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Councils are deliberative small groups composed of a representative mixture of different factions. They make decisions through rough consensus.
Councils do not exist until the conditions for the existence of the delegate pyramids are satisfied.
There are two types of councils, base-level councils, and delegate councils.
Each council shall be composed of P people (where P is defined in [1]), such that there is one constituent of each of the P primary delegate commissioners.
The base-level councils are composed of voters who are not delegates. The delegate councils are composed of primary delegates of the same level in the delegate pyramid. Commissioners 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.
When signing up, each voter specifies how often he or she would like to go to council, and people with similar frequency preferences are 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 commissioner representative, whether they require an offline meeting, and their frequency preference.
The consent of all but one member of a council is required for that council to take any action. Attached to each action must be a public list of signatures of each consenting member, along with the name of the delegate commissioner for which that member is a constituent. Council deliberations, however, are closed and private.
Two types of actions may be taken by a council. First, each council may cast a fractional vote in any measure to be sent to the The Augmented Elect Commission by the Elect Commission. Second, each base-level council has a fractional vote in the Collective Council, which can originate measures to be sent to the Augmented Elect Commission.
Like the Forum, Councils are not divided into "primary" and "external affairs".
The total voting strength of all councils (which sums to all of the votes in the Collective Council, and half of the votes in the Augmented Elect Commission) are first divided evenly among the levels of the delegation pyramid, including the voters, but not including the delegate commission. 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 Collective Council votes, and 1/6 (1/3 of 1/2) of the augmented elect commission votes. Next, for each level, these votes are evenly distributed amongst the councils at that level.
Note that these votes are distributed to the councils whether or not they use them. For example, if, on some issue in the Augmented Elect Commission, most councils do not reach unanimity minus one, and hence do not cast a vote, then the sum voting strength of those councils that do will be much less than half of the Augmented Elect Commission.
As noted above, councils cast votes in the Augmented Elect Commission when it is sent a proposal by the Elect Commission. The Collective Council provides a mechanism for the councils to collectively draft and sent proposals to the Augmented Elect Commission.
The Collective Council is a deliberative body which follows the same rules of order as the Forum. The voters in the Collective Council are not individuals but rather councils.
The Elect Commission is required to vote upon measures passed by the Collective Council.
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 member who misses a council session may opt to give their consent to whatever the others decide during that session. Any member who misses more than 3 councils sessions for any reason, 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).
When some voters have multiple votes, some voters may opt to be be placed on multiple councils.
A minimum vote threshold for council participation may be set by a statutory act. This threshold is taken to be 1 by default, and may be raised by a 2/3s threshold, as long as less than 1/3 of the total votes below to voters who are excluded by the limit, and lowered with a simple majority threshold. The threshold may be lowered by simple majority.
When there is a minimum vote threshold T, note that this means that each voter gets one council spot tied to a delegate commissioner for each T pledged votes by which they support that commissioner. Voters may still accrue multiple council spots, possibly tied to multiple commissioners.
