constitution: count vacant seats when voting full reelection

[wolfgangwalther]

The way the constitution is currently written, the SC can entirely deadlock, if one seat is vacant and 50% of the remaining SC are calling for no confidence, while the other 50% disagree.

The SC can neither be fully re-elected, nor make any other decisions with simple majority.

I also considered a few alternatives, which I have not taken for various reasons.

1. Flip to "vote of confidence"

Change the above to:

Any SC member may call for a vote of confidence. If this vote does not pass with a simple majority, the entire SC will be reelected based on perceived loss of confidence.

Pro:

• Resolves the deadlock.

Contra:

• Creates a "pending" state for regular case without vacant seats, probably would need a clear deadline for votes.
• Unclear what happens with special vs initial election.

2. Pass on ties

Change the above to:

A simple majority within the SC may call a reelection of the entire SC based on perceived loss of confidence. A tie counts as majority.

Pro:

Contra:

• Doesn't solve the deadlock, because 4 votes are needed anyway, so there are no ties.
• Unclear what happens with special vs initial election.

3. Count vacant seats as reelection only

Change the above to:

A simple majority within the SC may call a reelection of the entire SC based on perceived loss of confidence. Vacant seats count as voting for reelection.

Pro:

• Resolves the deadlock.

Contra:

• Unclear what happens with special vs initial election.

I thank @7c6f434c for helping with the wording here.

[nim65s]

Thanks a lot for this, I objectively think this is a very important task and it certainly did require a lot of work.

(More subjectively, I'm currently running, so I think I should only be supporting the work of an independent party, and not be pushing on this direction myself)

[Lassulus]

I think this more matches the intention we wanted to have when designing this originally

[rhendric]

If there are two vacant or otherwise indisposed seats, and of the five sitting members, two vote for a re-election and three against, with this amendment, the re-election would pass. Do we want that outcome?

On the one hand: perhaps an SC that is running at diminished capacity should be more sensitive to finding internal consensus, or more motivated to hold a special election to get back to full size.

On the other hand: when a minority feels out of power, this would incentivize them to flip the table and take their chances at getting in power, and the community would pay the cost of more frequent re-elections. I don't think we want to normalize that.

[JulienMalka]

All majority decisions in the SC require 50% of the full SC, vacant seats counting as abstention. So if there is 2 vacant seats, a majority decision still requires 4 positive votes. Meaning 2 people being in favor of disbanding the SC can block all decisions, they might as well be able to trigger a no-confidence vote.

I like that this proposal also put clear incentives on replacing vacant seats quickly.

[rhendric]

All majority decisions in the SC require 50% of the full SC, vacant seats counting as abstention. So if there is 2 vacant seats, a majority decision still requires 4 positive votes. Meaning 2 people being in favor of disbanding the SC can block all decisions, they might as well be able to trigger a no-confidence vote.

Flawless argument, thank you. That gets me off the fence.

[cafkafk]

I think this is an important clarification, after that I'm completely on board with the intent here.

Thanks for also clarifying what other options you considered!

[philiptaron]

Being deadlocked for a long period of time is destabilizing to the community and to governance. This proposed amendment provides the appropriate finesse to recognize that instability without creating even more. Kudos to @wolfgangwalther, @JulienMalka, and @7c6f434c for crafting it.

[tomodachi94]

Yes, let's do this please. (I don't really have anything else to say here other than what has already been said.)

[mschwaig]

Making the no-confidence mechanism more powerful clashes with the idea of having staggered terms. The no-confidence vote could be used by SC members who's term is running out soon to make more seats available for re-election.

We have to take (perverse) incentives like that into account when we consider measures to make the SC more robust.

[mschwaig]

Another thing we could take into account with the no-confidence vote if we wanted to is for how long the has been in a 'hung' state, and how far away the next regular election is.

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IMO it is a good thing if we can make it through a full term with a healthy SC most of the time, and we should design for that.

Addressing the diminished capacity of the SC based on the outcome of the previous election might with help with keeping the no-confidence mechanism reachable, and keep the SC full.

[nixos-discourse]

This pull request has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/the-dire-state-of-the-sc/70426/1

[lilyball]

Making the no-confidence mechanism more powerful clashes with the idea of having staggered terms. The no-confidence vote could be used by SC members who's term is running out soon to make more seats available for re-election.

