General Principles of State::


The State
---------
The state is that organization, unique and sovereign for a particular
geographic domain, whose members, in strict accordance with a
formalized standard applied uniformly for a particular location within
the domain, and strictly constrained by a constitution enacted in
accordance with ,
(1) have unique authority to incarcerate those who violate the
individual rights of others, (2) have unique authority to use force,
or the threat thereof, to compel an individual to perform an act that
is not an immediate situational remedy for a crime, or to compel
surrender or otherwise deprive an individual of material or assets not
known to be stolen from the compelling agent, (3) are uniquely
responsible for, though are not uniquely permitted, the use of force
and the threat thereof, to protect the geographic domain from
ecological or forcible encroachment or compromise, and (4) uniquely,
maintain a policy infrastructure enforced by force and the threat
thereof for avoidance and resolution of conflicts among inhabitants
involving activities that significantly impact property not owned by
the actor, that are inherently deleterious, or potentially so, for
others.

Containment of State Authority
------------------------------
The state has no authority beyond that generally or specifically
granted to it by this document.

Compartmentalization of the State
---------------------------------
The state consists of a legislative infrastructure, an enforcement
infrastructure, an investigative infrastructure, and a military
infrastructure.  These are known as branches of state.

The legislative branch is responsible for the invention, and
recommendation for enactment, of new statutes (though citizens can
perform this function directly, as detailed in ).

The enforcement branch operates all courts and all jails and prisons.
It is responsible for the examination of particular instances of
allegedly unlawful behavior which have been brought to its attention
by the investigative branch or by a private individual.  Reports
pertaining to the behavior are given and examined in formal trial, and
it is determined which, if any, laws are violated by the behavior, and
what corrective action will be taken to discourage and restrain the
behaver from repeating the behavior, discourage the behavior among the
population, and in certain cases, compensate a victim.  The highest
court in the enforcement branch of a particular unit of state (as
defined in ) is also responsible for the
examination and confirmation of statutes approved by the legislature
of that unit of state, and must confirm the statute unless it can
provide a formal explanation for how the approved statute conflicts
with applicable statutes or the constitution.  At its discretion, that
court can review any instrument of state policy of the same or a
contained unit of state, and suspend it if it is shown to conflict
with an instrument of state policy that has priority.

The investigative branch acts to monitor compliance with law.  This
consists of provision of infrastructures to implement, facilitate, and
assure compliance, including state document publication, maintenance
of disciplined, skilled, and coordinated investigative forces,
coordination and facilitation of tax collection, etc., as authorized
and mandated by this document.

The military branch is unique to the national unit of state, and
deters and responds to military aggression by external forces, working
in a principally indirect manner to assure the safety and integrity of
the domestic economy, rule of law, culture, and quality of life.  The
national legislature, acting in concert with the contained
legislatures, can direct the military to assist in survival and
recovery operations relating to a particular internal natural
disaster.

The employees of a unit of state can appoint officers only to
positions within that unit of state (as defined in ).  A member of the investigative, enforcement, or military
branch, can appoint officers only to positions within his own branch,
and only as specified by law.  Regulations authored by agents and
members of the investigative, enforcement, or military branch apply
only to agents and members of the author's unit and branch of state.

The Unit of State
-----------------
A unit of state is the full or partial set of branches (legislative,
enforcement, investigative, and only in the case of the national unit,
military) of the portion of the state corresponding to a particular
official region (as defined in ).  A state
employee must be employed by exactly one unit of state.

Granularities of State
----------------------
The country is officially delineated generally into the following
regions, in order of increasing size: towns, counties amounting to
groups of towns plus adjacent unincorporated regions, provinces
consisting of groups of counties, and the whole country consisting of
all the provinces.  All regions are geographically contiguous, except
for islands less than 20 miles distant from other land within the
region, and the whole country which can consist of regions separated
by arbitrary distance.

Additionally, where appropriate and desirable because of logical
(geological/ecological or cultural) divisibility/separability, or
paucity or abundance of population, regions within towns (known as
boroughs), groups of counties smaller than a province (known as
divisions), and groups of provinces smaller than the country (known
as departments), can be officially delineated, named, and endowed with
state institutions including those described in
.

Regions must be delineated such that if one region overlaps a second,
either the first fully contains the second, or the second fully
contains the first, but not neither and not both.

