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Senators urge FCC to preserve neutrality protections for text messages
The FCC is considering classifying texts as an information service in order to give carriers more tools to fight automated messages and spam texts. However, the Senators don't see the need. The Telecom Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) already requires senders to get permission from a receiver before sending an automated text. Additionally, there is concern that carriers might block legitimate bulk messages. Verizon did so in 2007 when it stopped women's rights advocacy group Naral Pro-Choice America from sending a mass text to its members because the content was considered controversial.
Here is the original letter (pdf).
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Senators Urge FCC to Preserve Neutrality Protections for Text Messages
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Beware the one behind you.
(Score: 2) by Fluffeh on Tuesday December 11 2018, @04:48AM
To nominate yourself for the vote, candidates for either house must formally nominate with the Electoral Commission. The nomination for a party-endorsed candidate must be signed by the Registered Officer of a party registered under the Electoral Act. Fifty signatures of eligible voters are required for an independent candidate.
A deposit of $1000 is required for a candidate for the House of Representatives, and $2000 for a candidate for the Senate. This deposit is refunded if the candidate gains at least 4% of first preference vote.
Once candidates are on the ballot paper, the following rules apply:
Australia uses various forms of preferential voting for almost all elections. Under this system, voters number the candidates on the ballot paper in the order of their preference. The preferential system was introduced in 1918, in response to the rise of the Country Party, a party representing small farmers. The Country Party split the anti-Labor vote in conservative country areas, allowing Labor candidates to win on a minority vote. The conservative government of Billy Hughes introduced preferential voting as a means of allowing competition between the two conservative parties without putting seats at risk.[citation needed] It was first used at the Corangamite by-election on 14 December 1918.[39][40] The system was first used for election for the Queensland Parliament in 1892. It was introduced in the Tasmanian House of Assembly in 1906 as a result of the work of Thomas Hare and Andrew Inglis Clark.
Preferential voting has gradually extended to both upper and lower houses, in the federal, state and territory legislatures, and is also used in municipal elections, and most other kinds of elections as well, such as internal political party elections, trade union elections, church elections, elections to company boards and elections in voluntary bodies such as football clubs. Negotiations for disposition of preference recommendations to voters are taken very seriously by candidates because transferred preferences carry the same weight as primary votes. Political parties usually produce how-to-vote cards to assist and guide voters in the ranking of candidates.