Constitutional Amendment on Democratic Representation and Electoral Modernization, 2026

As adopted and promulgated by the Parliament/National Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Tosler on 10 September 2026

The National Assembly adopts the following amendment to the Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Tosler.

PART 1: Preliminary Provisions

1. Purposes

This Amendment enlarges and modernizes the National Assembly, preserves direct representation of every state in the Senate, establishes proportional representation in both chambers, protects the staggered Senate cycle, strengthens representative inclusion, and provides a confined procedure for specified future adjustments to electoral architecture.

2. Definitions

(1) In this Amendment:

(a) “Commission” means the Tosler Elections Commission established by section 11 of the Constitution;
(b) “district member” means a Member of the House of Representatives elected for a single-member district;
(c) “full membership” means the total number of elected seats constitutionally prescribed for the chamber or chambers concerned, including vacant seats and excluding the President, the Vice-President and any other person who may participate or vote only by virtue of holding another office;
(d) “House proportional member” means a Member of the House of Representatives elected from a regional party list to correct the national relationship between party votes and seats;
(e) “proportional senator” means a Senator elected from a party list as part of a separate proportional tier and not as compensation for state Senate results;
(f) “Senate class” means Class A or Class B; and
(g) “state senator” means a Senator directly elected to represent a state.

(2) Where a fraction results in calculating a constitutional majority or supermajority, the number required is the next whole number.

PART 2: The House of Representatives

3. Composition and election of the House

3.1 Sections 18 and 19 of the Constitution are replaced by the following:

"18(1) The House of Representatives consists of 3,000 elected members.
(2) Of those members, 2,000 are district members and 1,000 are House proportional members."
(3) The Speaker and other officers of the House shall be chosen as otherwise provided by this Constitution and by law.”

“19(1) The House is elected for a term of two years, subject to this Constitution.”
(2) District members are elected in single-member districts by ranked alternative vote.”
(3) House proportional members are allocated among political parties by reference to the national party vote, taking account of district seats already won, so far as possible within the fixed total of 3,000 seats.”
(4) Every district winner retains the seat won. No balancing or overhang seat may be added beyond the fixed membership of the House.”
(5) House proportional members are selected from open preferential lists established for House electoral regions. A voter may vote for a party without ranking candidates, or may rank candidates of the party selected.”
(6) The qualifications, allocation formula and administration of elections under this section shall be prescribed by law consistently with this Constitution.”

4. House Electoral Regions

(1) Tosler shall be divided into 50 House electoral regions for the selection and distribution of House proportional members.

(2) The regions shall contain whole states so far as reasonably practicable, but the District of Lexington may be included in a House electoral region and its population and electors shall be included in the apportionment of House districts and proportional representation.

(3) The Commission shall establish and review the regions independently, having regard to population equality, communities of interest, geographic coherence, accessibility and effective representation.

(4) The national entitlement of a political party to House seats shall not be divided into separate regional entitlements or diminished by the regional distribution of its candidates.

PART 3: The Senate

5. Composition of the Senate

5.1 Sections 20 and 21 of the Constitution are replaced by the following:

“20(1) The Senate consists of 500 elected Senators.”
(2) Three hundred are state senators. Each state is represented by two state senators, one assigned to Class A and one assigned to Class B.”
(3) Two hundred are proportional senators. One hundred are assigned to Class A and one hundred to Class B.”
(4) The District of Lexington is not a state and does not elect state senators, but its electors vote in elections for proportional senators.”

“21(1) Senators ordinarily serve four-year terms.”
(2) Class A and Class B are elected at alternating general elections held two years apart.”
(3) At a regular election for a Senate class, the electors of every state elect the state senator of that class, and all electors vote separately for a political party for the 100 proportional Senate seats of that class.”
(4) State senators are elected by ranked alternative vote.”
(5) The 100 proportional seats of a class are allocated among qualifying political parties according to their shares of the national party vote cast for that class. State Senate results do not reduce or otherwise affect that allocation.”
(6) A voter may vote for a party without ranking candidates, or may rank candidates of the party selected on the applicable regional list.”
(7) A general or extraordinary election shall not alter the established Class A and Class B cycle except by an amendment made through the ordinary constitutional amendment procedure.”

6. Senate candidate list regions and state distribution

(1) Tosler shall be divided into 15 Senate candidate-list regions, each composed of 10 states. The District of Lexington shall be assigned to one such region for voting purposes without thereby becoming a state.