Any region that is completely surrounded by territory of one nation,
is part of that nation and is, with its residents, subject, minimally,
to the national constitution and statutes of the surrounding nation.

Associated with each official region is a unit of state.  A unit of
state can have a legislature, and the country and each province must
have legislatures.  Any region with a legislature must have an
investigative branch and an enforcement branch.

The scope of the legislature or enforcement branch is the region to which it
corresponds as explained above.  The above also clarifies the precise
import of .

Regions can be officially identified and optionally endowed with
investigative and enforcement branches and, optionally, legislature,
only by the legislature of the smallest legislature-endowed region
which fully contains the region to be identified and optionally
endowed, or by the usual mechanism of direct citizen vote by the
citizens of the smallest region which fully contains the region to be
identified and optionally endowed.

A region with a legislature can be officially dissolved only through
passage of a statute to that effect by that legislature, or by the usual
mechanism of direct citizen vote by the citizens of the region to be
dissolved.

Except as specified in this document, the agents of a unit of state
cannot involve themselves in the internal and local affairs of a unit
of state whose geographic extent is contained by that of the former
unit of state.  A description of any arrangement of cooperation or
coordination between two distinct units of state must be published,
and except as specified in this document, the personnel of one unit of
state cannot be placed under the command of personnel of another unit
of state.

On Aggregation and Secession
----------------------------
Only a province can secede or aggregate.

Secession is effected with 75% of eligible voters in a province
affirming, provided a portion of the boundary of the province borders
on a sovereign nation other than that from which the province is
voting to secede, or borders on a body of water that such a sovereign
nation borders, or borders on an ocean.  The constitution that goes
into force in the event of an affirmative vote for secession, must be
published at least one week but at most one month prior to the opening
of voting (though it can, of course, have also been published at an
earlier time).

Aggregation is effected with 75% of eligible voters in a province
affirming, and 75% of eligible voters affirming in the nation with
which the province will aggregate.  Voting in the province and the
nation must be simultaneous (beginning and ending within an hour of
each other).  The constitution that goes into force in the event of an
affirmative vote for aggregation, must be published at least one week
but at most one month prior to the opening of voting, and must be
consistent with the constitution of the nation with which the province
will aggregate.  In particular, it must include the constitution of
that nation in its unaltered entirety.

On Annexation
-------------
No other nation or portion thereof can become part of this nation
except by the process delineated in .

Constitutional Enactment, Amendment, and Extension
--------------------------------------------------
The constitution of a particular unit of state is the parent
constitution of the constitutions of the largest units of state
contained by the instant unit of state.  All child constitutions
contain the complete parent constitution, and may contain an
addendum peculiar to the unit of state corresponding to the child
constitution.

Voting on an amendment must be open for exactly one week, and the
total voting tally must be published at the end of each day, or any
higher frequency.

The portion of the constitution of a unit of state particular to that
unit of state can be amended with two referendums separated by exactly
one and one half years, in each of which at least 75% of eligible
voters affirm the amendment.

Through the amendment process, a unit of state can enact or modify an
addendum to its constitution consistent with and constrained by this
document, and containing sections whose role is similar to that of the
sections in this document.

A nation with a constitution that is not a descendent of this
document, and which meets the standard for secession enumerated in
, can enact this constitution as sovereign
law with a single referendum, in which at least 75% of those over 15
years of age and not mentally incompetent or violent criminals affirm
the revolution.

Lawful amendment to a constitution automatically and immediately
results in the corresponding amendment of the parent-defined portion
of each child constitution.  Any time lawful amendment to a parent
constitution results in an inconsistency with the addendum to a child
constitution, that portion of the child constitution is void until
further lawful amendment to the addendum restores consistency.

The constitutional amendment that is the subject of a constitutional
referendum can specify alterations, deletions, or additions, of
arbitrarily many sections or chapters, except that sections within the
constitution of the national unit of state marked as insusceptible to
removal or alteration by amendment are thusly insusceptible, and no
section can be added by amendment to any constitution or addendum that
is thusly insusceptible.  Applicable to a particular constitution,
voting can be open for only one amendment at a time.  In particular,
voting cannot be open for an amendment to a lower constitution if
voting is open for an amendment to a higher constitution inherited by
the lower constitution.  At least one week must elapse after voting
closes on an amendment applicable to a particular constitution, before
voting can open on another amendment applicable to that constitution.
If the first vote on an amendment to a higher and inherited
constitution occurs after the first vote but before the second vote on
an amendment to a lower, inheriting constitution, the second and final
vote on the amendment to the lower constitution is postponed until one
week after the close of the second and final vote on the amendment to
the higher, inherited constitution.  If more than one vote must be
rescheduled to follow the close of a higher final vote, they are
rescheduled preserving the chronological order in which the referenda
were approved, with a one week interval between the close of one vote
and the opening of the next vote.  If any constitutional referenda
were already scheduled for the above postponed voting intervals or the
weeks separating them, they are rescheduled similarly, preserving
their initial chronological order of approval, opening one week
following the close of voting for the last of the above postponed
referenda, with opening of voting for a particular rescheduled
referendum following closing of voting for the previous refendum by
one week.

