chairs veto, and the Board does nothing, the proposal fails).

Chairs can be removed for cause by unanimous vote of the High Court.

No organization official may lie or direct or indirectly encourage an official, agent, or private entity working for the organization to lie, except for types of situations specifically exempted from this provision in the bylaws. Any Chair may veto any of these exemptions, not only when they are passed, but at any time in the future.

The Chairs decide how much the legislature and the executive officials get paid, which must be less than the budgetary ceiling allocated for this purpose by the legislature. Each Chair makes a proposal and the median of this is the pay. Each legislator must be paid the same per unit time for their time in office. The Chairs may not use this power to influence policy; the High Court may strike down and alter changes to legislative pay that appear partisan, political, or preferential. The Chairs may not choose a pay rate for the legislature or for executives than is higher than that of the Chairs and High Court.

Each Chair and each member of the High Court get paid the same amount per unit time. This pay rate is set by the legislature.

Each Chair enjoys absolute freedom of speech.

High Court

The High Court decides cases brought by the Forum, any member of the Board, any Chair, or either Executive Officer against other entites or officials of the organization concerning the interpretation of the Bylaws or violations of organizational procedure, as well as cases brought by any of the previous entities demanding the removal of a Judge or Chair due to incompetence or corruption. It also confirms cases decided against the default by majority rule in appeals courts (see below).

The High Court decides cases by majority except for the removal of Judges and Chairs.

In addition, the High Court can take the following actions on its own:

The High Court should interpret text as follows. Whenever possible, the plain language of the text must be used. If a vote >=4/5 of the High Court finds that this interpretation leads to a clearly absurd result, the High Court may rely on the intent of the text rather than its plain meaning, while formally issuing a Clarification that suggests a change to the text.

The High Court is reconstituted when either: (a) >=2/3s of the Chairs vote to do so, or (b) any Judge on the High Court resigns. If the reconstitution is caused by resignation, the Judge who resigned is not eligible to be a member of the next High Court.

The High Court is composed of 3 Judges selected from the set of existing Judges by the Board via Score Voting. If no High Court has been selected, then the Chairs also serve as the High Court.

The removal of Judges and Chairs

Unanimity of High Court judges may remove a (non-High Court) Judge or a Chair for medical incapacity, corruption, or abuse of their authority.

A unanimity of High Court judges may also remove a (non-High Court) Judge for ignorance, or for refusal to follow those procedures which are defined by the rules or by unanimous vote of the High Court.

Any High Court judge may, by resigning, cause the reconstitution of the High Court, therefore no additional procedure is needed to allow High Court Judges to remove other High Court Judges.

When any Chair is removed. there is a snap election for new Chairs. If a Chair resigns, only that Chair's position goes to a snap election.

Other Courts

Other Courts are each specialized to a Topical Area.

Before a case is put before a Court, a Judge conducts a preliminary hearing. If s/he can decide the case quickly and cleanly, s/he does, but this decision can be appealed regardless of verdict. If there is an appeal, two more Judges are added to form a panel to conduct a preliminary trial. If they can decide the case quickly, clearly, certainly, and unanimously, they do so (and this decision can only be appealed as described below). Otherwise it is sent to a full trial (note that each of the three judges in the panel can vote Innocent, Guilty, or I can't decide without a full trial).

The difference between a preliminary trial and a full trial is that in a preliminary trial, the Judges should feel free to require brevity and also to cut off exploration of avenues that they feel would be a waste of time, although they should allow the parties to at least to briefly mention any point they wish to mention. In a full trial, the Judges should be careful to ensure that each party has a chance to say what they will, and to rebut anything said by the other. In both a preliminary trial and a full trial, the Judges may ask for and examine evidence.