(2) National votes determine each party’s entitlement to proportional Senate seats. Senate candidate-list regions organize ballots, candidate preference and the regional drawing of candidates; they do not create separate regional party entitlements.

(3) No more than one proportional senator in the same Senate class may be drawn from the same state, across all political parties.

(4) At each regular election for a Senate class, 100 states shall be designated to supply its proportional senators. At the next election of that class, the 50 states that were not finally designated at the preceding election have priority, and 50 further states shall be chosen by an independently administered public draw from the remaining 100 states.

(5) The law shall establish a transparent provisional allocation and matching process that:

(a) preserves national party entitlements so far as mathematically possible;
(b) applies the state limit and rotation in subsections (3) and (4);
(c) gives effect to voter preferences within party lists;
(d) permits a provisional candidate or regional assignment to be skipped, moved or reconsidered where necessary to complete the allocation; and
(e) publishes the reason for every displacement of a higher-ranked candidate or departure from an initial regional allocation.

PART 4: Representative Inclusion

7. Representation in proportional components

(1) Electoral law shall ensure that persons who are under 35 years of age, Indigenous persons, 2SLGBTQIA+ persons, and members of other equity-deserving communities who are historically underrepresented in the National Assembly / Parliament of Tosler, to be prescribed in Regulations made by Order in Council of the Cabinet, collectively hold not fewer than one third of the seats in each proportional component, subject to subsection (2).

(2) A person belonging to more than one listed group counts once toward the collective minimum. Candidates shall be elected by voters, and the implementation of this section shall operate within each party’s electoral entitlement.

(3) The House minimum is 334 of the 1,000 House proportional seats.

(4) The Senate minimum is 67 of the 200 proportional Senate seats. Electoral law shall distribute the requirement between the two classes so that the continuing and newly elected proportional senators collectively satisfy the minimum after each election.

(5) No provision of this section authorizes a political party, the Commission or another authority to displace a district member or state senator elected directly by voters.

PART 5: Constitutional Procedure

8. Ordinary constitutional amendment procedure

8.1 Section 58 of the Constitution is replaced by the following:
“58(1) A proposed constitutional amendment may be introduced in either chamber.”
(2) The proposal must first be approved by not fewer than two thirds of the full membership of the House and two thirds of the full membership of the Senate.”
(3) Following that approval, the proposal shall be referred to a Joint Special Committee on the Constitution. The Committee shall receive public submissions and testimony, may recommend amendments, and shall report a final text to both chambers.”
(4) If the Committee recommends a substantive alteration, the altered text must be approved by not fewer than two thirds of the full membership of each chamber before it proceeds.”
(5) An Extraordinary Joint Session of the National Assembly shall then consider the final text.”
(6) The amendment is adopted only if not fewer than two thirds of the combined full membership of the National Assembly vote affirmatively on the identical final text.”
(7) A substantive alteration proposed at the Extraordinary Joint Session returns the proposal to the Committee and engages subsection (4).”
(8) Sections 48 and 49 do not replace or abridge any requirement of this section.”
(9) Nothing in this section limits sections 60 to 62 or another amendment route expressly established by this Constitution.”

9. Effect of adoption

9.1 Section 59 of the Constitution is replaced by the following:

“59(1) Upon adoption in accordance with the applicable constitutional procedure, an amendment forms part of the Constitution and has effect immediately unless the amendment expressly provides for a later commencement.”
(2) The National Assembly may enact consequential and transitional provisions consistent with the amendment.”

10. Special procedure for limited electoral adjustments

(1) A constitutional amendment confined to one or more matters in subsection (2) may be adopted by affirmative votes of not fewer than three fifths of the full membership of the House and three fifths of the full membership of the Senate, voting separately.

(2) The matters are:
(a) increasing, but not reducing, the total number of House seats;
(b) increasing, but not reducing, the number of proportional Senate seats, without reducing the number of state senators or altering equal state representation;
(c) changing the allocation of the fixed or increased House membership between district seats and House proportional seats, without abolishing either component;
(d) changing the number of House electoral regions or Senate candidate-list regions, or authorizing their adjustment following a census; and
(e) making strictly necessary numerical, classificatory or transitional changes consequential upon a matter in paragraphs (a) to (d).

(3) The complete proposed text and an assessment by the Commission shall be published at least 30 days before the first vote. A substantive alteration restarts that period.