A constitutional referendum is approved and scheduled by the
legislature constrained by the subject constitution according to the
process specified in , or by a collection of
the supporting signatures of least 25% of those who would be eligible
to vote in the referendum.  The first vote on a constitutional
referendum for town or smaller units of state takes place one month
after approval of the referendum.  For units of state larger than
towns but not larger than counties, the interval is two months.  For
units of state larger than counties but not larger than provinces, the
interval is three months.  For units of state larger than provinces
and smaller than the nation, the interval is four months.  For a
national constitutional referendum, the interval is six months.
Contained units of state are constrained by the referenda schedule of
containing units of state.

Locality of Law and Conviction
------------------------------
The state cannot impose penalties in one unit of state, for actions
neither unlawful according to the policy of that particular unit of
state nor unlawful according to the policy of a unit of state that
contains the instant unit of state.

Information regarding the investigation, indictment, conviction,
and/or sentencing, of an individual for an act unlawful according to
the policy of one unit of state, but not unlawful according to the
policy of some other unit of state, cannot be made available to the
public, or to state agents, of the other unit of state.  However, such
information can be made available to a larger unit of state if the act
is unlawful according to the policy of all constituent units (in
addition to the obvious acceptability of such information if the act
is explicitly unlawful according to the policy of the larger unit of
state).

Duration of Terms of Office
---------------------------
Except as specified in this document, no law can restrict the maximum
duration, cumulative or contiguous, that an elected office can be held
by a particular individual.

The frequency of elections for a particular elected office or set of
offices is to be specified by constitution or statute, but must be between
1 year and 8 years inclusive.

The frequency and procedure of formal performance review for a
particular appointed office or set of offices is to be specified by
constitution or statute, but such frequency and procedure must be
specified for all appointed offices, and the frequency must be between
3 months and 2 years inclusive.

Voting Procedures
-----------------
Votes by citizens for legislators can be cast, or retracted and
recast, on the first day of each and every month.

Other citizen polls must remain open for at least one week.

Legislator polls vote must remain open for at least one day.

All municipal voting by citizens or legislators can be performed
remotely.

Any adult is eligible for an office in a particular unit of state, if
his primary residence (more than 180 days of residence within any 365
day period) is within the geographic boundaries to which that unit
corresponds, and if he is not debarred from holding that office, as
specified in this document.  Any adult is eligible to vote in any
referendum or election within a particular unit of state, if his
primary residence is within the geographic boundaries to which that
unit corresponds, and if he is not debarred from voting, as specified
in this document.

No action (in particular, no collection of signatures) can be required
for an individual to be a candidate for an office, except that the
individual must record in the election coordination database, before
the opening of voting, that he is willing to occupy a particular
office.  No fee or other barrier can impede the right of the adult
individual to officially declare his will to occupy an office.  The
declaration is automatically removed after the corresponding election
has been completed and the office occupied by a properly elected
candidate.  No individual who is not an appropriate resident, or
debarred by constitution or statute from holding that office (as
explained in this document), or who has not properly recorded his will
to occupy a particular office, can be construed as eligable for that
office.

No ballot can name a candidate.  All voting must be by explicit
identification (written, typed, or spoken), by name (last name only,
or any number of given names or initials thereof, in order, followed
by last name), of the individual or individuals for whom the voter is
casting his vote.  When the voter uses initials, or skips one or more
given names, the full name of the candidate must be presented to the
voter for confirmation.  When the voter's identification is ambiguous,
all candidates that match the name specification must be listed and
the voter permitted to chose from among them.  If a set of candidates
have precisely the same name, then the voter must be presented with a
facial image provided by each candidate, to permit differentiation.
If the voter identifies an individual who is not a candidate, he must
be alerted to this and permitted to recast his vote at any time before
the close of voting, until it has been cast for a proper candidate.