Each Court is composed of up to five jurors, and three Judges. The jurors are selected according to the "board-coloring constraint", which states that for each Board seat, there must be exactly one juror sitting on each court whose constituency supports that Board seat (note that in some cases one member of the Board may hold multiple seats; so, multiple jurors may represent the multiple seats occupied by one Boardmember; or, if one juror has so much voting strength that they are members of multiple constituencies supporting multiple Board seats, they may represent multiple Board seats on the jury as well, but only if they are not enough available volunteer jurors to fill each seat with a different person while respecting the board-coloring constraint).

(todo: how about a requirement that at least some proportion of the Court have some expertise in the relevant topical area from their lives outside the Court system? eg if a Tech court is created then ppl with a tech job, eg programmers, EE ppl, would be required; if a Heath court, doctors, nurses; etc)

(todo: shall we allow a simple majority to declare the preferred option, eg innocent?)

Both the judge and the jurors vote. Courts act via a >=75% voting threshold.

Either the Jurors or the Judge may ask the parties questions.

The Jurors may vote 'Innocent', 'Guilty', or 'Guilty but should not be punished because the rule they violated is unjust'. The third verdict is treated like an abstention unless a majority of jurors vote either Innocent or the third verdict, in which case the votes for the third verdict are treated as Innocent votes. If all jurors (not including Judges) vote either Innocent or the third verdict, then the case is decided, but in addition, an additional vote is held on whether or not the rule in question is unjust; if all jurors go on to vote that the rule is unjust, they may then by consensus, draft an Opinion explaining why, and possibly, how the rule might be changed. As the Opinion is drafted by the jurors, the Judges on the case who agree should advise them (but have no power over the drafting of the Opinion); those who disagree may, if they wish, draft a minority Opinion which will also be seen by the High Court. The Opinion(s) are then sent to the highest appeals court in this topic. The appeals court jurors, without judges, then consider the question of whether the rule is unjust, untethered from the specifics of the previous case (although the previous case can serve as an example of the potential unjustness of the rule). If all of them vote that it is unjust, they may add their own Opinion (and dissenters may add a Minority Opinion), which is then sent to the High Court, and then the High Court must either create a Clarification (which may, in this case, be done via majority rather than unanimity), or create a majority Opinion explaining why they feel the rule is just.

Judges may only vote Innocent or Guilty; the Judges' duty is always to vote according to what they believe the rules demand, regardless of the justice of the rules.

Other types of court decisions which do not involve a prosecution and a defendant still have a 'preferred decision' corresponding to 'innocent'. For a censorship flag, the preferred is not to flag. The preferred decision for an appeal is whatever the decision being appealed from was, if there was one.

If the Court decides the preferred decision, the decision cannot be appealed, unless the defendant is the organization itself or a high official, in which case either decision can be appealed. If the court decides the non-preferred decision, the decision can be appealed and the appeals court decides via majority vote whether to hear the case (after which there is a full trial by a full appeals court, not an abbreviated trial by 3 judges). If the Court fails to come to a decision within the required time, the issue is always and automatically appealed, and the appeals court automatically takes the case.

If a highest court of appeals fails to come to a decision, the issue is appealed to a different court on the same appeals level, who decides it by majority rule. Appeals courts may retry the case and may reconsider both questions of law and questions of fact.

Juror deliberations are purely written and are public, however the identity of jurors is anonymous (even from each other). The identity of judges is public. The identity of the parties are anonymous if feasible.

Particular evidence may be declared tainted by the unanimous agreement of all three judges. A list of this evidence is provided. Tainted evidence should may not be used in arguments after it is declared tainted, and judges should remind the jury that the evidence is tainted if it is mentioned by jurors or witnesses. There are no procedures in place to prevent jurors from hearing or finding out about the tainted evidence, however, and jurors may ask about it if they choose, and may use it in their decision-making if they choose, although they should not (and judges may not use it in their decision-making). Because the effect of the decision to declare evidence as tainted is less than in systems that hide excluded evidence from jurors, the decision may be made more lightly without a mini-trial of its own to carefully consider each piece of evidence.