You’re suggesting that SC members would disband the entire SC to make more room so that way they’re more likely to win a reelection? Why would anyone vote for an SC member who behaves that way?

[KiaraGrouwstra]

This is definitely a step in the right direction.

In fact, I would personally go further still, and have vacant seats vote not in favor of special election, but in the case a tie-breaker is needed have them in fact vote in favor of a full reelection, similar in spirit to #472.

Now, given this proposal would make it easier to 'un-stagger' the delegates, I should probably address that topic as well:

Making the no-confidence mechanism more powerful clashes with the idea of having staggered terms. The no-confidence vote could be used by SC members who's term is running out soon to make more seats available for re-election.

I think this begs the question of the intent behind staggered staggered elections, and I could think of two:

1. offering continuity between SC terms
2. obstructing hostile take-overs

Now, I presume offering continuity was the original intent, and I believe full re-elections aren't necessarily a crucial concern for this - popular incumbent candidates may simply be re-elected.

Obstructing hostile take-overs, which I believe @mschwaig is getting at here, I don't really understand so much as a concern: I believe the current commit threshold to become eligible as a voter already makes it somewhat unlikely an entity would just manage to obtain a significant number of sock puppets.

In fact, I believe erring (if only to the extent of a tie-breaker) in favor of full re-election here, if anything, would mirror the intent expressed at the current call for re-election.

In general, I believe the concept of filling separate seats runs counter to the spirit of proportional representation: if seats are filled one by one, the result is the majority position would win each of those seats, effectively defeating the representation of minority positions that proportional representation would protect.

[7c6f434c]

if seats are filled one by one

A special election for all seats mean a single multi-seat special election; the difference with new-initial election is that the terms correspond to the remainders of the (staggered) terms, not to new 1 and 2 year terms from the new date.

You’re suggesting that SC members would disband the entire SC to make more room so that way they’re more likely to win a reelection? Why would anyone vote for an SC member who behaves that way?

Given how proportionality works, for representatives of cohesive minorities below 20% but above 13% of active voters (so, a high chance of SC seat in full reelection and a low chance of SC seat in a regular one, even at 4 seats) this might in some sense be the best representation of their constituents' interests!

[psionic-k]

Biasing towards full re-election through a no-confidence mechanism biases towards more instability and risk. IMO the "bug" is here:

a special election for that position may be held if the SC deems it necessary, or the SC does not have half of the normal size

Change this to:

a special election for that position must be held unless the SC can decide against it or the SC does not have half of the normal size

Reason to favor special election mechanism instead of no-confidence mechanism:

• retains more working knowledge of the current SC members and defaults towards continuity
• biases towards seat representing the voting majority, which is more likely to produce a stronger consensus
• results in a less pivotal non-standard election timing, meaning fewer people will miss it due to it not being the normal timing
• voters can just hurriedly pick one candidate instead of needing to carefully consider several
• the no-confidence mechanism of resolving empty seats and resulting deadlocks still requires no-confidence votes, biasing towards drama

[Ericson2314]

This constitutional "bug" (as some of you have called it) is something that if either "fixed" or left in place, will benefit or dis-benefit some side of the conflict. I think everyone can agree that this is a simple fact.

A longstanding personal view of mine, since way before this, that the (real life) law is full of bugs and "tech debt", and there should be more refactoring to fix it --- just like I like to do with open source projects. But I also recognized that wasn't going to happen in legislatures with very high interpersonal tensions, where everything is viewed through the lens of a "win" or a "loss".

I therefore think we should all agree to drop the "bug" framing here.

Finally, as a practical matter, we became less deadlocked in the last meeting (notes at: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/sc-meeting-2025-10-05-21-00-utc/70418). I hope this trend will continue, and so this constitutional quandary becomes less urgent. If it does, we will then be able to approach it more apolitically, after all.

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On a separate note, a few people in this thread have raised other issues, such as the incentive for termed-out people to also remove their opponents, and the advantages of always quickly restoring the SC to its full size to avoid this situation in the first place. At the very least, that should remind us that to the extent there is a problem, this is not the only possible solution, and not a solution that doesn't come with its own set of drawbacks.