CDRSB Model Resolution on Conflict Management and Electoral
Reform:
This
organisation / individual notes that the use of absentee
ballots on demand is an unsatisfactory method of addressing
the problem of falling voter turnout which threatens the
right to a secret ballot and has led to increased levels of
electoral fraud and intimidation.
Notes further that differences in regard to large scale,
systemic change between radicalism and conservatism have
been associated with a chronic tendency towards conspiracy
between opposing factions leading to violent conflict.
Notes in this context that the use of absentee/postal
ballots on demand were introduced with reckless disregard
for the integrity of the democratic process.
Agrees that the following reforms to increase political
participation may help manage conflict between factions by
containing their tendency to polarise such that systemic
change can take place peacefully: first, reintroduction of
limits on the use of postal ballots; second, implementation
of the principle that the ‘earth belongs to the living’
through recognition that inheritance tax is the most
socially just form of tax and that constitutions should be
subject to long term, cyclical review; third, that
sortition should be preserved and further developed beyond
its use in jury selection including with regard to electing
or appointing both part time and full time professional
politicians.
Agrees that reforms to facilitate long term cycles of
constitutional review should take account of the danger of
creeping forms of tyranny being introduced by entrenched
factions. The role of sortition in rights to jury trial and
armed self defence should therefore be clearly incorporated
in such reform so that free speech rights can be securely
exercised independently of factional control.