Precedent is not binding; if the Acts of the organization do not determine a decision, Jurors are not bound to follow the decisions of previous Courts, although they may take these into consideration if they choose. Jurors should follow the judge(s) advice on how to interpret the rules unless they feel that the judge is biased, in which case they may interpret the rules themselves against the advice of the judge(s) (deciding issues of both fact and law).

Jurors and judges may find outside evidence or get outside opinions, but they must share it with the Court so that others can argue against it. The judges may hire expert witnesses for the court; these witnesses are questioned like other witnesses.

Document discovery: either party may submit to the judges a request for the other party to produce a narrow and specific requested category of documents that are reasonably believed to exist and to be in the possession of the adverse party, together with an explanation of how the documents requested are relevant and material to the outcome of the case. The judges and the jurors may also request documents. Experts and other witnesses, like parties, may request that the judge or jurors ask someone else a question or request a document.

The 'required time' for a decision is set by the Judge at the end of the preliminary hearing if they decide to send the case to a panel, or by the same Judge upon appeal of their decision. If the required time is unusually long, the Judge may also demand additional Juror Points of the prosecution. If the prosecution cannot pay, they can allow their Juror Effort points to go negative ("go into debt") to pay for this. The prosecution may appeal the Judge's decision on demanding additional Juror Points (this appeal is a new case, with its own preliminary hearing, possible preliminary trial, trial, and appeal trails, separate from the case itself, although the prosecution can opt to wait for this appeal to be resolved before deciding whether to commit the requested points).

Should either party wish to hire lawyers or similar, they must notify the Court at the beginning how much they intend to spend, and pay to the Court an amount equal to that which they pay their own lawyers for any expense arising from the case (including consultation before the case, and an amortized share of consultation relevant to many potential cases of which this is one). The Court will reimburse the other party for legal fees up to this amount. If one of the parties is the organization, then the other party doesn't have to pay if they hire lawyers, but the organization must pay if they hire (or retain on staff) lawyers. If both parties submit a wish to hire lawyers, then the court receives secretly how much each plans to pay, and the one paying more need only pay the difference to the one paying less.

There is no pre-trial jury selection, however during the trial a jury member may be dismissed and replaced by a new member by a vote of >=75% (the member who might be dismissed is part of the vote), provided that there is a specific reason for the bias and that all three judges vote on the side to dismiss. No double jeopardy (except that a majority of Chairs acting together may re-nominate an individual for expulsion after a censorship court declined to so nominate, see below; and of course, applicants for membership may reapply if denied, unless the organization forbids this). There is no plea-bargaining. The accused is not required to plead guilty/not guilty, and if they waive their right to a trial they cannot be offered less punishment. The accused is not required to give testimony, and this may not be used against them. If there are witnesses, the judges interrogate them first, and then the parties may suggest questions to be asked to the judge and jurors (not 'cross examination' exactly as these are only suggestions to the judge and jurors, who may choose not to ask a question or to rephrase it), and then the judges and jurors may ask more questions. Generally, if a party intends to point out a contradiction in the assertions of a witness or a contradiction between a witness's assertion and other evidence, they should suggest a question to that effect to the witness to give them a chance to explain the contradiction. The question asking need not be in real time or orally, although in cases in which the testimony from two witnesses flatly contradicts each other, the judges may choose to demand this, in which case the oral testimony should be recorded, and also transcribed verbatim. There is no need for a live witness to present and explain each evidentiary document. Before a full trial, the parties should provide a written summary of their arguments in advance along with all documents that they intend to use. Each party may view the other one's summary and revise their own before a trial. During the trial, the judges work through the dossier provided by the prosecution.

When a defendent is convicted of multiple violations, if they stem from the same bad action, the penalties do not cumulate; only the greatest of the penalties applies.

When the organization prosecutes, the same individuals charged with gathering evidence for the prosecution must also be charged with seeking out exculpatory evidence (this does not prevent other individuals from seeking only exculpatory evidence for the defense). In addition, the judges at the trial have the authority to command these individuals to undertake additional investigation, and their evaluations of these individuals' performance should affect their careers in the investigatory positions.

