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Originally Posted by Varyon
You could end up with such smaller "ideal" parties, but with informal alliances between them - essentially "vote with us on this issue, we'll vote with you on that issue."
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for sure... though those can switch around, and I suspect that some will be baked in. There might be two voting blocks that vote almost the same on everything but one issue. On the other hand, a dedicated block might be very mercenary about what it votes for outside of its main cause and make that very clear.
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Of course, a weird refinement I considered (but didn't post, feeling it went a bit too far) was to actually have each seat correspond to a month as well as a year (so only those born under the sign of Aquarius in the Year of the Rat can vote for this particular seat, and only an eligible voter for the seat can occupy it). This avoids the poaching issue (and thus makes a two-party system more likely) but means you're running an election every month, which is rather a bit much. It also means you might have different setups for different votes - perhaps in some cases you divide them up into bodies based on their year (Rat, Dog, Ox, etc), and in other cases you divide them up by the month (Aquarius, Taurus, Gemini, etc).
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I had wondered why you didn't mention it... it seemed a very obvious extension of the system to me.
If you're running an election every month, the process probably looks more like the DMV than the polls. You need the building and workers every month, so instead of hiring them specially, you hire permanent positions and buy/rent permanent space. Parties do get oversight, but its going to be a lot less intense and rushed. Campaigning for individuals might spike, but you're targeting 144th of the population.
I'm looking for ways this would break down...
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Originally Posted by malloyd
Note that since the legislators must be of the same zodiacal sign, they are *also* a multiple of 12 old when they take office. Electing somebody 60 is a bit risky if the office goes vacant on death, but probably OK, 72 or 84 maybe not so much.
Incidentally are political parties skewed by sign? If astrological signs actually affected personalities, or even if enough people are convinced they should and try to behave according to their sign (or there are parties that deliberately design their platform to align to what they think is the correct astrological behaviors), they might be.
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You might get some weird feedback loops. Theories about the signs effecting behavior could lead to effects in terms of what sort of people run and how they present themselves. And certain groups might gain reputations if their representative has a memorable personality or is frequently a swing vote.