Initiative

In political science, an initiative (also known as a popular or citizens' initiative) is a means by which a petition signed by a certain minimum number of registered voters can force a public vote (plebiscite).

The initiative may take the form of a indirect initiative or an direct initiative. In a direct initiative, a measure is put directly to a vote after being submitted by a petition. In an indirect initiative, a measure is first referred to the legislature, and then put to a popular vote only if not enacted by the legislature.

The vote may be on a proposed statute, constitutional amendment, charter amendment or local ordinance, or to simply oblige the executive or legislature to consider the subject by submitting it to the order of the day. It is a form of direct democracy.

Canada

British Columbia

The Canadian province of British Columbia has a citizen initiative law known as the Recall and Initiative Act. The original proposal was put to voters in a referendum held in October 1991 and was supported by over 83% of voters. It was subsequently put into force by the incoming NDP government. Since it came into force in 1995, several attempts have been made to hold an initiative, but until the fall of 2010, none had succeeded in reaching the first of the thresholds – namely, securing signatures of 10% of registered voters in each riding throughout British Columbia. The first referendum was held under this legislation on September 2011 on the subject of repealing the Harmonized Sales Tax. Details of its use in BC are available on the Elections BC website.

Initiative (disambiguation)

Initiative is a process by which a referendum can be triggered by a petition of voters

Initiative or The Initiative may also refer to:

Politics

Comics

Initiative (role-playing games)

In most role-playing games and table-top wargames an initiative system determines in which order player characters and non-player characters take their actions, to avoid confusion on when a character gets to act. Methods of doing this vary from game to game.

Taking turns

In some games, such as Tunnels & Trolls, each faction takes its turn to act - and it is entirely up to the side acting who acts in which order for that side. This is one of the two most common systems in table-top wargames - with Malifaux having a variant of this by which each gang picks one member to act in turn, and the larger gang all acts together at the end.

Statistic based

The other common method, used by games like Dungeons & Dragons and Fate is for each character to be assigned an initiative number based on a relevant attribute plus a random factor, and for people to act in that order. Some games determine initiative order once, some once per round.

Shot Clock

Feng Shui and Arcanis both use a shot-clock; Each round is divided into segments or shots, and each action takes a certain number of these segments. Actions happen whenever the character's next free segment turns up.