The judges and jury are entitled to use their own judgement and to rely on arguments and suspicions not raised by either party, although they should state these arguments and suspicions to the court to that others may argue against them. Their duty is to actively seek the truth, rather than passively listen to the arguments presented to them.

Each party has the right to have the judges and jury read some documents of their choosing, including written testimony from witnesses of their choosing, up to some length constraint set by by the judges for the sake of limiting the time spent. If a party causes a witness to testify for them for the trial (rather than relying on some public document), they should generally also be made to cause that witness to answer further questions from the judge and jury.

A Judge must recuse themselves from a trial in which a reasonable person may be likely to see them as biased, unless they are the only Judge for their topic.

Court Opinions may not be secret.

Neither Judges nor Jurors are liable for incorrect decisions (beyond removal from office for cause, and banning them from being judges and/or jurors in the future), although they can be prosecuted for corruption.

Court and committee opinions

With each decision, the judges who voted on the side of that decision (or all the advisory judges, in the case of committees) draft an opinion. This opinion must be accepted by >=75% of those who voted on that side of the decision (if not, the judges who authored it attempt to edit it until it is acceptable; if they cannot, then decision cannot be finalized). If an appeals court finds that the majority opinion does not correctly and adequately explain the reasons for the decision, or if the opinion contains a mistake in the application of law or procedure, then the appeals court must retry the case.

The judge(s) on the other side, if any, draft a minority opinion, which must be accepted by everyone who voted against on the other side (otherwise, it simply states the verdict). The minority opinion may not be longer than the longer of 20% of the length of the majority opinion, and 140 characters.

Jurors

Jurors are volunteers.

Associated with each voter is a Juror Score. Their Juror Score starts at zero. Each time that the juror sits on a court or committee that comes to a decision (in either direction), their Juror Score is incremented by 1, unless any of those who voted against the decision, if any, felt that the juror had not politely, constructively and substantively participated as much as they should have (one is not allowed to accept or give bribes to influence this decision). Each time that the juror sits on a court or committee that does not come to a decision (in either direction), the juror's score is decremented by 1. The score can go below zero. Each time a juror resigns from a court or committee or is kicked off for too many unpermitted absences, their Juror Score is decremented by 4. Whether an absence is permitted is decided by majority vote amongst the remaining jurors.

Associated with each voter is also a Juror Effort Score. Each time their Juror Score is incremented or decremented, their Juror Effort Score is incremented or decremented by the same amount, except that it cannot go below zero. In addition, when their Juror Effort Score is below 10, each time a voter volunteers to serve as a juror but is not called upon, their Juror Effort Score goes up by one.

Appeals courts levels are made up of only jurors whose Juror Score is at least the median of the Juror Score of the juror pool the next level down in that Topic. Acts of the organization may specify other criteria for jurors on appeals courts, such as educational certifications.

In order to bring a case against another (e.g. as prosecution), a juror must have a Juror Effort Score above 1 (for a single-judge preliminary hearing), 3 (for a full trial by a panel of judges), or 8 (for a full trial by a jury, possibly preceded by a panel of judges). Appeals are counted separately. If the juror wins the case (after any appeals), their Juror Score and their Juror Effort Scores are unchanged, but if they lose the case, their Juror Score (and hence also their Juror Effort Score) is decremented by the amount at stake.

Judges

Judges serve on courts.

Candidate Judges self-nominate for one or more designated Topical Areas. They are only eligible to be nominated after they have served as a juror on the highest appeals court in that Topical Area. They are vetted by two Courts, and then appointed by a special Resolution of the Board in the following manner. Whenever there are at least three Judge candidates who Board have been vetted by the two Courts and meet the other criteria already, the Board automatically, continuously holds a 3-seat score vote to select 3 Judges out of these candidates. At any time, the Board may opt to holds a vote with a a >2/3s threshold to confirm the currently winning three candidates as Judges; if this vote passes, those three become Judges.

The High Court can remove judges.

