[MR] peer polling question

[David Wendelken]

>Subject: Re: [MR] Marshal Questions

Rebecca,

As an aside, please use a different header when talking about a totally
different subject.

That way, people interested in one topic are not confused or annoyed by
off-topic messages in the hijacked thread.


>Here's an interesting follow up question that came up during a group
conversation online last night.  

>Should knights (and perhaps all peers) be required to have associates in
order for their opinion to be considered valid on a polling?

>IE you have no associates?  Then you may discuss candidates for an order
but your polling is invalid or carries half the weight of the pollings from
those that do have >associates.

>Don't know of kingdom or society law would have to change for that to
happen which is the direction most of the discussion took most of the time.

>A side tangent to that was - do you live in kingdom?  No then your polling
is half the weight of those that do live in kingdom.

>Doubt any serious change in this direction would ever happen but it was an
interesting subject I'd never thought about before.

Peers don't vote.  They advise the Crown.

The Crown evaluates the worthiness of the advice and its source.

>From that perspective, it's a non-issue.

As a rule, I find it poorly constructed and unlikely to achieve its ends.

For example, a knight successfully trains all three of their squires, who
get knighted over a few months.  Under your rule, the knight would get half
a vote.  Another knight, who had unsuccessfully trained one squire for the
last 10 years, would get a full vote.  That's counter-productive if the
intent is to have knights actively training folks get more say in the
process.

A peer who moves out of kingdom permanently typically is released from
service and takes up service in their new kingdom.  Someone on an extended
temporary duty assignment might not do so.  Under the proposed rule, a
knight who knows the candidate really well, and keeps active contact with
that candidate, moves 1 mile across the border into Tennessee.  Their vote
would count half of a knight who lives in kingdom, never knew the candidate,
and hasn't even heard of them.  Again, the intent of the rule doesn't match
the results that would come from enforcing it.

In reality, the Crown - assuming it pays attention to the advice, which it
is not obligated to do - takes the circumstances into account and weighs
that advice accordingly. The opinion of some peers might be weighted more
than others because some peers are more respected by a given Crown than
others.  I know you have very definite opinions about the worthiness of some
peers, so I'm sure you'll understand why that is so.

Very Respectfully,

Andras Salamandra