Proposed amendments

Text that would be added to the meta constitution is bolded.

32 Requisites for nomination

1. A person who is nominated is taken to:

   a. consent to act if elected; and

b. declare that:

i. the person is qualified to be elected as a Senator or a member of the House of Representatives, as the case may be; and

ii. the person is not, and does not intend to be a candidate in any other election to be held on the same day as the election to which the nomination relates.

1. A nomination is not valid unless the nomination paper is received by the Electoral Commissioner after the issue of the writ and before the hour of nomination.

a. The Electoral Commissioner may, at their discretion, accept a nomination paper that is submitted after the hour of nomination so long as candidates have not yet been declared.

35 Declaration of nominations

The Electoral Commissioner must, as soon as practicable after the hour of nomination, on /r/AustraliaSim, declare the candidates in the election. Candidates must be declared before the beginning of campaigning for the election.

Explanation

There was just a legal case moved that argued that, because the SDP nominated 2 hours late, their seats should be nullified and a countback should occur. I think this is silly. A party should not be retroactively kicked out of the election because, as I understand it, the AEC said the nomination time was later than it was. For that matter, there's no reason to be all that restrictive with nominations regardless.

In my view, if a party hasn't nominated, the AEC should follow up ASAP and make sure that's their intention. MNZP has a buffer period for sorting out this and other issues with candidates, and I think that's a good idea. When running elections, the goal should be making sure as many people participate as possible, and if a party fails to submit, that means the people in that party aren't able to run.

So this amendment gives the Electoral Commissioner the discretion to accept nominations after the actual close of nominations but before the declaration of candidates. It also does another thing, which is make it that candidates must be declared before the election. This means that no nominations can be accepted after campaigning actually starts.

I think that this is a good amendment. Please second.