Candidate Judges' records as jurors are deanonymized and disclosed to the vetting courts (unless the method of anonymization used does not permit deanonymization).

All candidate Judges are reviewed by a censorship court of the highest appeal level (unless there are not enough Judges or Jurors to constitute such a court). They are ineligible if this court finds that they are not members in good standing or that they are not civil in their interactions with others as juror (or as judge, if they have previously served as a judge). The preliminary hearing and preliminary trial steps are skipped.

All candidate Judges are also, separately, reviewed by a court in the Topical Area of their candidacy of the highest appeal level (unless there are not enough Judges or Jurors to constitute such a court). They are ineligible if this court finds that they have not demonstrated competence in this topical area (for example, if they just agree all the time as a juror without saying anything much, then they may have a high Juror Score without having demonstrated competence). Acts of the organization may specify further criteria, such as educational certifications, for the eligibility of Judges. The preliminary hearing and preliminary trial steps are skipped.

High Court Judges must first be selected as Judges, and then be selected as High Court Judges as described above.

If there are not enough non-High Court Judges, the High Court Judges also serve as ordinary Judges. If there are not enough High Court Judges, the Chairs also serve as High Court Judges, by seniority, until there are three High Court Judges.

Censorship

Any voter can anonymously Flag a comment in the Forum if they think it violates decorum. A Flagged comment is reviewed by a Court on the topic of censorship.

Candidate Chairs and Delegates can also be Flagged at which point they are reviewed by a censorship court. If the court finds that they are not members in good standing, they are still eligible candidates, however, their candidacy is flagged on the ballot.

Members themselves can be flagged for suggested expulsion. To save unpopular members from being harassed, the matter should not be reconsidered except in light of substantial new developments (the single judge at the preliminary hearing can decide if there are new developments). Flagging for expulsion costs 8 Juror Points.

A voter can also positively Flag someone for admission to voting membership, causing them to be reviewed by a Censorship court. Flagging for new membership costs 8 Juror Points.

To save the Court's time and protect members from harassment, an Act may determine that a matter doesn't come before a court until a large number of flags have been received.

Admission of new members, and expulsion of members

Censorship courts are also responsible for reviewing applications for voting membership, and expulsion of members, working according to the organization's policy on such matters; most organizations will have criteria for admission and expulsion beyond just 'enough people flagged them'. For such matters, the 'default' action, corresponding to 'innocent', is 'no action', meaning that a candidate is not nominated for admission, or a member is not nominated for expulsion.

As detailed above, a majority of Chairs acting together may also nominate for admission or expulsion, regardless of whether the censorship courts have already considered the nominee.

Any single Chair may veto any nomination for admission to or expulsion from membership, whether it originated from a censorship court or from other Chairs.

Candidates once nominated must be confirmed by an Act with a threshold of >= 2/3s. Typically a large number of noncontroversial individual nominees for admission will be periodically combined into a single Act for routine admission.

Except as specified in the Acts or elsewhere in these Bylaws, any person or entity may be admitted to membership, and any member can be expelled for any reason, via the procedures specified above.

Default penalty for unjust misapplication of the rules

Except where otherwise specified in the rules, the penalty for an official, agent, or employee of the organization who, in their role representing the organization, does not follow or causes the organization to not follow the rules, shall be the loss of their position, role, and employment in that position.

Rights and misc

The organization must obey the law of those governments which have jurisdiction over it.

Without limitation, every sane adult person (but not necessarily corporate entity) has the following inalienable rights and freedoms, which must be interpreted as absolute, without exception and unable to be suspended (except as contrary to law of a sovereign state within whose jurisdiction the Organization falls):

Without limitation, every sane adult person also has the following rights, which may be subject to reasonable implicit exceptions:

All of the previous rights are to be interpreted as negative, in the sense that they forbid others from taking certain actions or placing certain constraints upon a person, but they do not oblige others to take action for the benefit of a person.

Without limitation, all members have the following rights, which may be subject to reasonable implicit exceptions:

Those rights, and the rules, apply to all members equally.