(4) An amendment under this section shall not govern an election held less than six months after its adoption.

(5) The procedure does not authorize:
(a) a reduction in the membership of either chamber;
(b) a reduction in the two state senators guaranteed to each state;
(c) the abolition of district representation, House compensation, proportional Senate representation or preferential candidate voting;
(d) a change to the franchise, candidate or party qualification thresholds, terms of office, representation minimums, recall rights, dissolution rights, or the independence of the Commission;
(e) a change to this section or to an express safeguard governing its use; or
(f) a matter whose dominant purpose or effect lies outside subsection (2).

(6) An amendment that exceeds this section must proceed under the ordinary constitutional amendment procedure or another applicable procedure in the Constitution.

11. Membership based thresholds

(1) In section 48(2) of the Constitution, “651 members” is replaced by “more than one half of the combined full membership of the National Assembly”.

(2) In section 70, the requirement of 501 votes in the House is replaced by “more than one half of the full membership of the House”, and the requirement of 151 votes in the Senate is replaced by “more than one half of the full membership of the Senate”.

(3) Until the members elected under this Amendment assume office, thresholds calculated by reference to full membership continue to be calculated using the membership of the National Assembly then in office.

PART 6: Recall Dissolution and Vacancies

12. Application to all elected components

(1) Sections 69 to 72 of the Constitution apply to district members, House proportional members, state senators and proportional senators, with the modifications required by their electoral basis.

(2) For section 71, the relevant electorate is:
(a) the district for a district member;
(b) the House electoral region for a House proportional member;
(c) the state for a state senator; and
(d) the Senate candidate-list region from which a proportional senator was drawn.

(3) A replacement for a recalled or vacant proportional seat shall be selected through an electoral process prescribed by law that preserves, so far as practicable, the party entitlement, geographical rule, class and representation requirement attached to the seat.

(4) An extraordinary election of the Senate may include both classes, but each successful candidate serves only the unexpired term of the applicable class, and the established alternating cycle continues.

PART 7: Transition and Commencement

13. Senate transition at the 2026 election
(1) At the general election scheduled for 3 November 2026:
(a) the 150 Class A state Senate seats shall be elected for terms ending in 2030;
(b) the 100 Class A proportional Senate seats shall be elected for terms ending in 2030;
(c) the Class B state senators elected in 2024 continue in office until their terms end in 2028 and their state seats shall not be contested;
(d) the electors of every state and the District of Lexington shall nevertheless cast a separate Class B party vote to elect 100 Class B proportional senators for initial terms ending in 2028.

(2) Beginning in 2028, the state and proportional components of the class then due shall be elected together for four-year terms.

(3) The Class A and Class B state-selection rotations for proportional senators begin with the states finally designated to supply proportional senators at the 2026 election.

14. Continuity of institutions
(1) The members in office immediately before the 2026 general election continue until their successors are elected, qualified and assume office, except that the Class B state senators described in section 13 continue until 2028.
(2) The expanded membership and the related full-membership thresholds apply when the respective successors assume office.
(3) No change made by this Amendment shortens the mandate of a Class B state senator elected in 2024.

15. Administrative authority before the election

(1) Upon adoption, the Commission may immediately undertake boundaries, nominations, ballot preparation, public education, staffing, procurement, testing and other measures necessary to administer this Amendment.

(2) The National Assembly may appropriate funds and enact the Election Reform Implementation Act, 2026 and other provisions strictly necessary to implement this Amendment.

16. Application to the 2026 election

(1) The electoral arrangements created by this Amendment govern the general election scheduled for 3 November 2026 only if, by the end of 10 September 2026 in Lexington civil time:
(a) this Amendment has been validly adopted; and
(b) the Election Reform Implementation Act 2026 has become law and all provisions necessary to conduct that election are in force.

(2) If either condition is not satisfied, the 3 November 2026 election proceeds under the law previously in force. The institutional and electoral transition established by this Amendment shall then take place at a later election fixed by law, with such revised class transitions as are necessary to protect existing mandates and preserve staggering.

(3) Neither the Executive nor the Commission may waive, extend or apply the deadline in subsection (1) retrospectively.

17. Constitutional status

(1) This Amendment forms part of the Constitution upon adoption in accordance with the constitutional procedure in force when it is adopted.
(2) For greater certainty, the special procedure established by section 10 does not apply to the adoption of this Amendment itself.