In elections to offices or sets of offices, where a fixed number `n'
of positions are being filled, the following procedure is used.  The
first round of the election is as described above.  If the aggregate
share of votes cast for the top-voted `n' candidates exceeds 50%,
those `n' candidates are elected.  Else, the smallest number of
top-voted candidates whose aggregate share of the vote exceeds 50%,
are the candidates in a subsequent election, and the process repeats
until the aggregate share of the top-voted `n' candidates exceeds 50%.
If the election is a citizen poll, the interval between closing of
voting in one stage of the election and opening of voting for the next
is one week.

Any employee of the state can be removed from office by a direct vote
exceeding 62.5% of registered voters eligible to vote in elections to
the unit of state of that employee.

The legally specified penalty for any conviction can be cancelled by a
direct vote exceeding 62.5% of registered voters within the unit of
state of the court that decided the conviction.  The conviction
stands, and only the penalty is cancelled.  No appeal by the
prosecution can cause reinstatement of the penalty.

No one can offer or accept payment in cash or kind for a guarantee of
a position in a public or legislative vote.  A public or legislative
voting position cannot be directed or specified by a contract, except
that a legislative voting position can be directed or specified by the
contract a legislator enters with his constituency (those who vote for
him).  No one can delegate to another party eligibility to cast a
public vote, and no legislator can delegate to another party
eligibility to cast a legislative vote.

No one can be a candidate for more than one elected office at a time;
however an individual can occupy more than one office at a time, and
can run for an office while occupying another office.

Any broadcaster, cablecaster, or media outlet with a monopoly, as
defined in , who sells time in an advertising arena
for promotion of the candidacy of a candidate for election to a
particular public office or fixed set thereof, or to a particular
legislature, must make available the same amount of time in the same
arena for promotion of the candidacy of another candidate for election
to that particular public office or fixed set thereof, or to that
particular legislature, at the same price during the same hour as
advertising time sold for promotion of the first candidate, except as
rendered impossible by length and number of advertisements, in which
case the advertisements must, on request, run as near in time to each
other as possible, on a first come first served basis.  Booking of
time in an advertising arena by a candidate must be published at the
time of booking, revealing the identity of the candidate, and the
price, date, time, and duration, of the advertisement, and this
information must be accessible without a fee.  No censorship or
editing of candidate advertising by the owner of the advertising arena
is permitted, though the candidate can be required to supply
advertisements that conform to the requirements of the medium,
particularly regarding running time in audio and audiovisual
advertising arenas.

The Public Voting Process
-------------------------
Votes by citizens are secret and tallied without record of which voter
voted for whom.  Voting can be performed remotely by personal
computer, and the link between a remote computer and the voting
machine must be encrypted to prevent eavesdropping.  If before
completion of stage 8 (described below), one minute of idle time
elapses without the voting machine receiving a message from the voter,
the voter's authoritative record for that ballot item is cleared, the
session ends, and the voter can begin his vote on that item again.  To
vote, a voter engages in a session as follows, with stages identified
in parentheses preceding the description of the stage.

Upon establishment of an encrypted connection to the voting machine
(the same encrypted connection can be used for multiple sessions), the
session begins with (1) the voter providing his ostensible identity to
the voting machine, (2) the voting machine producing a cryptographic
challenge, and (3) the voter proving his identity by solving the
challenge.  The session ends if the solution is incorrect.

The voter then (4) specifies what
poll item he intends to vote on, and (5a) the machine then verifies
the voter's eligibility to vote on that poll item, by accessing a
coherent authoritative database (voting on the item must be open, the
individual's record with respect to that poll item must not be
locked, the voter must be properly registered with no current
disqualifying legal handicaps, and must not have already finalized a
vote on the item).  If eligibility is confirmed, then (5b) the
individual's record with respect to that poll item is locked for the
duration of the session and (5c) the voter is informed of his
eligibility, else the session ends.

If the poll item at issue is a vote for a legislator, the voter has
previously cast a vote for a legislator in the same unit of state, and
that vote has not yet expired, then (5d) the voter must provide the
voting machine with the receipt received at stage 9e in the course of
casting that previous vote. (5e) The voting machine verifies the
encoding and signatures of the 5d receipt, if any, and verifies that
the 5d receipt, if any, has not previously been submitted to effect
vote revocation.  If verification fails, the session ends, otherwise
it continues.  In either case, (5f) the voter is informed of the
results of his 5d submission, if any.