Except as required by law, neither the organization nor its officers may deny or substantially and specifically assist in denying any of these rights, and any attempt to do so is void and against the rules.

The organization must not endorse or give special treatment to religion(s).

The organization must not intentionally mislead or lie to its members or the public.

The organization must not finance the advocacy of particular candidates for office. The organization must not finance or engage in covert advocacy.

The organization must not lend financial resources on preferential terms to any individual or organization to rescue it from bankruptcy or similar serious financial trouble.

The organization must not give financial resources on preferential terms to any individual or organization to rescue it from bankruptcy or similar serious financial trouble unless the possibility of doing so had been explicitly and clearly acknowledged in a publication available to all members before the potential recipient was in imminent threat of serious financial trouble; such acknowledgement must list the name of each potential future recipient individually, not just describe a class of potential recipients. This clause may be overridden by a vote with a threshold of 2/3rds.

Even if the organization determines that communication of some material would be against its rules, it may not take action to physically prevent such communication, rather it may only punish the sender afterwards (except if the law or the demands of privacy require the organization to take action to prevent the communication).

Neither the organization nor its officials may communicate or cause to be communicated a threat or implied threat backed or thought to be backed (explicitly or implied) by the use of government power, unless the communication both (a) is made over official, archived channels, and (b) contains the name and office of the official issuing the threat.

Neither the organization nor its officials may attempt to prosecute an entity for a crime, or attempt to bring about a greater amount of punishment for a crime, with the de facto effect or purpose of punishing the entity for something other than the crime being prosecuted.

All legislators must be given a reasonable amount of time to read measures before voting upon them.

Anti-corruption

Any person or entity seeking to influence organizational policy or appointments or elections, and who:

must register as a lobbyist.

Lobbyists must publicly disclose their lobbying goals, their lobbying clients, the text of any lobbying contracts or engagements their have undertaken, and any payments they receive for lobbying. Lobbyists must disclose their status as lobbyists to legislators and government officals whenever discussing policy or politics.

Lobbyists may not sit on offically-sanctioned advisory committees.

Both lobbyists, and any legislators or high officials with whom they communicate, must publicly report:

Legislators and high officials must report any unregistered lobbying or lobbying against the rules.

Legislators and high officials must publicly report all gifts given to them by lobbyists, or any gifts possibly given in connection with attempts to influence policy or politics. Legislators and high officials must declare any potential, seeming conflicts of interests. No entity may accept campaign contributions or other policy-related or political gifts or payments, excepting small gifts of value no more than $25 per gift, with an aggregate value per recipient (overall all givers) of $1000 per year.

Entities are lobbyists or who have been lobbyists within the past year are inelgible to serve as legislators or high officials. Entities who have been legislators or high officials within the past year are not permitted to be lobbyists or to lobby.

No legislators or high officials may accept bribes or may trade or offer to trade (except in the course of a pre-registered sting operation) their influence, except that they may promise to support some policy or candidate in exchange for support of another policy or candidate.

Officials who served in a regulatory position over proper subgroups of members or entities controlled by members may not work for those members or entities controlled by those members within one year of the end of their service as official.

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todos:

say that its ok not to implement uncalled for parts. recognizing complexity, we urge external authorities not to invalidate or disrecognize an entity due to mistakes in implementation

make bylaws

make a how to setup/inititate section

make flowcharts (algorithm) for everything

say: board meetings run informally by the Chair unless any board member asks that part of that meeting, or the rest of that meeting, or the entire time between now, and the end of the next meeting after this one, be held by the parlimentary rules (a single member requesting this is sufficient)

say: any part may be implemented manually or using software or hardware, or by a mix of these.

say: designed to work well with online, asych groups

say: member for ac is voting member of organization, unless stated otherwise (a step in Initial Setup)

mb 'chair' should be 'tribune' after all, b/c some organizations will say 'well we already have a way of selecting a Chair, so we don't need this' o/w

should everyone be required to join a constituency? should every be required to vote, or to proxy their vote?