Next, (6a) the voter completes the specified poll item (specifies his
voting position on one item in the poll), (6b) computes a digest of
the completed poll item, (6c) computes an encryption of that digest
with a random symetric key of his choice, and (6d) computes a
decryption of that digest encryption using his private key using an
algorithm with which decryption can be safely used to generate a
signature.

(6e) The voter provides the voting machine with the completed poll
item, the above random symmetric key, and the fully processed digest
(the assymetric decryption of the symmetric encryption of the digest
of the completed poll item).  The voting machine verifies the
validity and consistency of the data.  Validity is determined by (7a)
confirmation that the name given for the item unambiguously identifies
a candidate, or the response given for a non-election item is a valid
response.  Consistency is determined by (7b) confirmation that the
cryptographic relationships among the data are mathematically valid.

If the poll item as completed is not valid, or the consistency check
fails, the voter's authoritative record for that poll item is cleared,
this session ends, and the voter can begin his vote on that item
again.  (7c) The voter is alerted to each invalid name in the previous
completed poll item (if any), and is alerted to each ambiguous name
(if any) as described above.

If validity and consistency are verified, the voting machine (7d)
generates a string with a random portion, a timestamp portion, a
portion identifying the precise poll item completed above (but not
including any information about how the poll item was completed),
and a portion fully identifying the individual, and (7e) demands that
the individual sign this with his private key.  If (8) the individual
properly signs this string and forwards the signature to the machine,
then (9a) the signed string is archived by the machine and (9b) the
authoritative database is notified that the individual has completed
his vote on that particular item and cannot vote on it again, or if
the item is a vote for a legislator, the authoritative database is
provided with the receipt from stage 5d, if any.

Next, (9c) the voting machine computes an encryption of the above
random symmetric key using the individual's public key, and (9d)
produces a cryptographically verifiable receipt consisting of a
machine-signed record consisting of the completed poll item, the
above fully processed digest, the above timestamp, and the above
assymetric encryption of the symmetric key.  (9e) This receipt is
delivered to the voter, and the session ends.  With this receipt, the
individual can prove that he cast a vote on this particular item and
how it was cast.

The machine then (10) irreversibly discards its copy of the stage 6c
random key and archives a record consisting of the stage 6a completed
poll item and the associated stage 6d fully processed digest.  The
individual (11) archives a copy of the stage 9d receipt.

When voting closes, all stage 10 item-digest pairs, and all stage 8
signed strings, are made anonymously and immediately available to the
public at large.  For a particular item, the number of counted and
published stage 10 item-digest pairs must precisely equal the number
of stage 8 signed strings.

An individual can verify that his vote was registered correctly by
retrieving the completed poll item which has associated with it a
fully processed digest that matches his archived fully processed
digest (included in the receipt).  The stage 6c symmetric key is
recovered by decrypting the stage 9c encryption of it found in the
receipt.  Using the recovered stage 6c key, the voter ascertains
whether the published completed poll item matches.  The individual
can prove that his vote was fraudulently registered by producing the
receipt the voting machine gave him, and showing that the fully
processed digest for which he was given a receipt was not published,
or that the completed poll item accompanying the fully processed
digest does not match the fully processed digest, in which case he
must provide the recovered stage 6c key.

Votes cannot be tallied or published until after the voting period has
ended, and must be tallied and published within 24 hours of the close
of voting.

If within one week following closing of a vote, more than 1% of voters
eligible to vote on an item demonstrate fraud in the vote on that
item, then the entire vote on that item is repeated.

Competency of State Employees
-----------------------------
All employees of the state who have authority or responsibility for
appointment (including all hiring decisions), regulatory authorship,
law enforcement, voting in a legislature, voting at trial, or issuing
military orders, must demonstrate thorough knowledge of this document
once every year, through performance on a thorough test with a written
(or typed) and spoken component.

The President and Lieutenant
----------------------------
For each branch of the state, and within each unit of state when that
unit has that branch, this document describes a president.  Each candidate
president, except for the presidents of the legislature, must identify and
publicize a lieutenant at least one month prior to his appointment.
In the event that the president is unable to attend to his duties for any
reason, the lieutenant acts in his place.